Changing practices

NIKE

BEFORE: Along with Adidas, Nike controls 49percentof the sports shoe market and employs more than 600,000 people in contract factories. Workers in Indonesia, Thailand and other countries have complained in the past of 77-hour weeks, a ban on unions and dangerous conditions in which employees have lost limbs through crush injuries. NOW: It has published its first corporate and social responsibility report (CSR) in four years, with details of all its factories and a pledge to increase monitoring of working conditions.

GAP

BEFORE: One of theseveralcompanies sued in 1999 by workers on the island of Saipan in theWesternPacific over conditions in its garment factories. Gap, along with the other firms, paid a $20m settlement after the court heard of "indentured" workers, withheld wages and forced overtime. NOW: Four months ago it published a "mea culpa" CSR report in which it admitted to the failings and announced that it was cancelling contracts with 136 factories because of low pay and hideous working conditions.

LEVI STRAUSS

BEFORE: Was accused of contracting to factories in Haiti and Mexico wheretheir company sacked workersfor being union members, as well as using low wages to prop up profits.

NOW: When the campaign group No Sweat uncovered evidence of abuses at a factory in Mexico recently, Levi Strauss sent its investigators, and accepted the accusations were true. They worked hand in hand with the contractor to ensure unions were recognised.The jeans maker has also started to buy some of its cotton from organic sources.

Why doyouthink that companies like Nike, GAP and Levi Strauss responded to the community concerns?Is this a case of enlightened self-interest or a case of acompanyembracing a form of responsibility to the stakeholders affected by its operations?

Why doyouthink that companies like Nike, GAP and Levi Strauss responded to the community concerns?Is this a case of enlightened self-interest or a case of acompanyembracing a form of responsibility to the stakeholders affected by its operations?