Global Manufacturing and Taylorism Practices of Nike Corporation and its Subcontractors:

Ancient (Modern) Times within (Post) Modern Times ?

SUBMITTED TO: Sub Theme 11: Mapping Action Research Practices

PARTICIPANTS: Presenter's Contact Information:

  See Session Notes

PURPOSE:

The purpose of the research is to develop interdisciplinary work and dialogue that will address a set of research questions that is of growing concern to academics, the general public, and the Athletic Apparel Industry. Basic research while important is not sufficient. We propose to embark upon action research initiative that brings various stakeholders (researchers, workers, corporate executives, managers, subcontractor mangers, governmental and non-governmental organizations) together to implement change.

There has been a good deal of consulting (i.e. Global Alliance, Fair Labor Association, and Price Waterhouse Coopers) and non-governmental organization (NGO) report and media writing, but limited academic empirical study (See Appendix B). The issue is to rethink labor and environmental monitoring practices, within a larger context that compels a reframing of the institutions and ethics of development and globalization. Our purpose can be summarized: to promote dialogue that leads to basic, applied, participatory, as well as action research efforts that lead to change.

We hope for a truly postmodern approach to collaborative research and change with many voices coming from many different sources, swirling around each trying to make a difference. In some ways, this effort looks a lot like the Athletic Apparel Industry itself--hard to summarize, quick, shifting, unpredictable, Tamara-ish (See Boje, 2001b for theory work on this point).

We have a process to get the proposal to its next stage of readiness. That is we have been co-sponsored at the Academy of Management meetings in Washington D.C. by the History, Research Methods (RMD) , and Organization Development and Change (ODC) Divisions for four 90 minute workshops (one per study group listed below). At these workshops we are inviting stakeholders mentioned in the project and Academy members to meet work with us to develop the proposal. ODC will act as facilitators. Then we would like to head for the field and collect the necessary data.

But we do not stop there; we intend to follow through to see what positive changes can be made in monitoring, working conditions, and implement study group recommendations. In short, we seek an action research project the facilitates that starts and ends with participatory dialogue.

 INTRODUCTION

With the rise in global subcontracting in the apparel industry, governments and perhaps the global enterprise itself is finding it difficult to control and monitor the actions of apparel subcontractors operating in multiple countries. The global enterprises in the apparel industry subcontract with hundreds of factories in over thirty nations. When the public spotlight or a corporate sponsored monitoring agent (i.e. auditor, consulting firm, corporate personnel) points out problems in one of thousands of such factories, the subcontract is canceled or the problems gets cleaned up by corporate and subcontractor or on occasion government intervention.

However, this does not prevent a subcontractor from continuing business as usual in unknown locations or opening new locations where problem practices continue until the next monitoring study or media expose. The purpose of this research proposal is to bring basic and rigorous academic research and theory and academic dialogue to bear on two problems:

(1) How to move from forms of "extreme" Taylorism to what we will call French Taylorism (Below) in a series of experiments in wage systems and working conditions. 

(2) How to reliably and validly monitor transnational corporate behavior in the apparel industry (with or without government)?

The starting assumption is that it is time to bring together an international group of scholars who have relevant and established expertise to conduct basic research and develop action research experiments that yield positive and measurable results. Next we elaborate on the two basic questions.

II. FROM FEUDAL FACTORIES TO FRENCH TAYLORIST ONES

We will now review why we believe scientific experimentation with pattern of work organization, working conditions, and wage schemes is to the Athletic Apparel Industry's advantage. Specifically we propose to work with a sample of factories (the size and location will be determined with Logo-corporation, subcontractor, NGO and other stakeholder input).  The result we anticipate is to be able to contrast different forms of pay-systems and work design and working conditions. The implementation will be according to action research methods. That is, an effort that involves workers, managers, and other stakeholders, including the study groups we list below in the design of the experiments we are proposing.

Taylorism faces Sweatshop 

Karl Marx (1867), Adam Smith (1776), and Frederick Taylor (1911) agreed that there are organizational alternatives to sweatshops that yield more productivity, profit, and net workers higher wages.

“The name, sweatshop, goes back to the late 1800s, and refers to the technique of "sweating" as much profit as possible out of each worker. Once a thriving tradition at the turn of the century, sweatshops saw their numbers dwindle in the face of relentless encroachment by labor organization and social legislation. By the post-war years they were pushed to the brink of extinction. But with the new arrangements made possible by the global economy -- highly mobile transnational capital, computer-coordinated production schedules, and free tradepolicies” (Sweat Gear web site).  Apparel manufacture too often equates to sweatshop work that is based on modes of production and piece-wages that appears feudal in contrast to the kinds of factories that are recently attaining ISO9000, ISO14000, and SA8000 certification.

What about the influence of wage rates? Smith (1976) in the Wealth of Nations, saw the choice about paying each worker a "living wage" was clear, economic and moral:

“A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation” (Smith,1776, CHAPTER VIII Of the Wages of Labor).

Adam Smith did not favor sweatshops. Adam Smith, among others, contended that interests of self-centered interests of merchants and manufacturers ran counter to the general welfare of society.  Smith advocated local accountability, moral reasoning, and a limit to bigness of business. Smith did favor the landowners over the merchants and manufacturers.

“The proprietor of land is necessarily a citizen of the particular country in which his estate lies.  The proprietor of stock is properly a citizen of the world, and is not necessarily attached to any particular country.” (WN, 2: 848).

Smith argued for the primacy of agrarian capitalism over industrial capitalism.

What was revolutionary about Taylor's scientific management, was the observation that rest and refreshment are necessary to quality and sustained work. Any profit gained by overwork and snatching time for mealtimes and rest breaks and from paying the least possible bare subsistence wage and over-work in unhealthy and unpleasant situations was meager compared to the output of the high productivity enterprise. In short, both Taylor and Marx held out solutions to sweatshops' "slow sacrifice of humanity" (Marx, 1867: 244).

For Marx, piece-wage was a special form of time-wage. "In time-wages the labor is measured by its immediate duration, in piece-wages by the quantity of products in which the labor has embodied itself during a given time" (1867: 553). And piece-wages, from his point of view, afforded the "source of reductions of wages and capitalistic cheating" of workers (p. 553). That is, with piece-wages, the incentive is for the capitalist to parasitically "sub-let" labor by using the services of middlemen (subcontractors).

"In England this system is characteristically called the "Sweating system." On the one hand piece-wage allows the capitalist to make a contract for so much per piece with the head laborer--in manufactures with the chief of some group, in mines with the extract of the coal, in the factory with the actual machine-worker--at a price for which the head laborer himself undertakes the enlisting and payment of his assistant workpeople” (p. 554).

To Marx, it is in the personal interest of the subcontractor using piece-wage systems to "strain his labor-power as intensely as possible" by lengthening the working-day. And this is exactly what we have witnessed in apparel manufacture: without the external control of government or the global enterprise's policies and codes, subcontractors use piece-wage and extend the working day, as well as the number of days worked each month.

In Marx's day, the "Children's Employment Commission” and other agencies intervened to change working and employment practices. Piece-wage is the main pay system in today's apparel subcontract factory. Marx hypothesized that piece-wage is paid such that it becomes the average wage, thereby negating any incentive for independence, self-control, or liberty. "Piece-work has, therefore, a tendency, while raising the individual wages above the average, to lower this average itself" for the workforce. In practice, the quotas in the apparel industry are adjusted to keep the piece-wage to a bare minimum and working conditions such as rest periods and subcontractors avoid training in more efficient production methods, unless external controls are enforced. The assumption of the subcontractor is that since the alternative to work is starvation or more rigorous demands of agriculture, those workers have ample incentive to produce. This is defined here, as feudalistic sweatshop practice.

We would like to conduct research that would implement and test experiments in alternative pay schemes.

For example, going back to Taylor (1911), his innovation in pay schemes was to introduce the idea of differential piece-rate systems. In his series of experiments he demonstrated that workers when performing a carefully calibrated and planned task, would increase their effort when wages increased by 60 per cent (p. 74). In short, raising quotas and extending the working day, were found to be less productive alternatives than ensuring "prosperity for the employee, coupled with prosperity for the employer" the key to his compensation philosophy.

For Taylor, the solution to feudalistic sweatshop factories was to convince employee and employer, that through scientific experimentation, work conditions and work processes could be redesigned so that workers toiled few hours, with more rest breaks, and at higher pay, while the firm enjoyed the fruits of sharp increases in production.

It is our proposal to test Taylor's option in the apparel industry. That is to move from what is called "extreme Taylorism" managing work processes with central control and high division of labor, to what Taylor had originally described, a system of work which is productive for employers and prosperous for employees.

Taylor (1911: 14-18) argued that it is possible to have prosperity for both owners and workers and the diminution of poverty and the alleviation of human suffering. We believe this is an attainable objective for the logo corporations, their subcontractors, and global workforce. Taylor concludes, "the writer has great sympathy with those who are over-worked, but on the whole a greater sympathy for those who are under paid" (p. 18). This is the gist of our attempt to prove that living wage payment and healthy working conditions combined with scientific work processes makes economic sense.

The Experiment 

In short, we hypothesize that the modern scientifically managed subcontract factory will dramatically out-produce and out-pay the feudal sweatshop. We seek permission to run this experiment. Taylor (1911: 92-96, 136-143) hypothesized that better working conditions including shorter hours (from 12 to 8.5 hours), rest periods four times a day, paid days off each month for "girls" (his term), and rigorous scientific work procedures would lead to both higher factory output and higher wage levels and therefore to more harmonious relations between employer and employees. Taylor also included "the consumers, who buy the product" of employer and employees "and who ultimately pay both the wages of the workmen and the profits of the employers" (p. 136). This described the global subcontracting production and distribution of the apparel industry.

Taylor was able to convince sweatshop owners and their subcontractors that this hypothesis had scientific validity. We believe that by turning from consultant and monitor reporting to scientific study (quantitative and qualitative) and to action research experimentation, that we can convince subcontract factory owners and managers, that sweatshops are not as profitable as the modern firm.

The world at the turn of the century embarked upon experiments that proved in one industry after another that feudal sweatshop production was not as efficient or humane as scientific management. We can do the same in this century.

“Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interest of the two [employer and employee] are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employee, and vice versa' and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants -- high wages -- and the employer what he wants -- a low labor cost -- for his manufactures.” (1911: 10).

The reason it is a lower labor cost, even with higher piece-wage payments is because the factory applying scientific management (now a days, TQM, ISO9000 and ISO14000) with the kinds of working conditions spelled out in SA8000 (living wages, safe and healthy work environments) is assumed to yield higher output than is true for the feudalist factory. Nike in 1998 announced plans to move toward ISO14000 certification. Other athletic apparel industry corporations will follow suit. We would like to measure the results and extend the experiments to other factory locations.

Further, we seek permission to work with select factories to implement alternative piece-wage systems. Taylor, for example, recommended that once scientific work procedures were implemented, such that production rose, the workers would be paid 60% to as much as "double wages" during the scientific experiments, and that such wages would remain this high after the implementation (pp. 54, 72, 74).

We would also like to work with factories that do and do not have active labor unions. Where Marx and Taylor disagreed was over the role of labor unions.

For Taylor (sounding much like athletic apparel industry corporate executives) unions are "labor agitators" who are "misinformed and misguided... sentimentalists" that appear "ignorant of actual working conditions" (p. 18). However, for Marx, the trade union movement and worker democracy was essential for insuring that factories did not back slide into feudalistic sweatshops. As Marx put it, "I demand therefore a working-day of normal length, and I demand it without any appeal to your heart, for in money matters sentiment is out of place (p. 234). Marx details the wage cheating, ways of stretching the day of forcing people to clock in early, work overtime off the clock, and strange pay deductions. Marx describes the same complaints in 1865 that we hear today, how time is "snatched from the workers by encroaching upon the times professedly allowed for rest and refreshment" (p. 241). The point is apparently subcontract factory management holds to the out-dated feudalistic belief that such practices are in the long run more profitable than what Taylor proposed and what Marx demanded. In short, we want to test working conditions and wage situations in both settings.

Post-Taylorism - In the long run, the question for the Athletic Apparel Industry and its subcontractors, is how to move beyond the current pattern of factory production. A fruitful direction is to engage in what we will term "French Taylorism" experiments.

“French Taylorism” Defined - In a special edition of Journal of Organizational Change Management, Dominique Besson and Slimane Haddadj (2000) review post-Taylor approaches. Different countries throughout the world including Asia and Europe have implemented Taylorism quite differently. We hypothesize the implementation in apparel factories in Southeast Asia is the reverse to the Taylorian philosophy itself, and even a return to the feudalistic factory conditions and piece-wage compensation schemes of the 1800s.

By contrast, French Taylorists implemented what Besson (2000) describes a more postmodern approach. It is more accurately "critical postmodern." On the one hand, it is an approach with strong links to Braverman's (1976) Labor and Monopoly Capital project and Marx's (1867) critique of sweatshops and piece-wages. On the other hand, the postmodernists see a drift between what Taylorism was in Taylor's day, and what it is now, in France (and elsewhere).

Instead of taking an anti-Taylorism approach, Besson (2000) argues that the post-war configurations of Taylorism in France have not adopted the deskilling system that Braverman points out. But are French workers more "empowered" compared to Asian workers?  French workers are not disempowered from their knowledge and know-how (Besson, 2000: 425). At the same time, French Taylorism achieved high increases in productivity and efficiency in "an informal kind of postmodern administration" (p. 426).

First, instead of implementing flexible work rules, the French prefer to keep those rules more rigid, in order to give employees confidence in the work design. The French adjusted rigid Taylor principles to allow for continuous improvements in work designs and such postmodern notions as "work autonomy spaces" (p. 434).

Second, the wage contract is considered an essential way in which workers negotiate with management in order to adjust work conditions, skill levels, wages, and the authority system. In this way workers in French Taylorism have a way to invoke resistance as well as ongoing-negotiation, as part of the work organization. This is not a totalizing consensus seeking strategy; it is one where parties know what side of the bargaining table they sit on.

Third, instead of management total control over the system of work, employees can avoid such productive despotism by co-control over work processes. Multi-skilling, for example, is seen as a way to enhance worker's negotiating position.

Fourth, Taylorism, in its French manifestation, is part of a plurality of perspectives. Management and worker, as well as customer and supplier have voice in the postmodern version. "There existed, and there still exists today, a coded social dialog between workers, union officials, organizers and the hierarchical management" (p. 434).

Fifth, the French variation of Taylorism is based on a conflict-engagement approach in which employers and employees actively consider social power and diversity and the dangers of hegemony.

Sixth, my own observations of French Taylorism is that working conditions, including good food, rest breaks, and those long French vacations make quite a difference.

Could Taylorism in France be assimilated into the Asian subcontract apparel system? It is a question that merits scientific study. Our proposed experiment stands as alternative to increased levels of governmental regulation of industry working conditions. French Taylorism is a mid range solution between trade unionism and feudalistic sweatshops. It is an improvement over classical Taylorism, that allows piece-wage systems to be modified in ways that increase productivity and worker wage levels, while affording workers avenues of resistance to totalizing systems of control.

Our proposal to the Athletic Apparel logo corporations and their subcontractors is to experiment and scientifically compare alternative work design, work conditions, and wage-incentive schemes. It represents a step forward in establishing stakeholder dialogue and getting beyond expose research projects, or naïve consulting reports, that do not detail methodology nor go beyond the report to actually implement meaningful change. Why not try French Taylorization as a possible improvement over "extreme" forms of Taylorization now in use in the apparel industry in third world nations?

Action Research Design

Besides conducting and publishing research reports and journal article studies on the four research questions, we would like to do two more things (For background on action research, see http://web.nmsu.edu/~dboje/TDactonresearch.html ).

First, we want to involve governments, academics, workers, unions, and NGOs in the host countries in improving working conditions. This is what we have referred to as the experiments in "French Taylorism."

Second we would like to promote dialogue with Nike Corporation, government agencies, monitoring groups, workers, and sub-contract factory owners (and managers) that leads to improved working conditions and improved monitoring. There is a trend toward increased government control. By inviting dialogue, we do not mean compromise, or surrender of independence or our research, rather a commitment to platforms for conversation, where we might disagree but agree to come to the table.

We are not requesting monies from Nike Corporation for this research. Forty-five academic scholars are agreeing to work with five designated country experts to conduct the most rigorous research yet attempted on four basic research questions. In the first three questions we are proposing to do "action research" experiments with alternative wage systems, working conditions, and efficiency approaches:

1. How has Nike enacted its espoused Code of Conduct over time? This study group will focus on monitoring studies by PWC, FLA, and Global Alliance, as well as studies that support and question their methods and findings.

2. Does Nike pay a living wage? This study group will sample subcontract factory workers, review factory payroll records, and collect data that will measure and validate various living wage formula. In addition we are proposing action research experiments that would implement and test various wage-payment schemes in a sample of factories across nations identified in Table One.

3. Does Nike subcontract with "sweatshops"? This study group will look at definitions of sweatshops and measure said variables in a sample of subcontract factories. In addition, they will propose and conduct action research experiments that test what we described in our review as forms of French Taylorism. This way a sample of existing subcontract firms can be compared with the experimental options.

Table One: Three-Tier System of Nike Subcontractors and their Technology

David M. Boje, Ph.D.

References :

Besson, Dominique (2000) "France in the 1950s: Taylorian modernity brought about by postmodern organizers?" Journal of Organizational Change Management. Vol. 13: (5): 423-438.

Besson, Dominique & Haddadj, Slimane (2000) Towards a post-Taylorian approach to Taylorism. Special guest issue of Journal of Organizational Change Management. Vol. 13: (5).

Marx, Karl (1867) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume I The Process of Capitalist Production. Translated from the Third German Edition by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, Edited by Frederick Engels. NY: L.W. Schmidt; 1967 edition, NY: International Publishers.

Taylor, Frederick Winslow (1911) The Principles of Scientific Management. NY: W.W. Norton & company, Inc. 1947 edition.

APPENDIX A: Participants in the Action Research Initiative

Action Research Design ..\..\..\Boje Files/CONFERENCES/EGOS_2000/pdw_academy_proposal.htm

APPENDIX B : List of Academic writing on Athletic Apparel Industry

     Amos Tuck (1997) Dartmouth University wage studies of Vietnam and Indonesia (press here). Note:  See Mihaly, Gene & Massey, Joseph (1997) "DARTMOUTH PROFESSORS SPEAK ON COST OF LIVING STUDY" below. 

     Athreya, Bama (2000) "The Campaign Against Sweatshops: We Need Immediate, Practical Solutions" Chronicle of Higher Education. (April 7) p. B5. (press here).

     Athreya, Bama (AAFLI), (1995). Report to Asian American Free Labor Institute on the Conditions in Factories Making Nike Sports Shoes, unpublished, June. (Research done in preparation for doctoral dissertation.)

     Barry, David (1999) presentation to the Discourse and Language Conference at Ohio State University. 

     Carty, Victoria (July) 1999 "Emerging Post-Industrial, Postmodern Trends and the Implications for Social Change: A Case-Study of Nike Corporation. Unpublished Dissertation, Sociology Department, The University of New Mexico. 

     Carty, Victoria (1997)  "A Case-study of Ideologies, Global Production and Consumption in the Postmodern Era." In Gender Work and Organization. Vol. 4, No 4. Pp. 189-201. October 1997.

     Carty, Victoria (1994) "Postindustrial, Postmodern Trends in the Global Economy: A  Case-study of Nike and the Athletic Footwear Industry." In The  Journal of the Southwest Symposium. Pp. 122-126. April 1994.

     Carty, Victoria and Miguel Korzeniewicz (forthcoming) "From American Icon to Global Icon: Issues of Cultural Change and Consumer Trends in Nike's Worldwide Marketing and Advertising." . In Nike Nation: Technologies of an American Sign. Edited by David L. Andrews & Cheryl L. Cole. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Forthcoming.

     Carty, Victoria (1994) "Structuration, Homogenization, and the Increasing Role of Culture in Global Industries: A Case-study of the Athletic Footwear Industry." In the Working Paper Series in the Social Sciences. Vol. 1, No 2.  Pp. 28-43. Fall 1994.

     Chan, Anita (1996) "Boot Camp At The Shoe Factory, Where Taiwanese Bosses Drill Chinese Workers to Make Sneakers for American Joggers", Washington Post, Outlook, November 3. p. C01, Dongguan City, China.

     Chan, Anita (1998) "Nike and its Satanettes." Open letter  - This is a reply to Phil Knight's speech to the National Press Club in Washington D.C. (press here).

     Chen Meei-shia and Anita Chan, (1999) "Market Economics in Command: Footwear Workers' Health in Jeopard", International Journal of Health Services, 1999, 29 (4): 793-811.

     Cole, Cheryl L. (1996) "American Jordan: P.L.A.Y., consensus and Punishment." Sociology of Sport Journal, 13(4): 366-397.

     Cole, Cheryl L. (1997) "P.L.A.Y., Nike, and Michael Jordan: National Fantasy and the Racialization of Crime and Punishment." Center for Cultural Values and Ethics. department of Kinesiology, Women's Studies Program, Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,  Louise Freer hall, 906 South Goodwin Avenue, Urbana, IL 61801.

     Cole, Cheryl L. and Amy Hribar (1995) "Celebrity Feminism: Nike Style (Post-Fordism, Transcendence, and Consumer Power)." Sociology of Sport Journal, 12 (4).

     Connor, T., (in press) "Re-routing the race to the bottom? Transnational Corporations, labor practice codes of conduct and workers' right to organise - the case of Nike Inc." in Hernandez-Truyol(ed.) (in press), Moral Imperialism: A Critical Anthology, NYU Press, New York.

     Connor, T. 2000, Like Cutting Bamboo, Nike and the right of Indonesian Workers to Freedom of Association, Community Aid Abroad-Oxfam Australia Report. Available on the web at www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/association 

     Connor, T. 1998, "Motivations and Exclusions? The White House's Apparel Industry Partnership Code and the Nike Factory Worker." Institute of Australian Geographers 1999 Conference, July, Freemantle, Australia

     Connor, T. 1999, "Making your dog fat so she can bite you back? Will labour practice codes of conduct give greater powers to workers in China?" at "Geography at the Millenium" Institute of Australian Geographers 1999 Conference, 27 September to 1 October, Sydney, Australia

     Connor, T. 1999, "Where's the umpire? The Code of Labour Practice for Goods Licensed to carry the logos of the Sydney Olympics and Paralympics" in Taylor, T.(ed.) How You Play the Game, Papers from the First International Conference on Sport and Human Rights, 1-3 September 1999, Sydney Australia, University of Technology, Sydney, Faculty of Business Publications, pp. 176-82 

     Connor, T. and Atkinson J., 1996 Sweating for Nike A Report on Labour conditions in the sport shoe industry, Community Aid Abroad Briefing Paper, No. 16 - November.  Available on the web at www.caa.org.au/campaigns/nike/sweating

     Donaghu, Michael & Barff, Richard (1990) "Nike Just Did it: International Subcontracting and Flexibility in Athletic Footwear Production." Regional Studies Vol. 24(6): 537-52. 

     Gereffi, Gary & Korzeniewicz, Miguel (1990). "Commodity Chains and Footwear Exports in the Semiperiphery." In Semiperpheral States in the Wrold Economy, editid by Willimam G. Martin pp. 45-68. Westport, CT: Greewood Press.

     Hancock, P (1996), Report on Fentay and Kutje factories in Banjaran, Indonesia, unpublished, October.  (Research done on Nike in preparation for doctoral dissertation.) ; research cited in: Hancock, Peter ( (1996) Sweating for Nike A Report on Labour conditions in the sport shoe industry, Community Aid Abroad Briefing Paper, No. 16 - November, 1996

     Hancock, Peter (1997) "Women Workers in Nike Factories in West Java"  Peter Hancock spent eight months in a remote area of Indonesia winning the trust of Nike workers and carefully recording their experiences. Australian academic Peter Hancock's research is on the Feng Tay and Kutje factories in Banjaran in Indonesia (which produce Nikes).

     "Nike's Satanic Factories in West Java," describes a Nike factory as "a very large high-security prison." as cited in "Anti-Nike Activists Just Do It  By Suganthi Singrayar, April 15, 1997, Tuesday, Inter Press News Service.

     Hancock, Peter (1997) "Walking Ghosts Who Work in Satan's factory." 4 April, 1997

     Hancock, P (2000) "The lived experiences of female factory workers in rural West Java" in Labour and Management in Development Journal. Volume 1 Number 1. Australian National University. Pp 1-18.

     Harvard Business School (1985) "Nike in China." HBS Case No. 9-386-065. Cambridge: Harvard Business School.

     Harvard Business School (1987) "Nike in China: Teaching Note" HBS Case No. 5-388-010. Cambridge: Harvard Business School.

     Kahle, Lynn R., Boush, David M. & Phelps, Mark (2000). "Good Morning, Vietnam: An Ethical Analysys of Nike Activities in Southeast Asia. Sport Marketing Quarterly. Vol. 9 (1): 43- 52. 

     Keady, James W. (1998) "Nike and Catholic Social Teaching: A Challenge to the Christian Mission at St. John's University. Unpublished paper.

     Knight, Graham & Josh Greenberg (2000). "Protest and Promotionalism: Nike PR and the Labor Rights Campaign." Academy of Management All Academy Showcase Symposium on "Time and Nike," David Boje and Nancy Landrum (co-chairs), August 9th, Session #170.

     Korzeniewicz, Miguel (1994) "Commodity Chains and Marketing Strategies: Nike and the Global Athletic Footwear Industry." pp. 247-265 in Gary Gareffi and Miguel Korzeniewicz (Eds.) Commodity Chains and global Capitalism. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Press. 

     Landrum, Nancy Ellen (2000a) "A quantitative and Qualitative Examination of the Dynamics of Nike and Reebok Storytelling as Strategy." Dissertation, New Mexico State University, Management Department.

     Landrum, N. (1999, April). "Does Nike 'Just Do It'?: A Reexamination of Nike Factory Workers' Pay in Vietnam." Graduate Arts and Research Symposium, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM.

     Landrum, Nancy Ellen - ( 2000b) "Environmental Rhetoric of Nike." Academy of Management All Academy Showcase Symposium on "Time and Nike," David Boje and Nancy Landrum (co-chairs),  August 9th, Session #170. 

     Landrum, N. and Boje, D. (in press). "Nike Kairos: Strategies Just in Time." In U. Haley & F. Richter (Eds.), Asian Post-Crises Management: Corporate and Governmental Strategies for Sustainable Competitive Advantage. London: MacMillan Press.

     Landrum, N. and Boje, D. (2000). "An Ethnostatistical Analysis of Nike's Tuck Report." In Biberman, J. & Alkhafaji, A. (Eds.) Business Research Yearbook: Global Business Perspectives, Vol. VII, International Academy of Business Disciplines, pp. 614-618. Saline, MI: McNaughton & Gunn Inc.

     Landrum, N. and Boje, D. (2000) "Environmental Rhetoric of Nike," Journal of Organizational Change Management. Under Review.

     Landrum, N., Boje, D., and Daniel, D. (2000) "An Empirical and Rhetorical Analysis of Nike's Vietnamese Wage Study." Working Paper.

     Jeanne Logsdon & Donna Wood (2000) "Sweatshops and Business Citizenship." Academy of Management All Academy Showcase Symposium on "Time and Nike," David Boje and Nancy Landrum (co-chairs), August 9th, Session #170.

     Macintosh, Norman, Teri Shearer, Daniel Thornton & Michael Welker (1997)  "A Baudrillardian Perspective on Accounting." Queen's University School of Business Research Program  Working Paper 97-06 Kingston, Ontario, K7L3N6. Paper presented to the September 1997 conference, "Accounting, time and Space" sponsored by the Accounting, Organizations and Society and the Copenhagen Business School.  

     Mihaly, Gene & Massey, Joseph (1997) "DARTMOUTH PROFESSORS SPEAK ON COST OF LIVING STUDY" Transcript of conference call with two Dartmouth Amos Tuck School of Business professors (Mihaly, who went to Indonesia supervising an MBA study group and Massey who went to Vietnam supervising an MBA study group) moderated by Dusty Kidd and Vada Manager of Nike, Labor Practices Department. Reporters in conference call include Naomi Klein from Toronto Star, Bruce Ramsey with the "Seattle Post Intelligencer," Tim Shorrock from "The Journal of Commerce," and Jeff Manning from "Oregonian" Newspaper. (October 17th). Retrieved August 29th from the World Wide Web: Part I of call: http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/Niktuck1confcall.html 
Part II of call: http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/Niktuck2confcall.html 
and supporting documents: http://business.nmsu.edu/~dboje/nikeworkers.html 

     Oakes, Leslie S. (2000) "Attestation: Nike and the Role of Auditing in Decentering the Subject." Academy of Management All Academy Showcase Symposium on "Time and Nike," David Boje and Nancy Landrum (co-chairs), August 9th, Session #170.

     Oakes, Leslie S., Barbara Townley, Michele Chwastiak (1997) "Theorizing Accounting at the Margin: Bourdieu, Ledger Art, Nike and Elder Care." Paper presented at the Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conference, UK.  (press here).

     O"Rourke, Dara (2000). Monitoring the Monitors: A Critique of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Labor Monitoring.  Unpublished paper September 28th, 2000, MIT. To download entire report using ADOBE see http://web.mit.edu/dorourke/www/PDF/pwc.pdf  

     Stabile, Carol A. (2000). "Nike, social responsibility, and the hidden abode of production." Critical Studies in Media Communication, Vol. 17 (2): 186-204). 

     Venkatesh, Alladi (1999)  "Postmodernism perspectives for macromarketing: An inquiry into the global information and sign economy." Journal of Macromarketing; Boulder; Dec; Volume: 19 ( 2): 153-169.

     Wells, Don & Josh Greenberg (2000). "Nike, the Fair Labor Association, and the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities: The New Private, Voluntary Regulation of Labor Rights and Standards in the Global Economy."  Academy of Management All Academy Showcase Symposium on "Time and Nike," David Boje and Nancy Landrum (co-chairs), August 9th, Session #170.