A short presentation related to the #MeToo movement, impacts the corporates, focusing Nike.

1. Ethics vs Reputation in #MeToo Era

2. Introduction
• The Me Too Movement – A movement against:
“Sexual Harassment and Sexual Assault”
• Promoted by the Social Activist - Turana Burke in 2006
• Gained momentum in October 2017 – with the sexual
harassment by Hollywood producer – Harvey Weinstein –
accused of sexual misconduct by 70 women, highlighted by a
twitter post by Actress Alyssa Milano.
• The movement spread across media and companies
announced zero tolerance policies for harassment – even
when no internal complaints had been made. This resulted
into immediate exit of several executives from companies
such as –Uber, Google, Fox News

3. Nike Inc.
A similar revolution erupted at Nike, where senior women
executives – Patty Ross and Nikki Neuberger resigned due to
workplace harassment, after bringing the same into CEO – Mark
Parker’s notice.
• A wave of aggression triggered in women employees, resulted into
internal surveys.
• Consequences
“Nike’s HR dept. never listened to sexual harassment cases”
“Employees posted concerns on Glassdoor”
• Parker immediately held persons accountable for inappropriate
behavior – led to resignation of 11 senior executives
• He even announced retirement of Trevor Edwards – Nike President –
expected to succeed parker after next three months.

4. Ethical
violations
anticipated
• Ethical Concern – 1
Through an internal memo – Parker informed
employees:
“Edward’s departure was a result of the internal
survey report”
However, in official announcement to media:
“He did not attribute the resignation to sexual
misconduct”
We could conclude that Parker wanted to preserve
Edward’s goodwill even being alleged to have
protected male subordinates who engaged in
harassing female colleagues.

5. Ethical violations anticipated
• Ethical Concern – 2
Edward left with a severance package of
$525,000 and stocks worth $9M – which was
highly criticized in Media since this was in
spite of Edward being alleged for protecting
male subordinates engaged in sexual
harassment with female colleagues

6. • Ethical Concern – 3
Employees at Nike expressed suspicion about Parker being unaware of these
issues before the survey – especially in the era of Me Too Campaign
• Ethical Concern – 4
Critics argued that Parker terminated the employees for the sake of
managing Nike’s public reputation rather than having an intention of
providing ethical measures and effective HR practices to the Organization,
since the burning issue of harassment existed since long.
Ethical violations anticipated

7. Issues confronted by Nike’s
Females
• In 2016-17 study, Nike was ranked as the
10th best workplace for millennial women,
based on company culture and diversity
• In spite of this, female employees’
concerns were:
 Harassed by supervisors
 Ignored for promotions
 Excluded from crucial product
categories
 Forceful physical and sexual
harassment
 Gender discrimination
 misconduct by supervisors

8. Nike’s HR Department
issues
• Sexual Harassment complains – overlooked by HR
• HR never observed penalties on misconduct
• HR declared – employees to confront senior
directly
• Supervisors given verbal warnings instead of
punishments and penalties
• Females avoided the HR department completely
• HR made the women realize – “You are the
problem”

9. Employees Expressing Concern
Through Glassdoor
• Employees Started criticizing Nike for
its Frat-Boy Culture
• Employee Claimed that aggression is
considered as negative trait for
women when same is considered as
positive for male
• Employees started calling Nike
headquarter a place for “High school
bullying”
• It’s not what you know its who you
know
• Nike never responded to these reviews
but several senior executives departed

10. CEO’s response
• Mark Parker, CEO of Nike terminated David
Ayre for his “Condescending behaviour”
• But Nike’s news release announced his
departure as retirement
• CEO also announced an internal investigation
of complaints that resulted in resignation of
several other executives
• Vice-President of talent management also
announced a few training programs for the
managers

11. Employees response to CEO’s stand
• Some welcomed CEO’s move ,other felt
that action was taken too late
• Ex-employee claimed asked why did it take
an anonymous survey to make changes
• Many reported that the culture was
uncomfortable, unfair and sexist.
• Some employees said that it is not possible
for Parker to address all the issues himself.

12. Impact on Nike’s Growth
• In 2017 Nike’s annual revenue
only grew by 6.1% in contrast to
10.07% in 2015
• Nike’s growth rate declined while
it increased for Adidas in footwear
market
• CAGR for Nike from(2012-2017)
was 1.97% while CAGR for Under
Armour was 6.59%

13. Nike’s Growth Strategy
• Amy Melczer Montagne – VP/GM Global Categories
• Sports Hijab
• Nike plus size women intimate apparel
• Nike is the top brand in women’s sports wear
• To achieve their target they need to invest more in women’s segment
• Customer might shift to Adidas
• Credibility issue- Their messages and the behavior contradicts
• Nike hires Mercedes executive to oversee diversity efforts

14. Credibility Issue
Encouraging women to leap over life’s
obstacles and get active
Cases of Gender Discrimination

15. SWOT Analysis
Strengths
1. Largest sportswear company in
the world
2. Nike is strong at research and
development
3. It is evolving and
innovative product range
4. Nike sells its products throughout
US and in more than 180
countries.
5. Nike operates Nike Town shoe
and sportswear stores, Nike
factory outlets and Nike Women
shops.
Weakness
1. Behavior of its senior
management team
2. Women’s athletics products is
only contributing 1/5th of the total
revenue.
3. They faced crucial challenge in
swiftly responding to the
complaints by women employees

16. Opportunities
1. There is a lot of room to make Nike
a safe workplace for women
2. Improve the functioning of HR
3. Company should resolve issues on
ethical ground
4. More diversity in senior
management
Threats
1. Credibility Issues
2. Adidas is getting close in net
revenue
3. Brand reputation due to recent
activities
SWOT Analysis

17. Question
Had Parker responded to complaints on ethical ground or as a
reputation-maintaining strategy?

18. Thank You