Nike

Nike is a very well known sporting footwear and apparel company. The company is a multinational corporation with headquarters located in Beaverton, Oregon. Nike is the leading supplier of sporting footwear and apparel in the world. They employ more than 44,000 people worldwide including countries such as the United States, Thailand, and China. The brand is most recognized by their logo, the swoosh, and their slogan “Just Do It”. Nike was founded in 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight. The company was originally named Blue Ribbon Sports and in 1978 was renamed Nike after the Greek goddess of victory. In the early years the company worked as a distributor for a Japanese shoe maker. Eventually the bond between the two companies dissolved and Nike began work on its own line of footwear in 1971. Nike has since became one of the world’s largest companies and has acquired the companies Cole Haan, Hurley, Converse, and Umbro due to its success. The company is now publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol NKE. Large corporations such as Nike are held to general rules regarding how they conduct their business called the Social Responsibilities of Business. The four rules that companies have to follow are to maximize profits, moral minimum, stakeholder interest, and corporate citizenship. When businesses make decisions they need to keep their shareholders in mind. That is what the first theory of social responsibility, maximize profits, entails. Shareholders hold stock in the company and should be able to with confidence. Making decisions that affect profit in a negative way would be unfair to the shareholders. It is the company's duty to maximize the money they make for the people that hold stock in their company. The next rule, moral minimum, pertains to the company’s responsibility to refrain from causing harm to others.