Levi Stratus & Co - Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Javier Vila

ETH/316

6 May 2012

Christopher Gambill, PhD

Cross-Cultural Perspectives

When organizations think about going worldwide, the main thing to be taken into consideration is revenue increase. Companies believe that by going global it will help them establish their brand and that in turn will increase their share value. It can also increase revenue and growth. Most of these companies basically go global because of cheaper labor. Whatever the reason is for these companies to go global, they choose to do so at the risk of being label unethical. By going global these companies have to overcome some ethical and cultural barriers. We are going to cover how ethical and cultural issues affect companies that choose to go outside the United States in search of cheaper labor. At the conclusion, I will evaluate the ethical perspectives and cross cultures concerning this global organization.

Cultural Issue Facing a Global Organization

Levi Stratus & Co. is one of the biggest producers of clothing. The main headquarters is situated in San Francisco, California. At the current time they are operating in 110 countries. More than half of their profits results from sales outside of the United States. The company has been criticized in the past by worker-rights organizations, the media and some investment firms about their work practices. Some people believe that the two factories in Bangladesh were using workers that were under-age. The age requirement to be able to work in Bangladesh is not the same as in the United States. Most of the children that work on factories that go to other countries seeking cheaper labor are under the age of 15. Most of these children are force to work by their family members in order to support their families. Many of these children do not get issue a birth certificate, since most people in those countries look young it is not uncommon for companies to be fooled to believe that they are of age to work. Most children that work do it to support their whole family (Levi Strauss & Co. n.d.). The companies "Terms of Engagement (TOE) is very clear that a person under the age of 15 will not be allowed to work in their factories. Many organizations have come under fire for under-age workers in their factories.

Levis Strauss and Company: Ethical Perspectives

Levi Strauss ethical perspectives line up with what the majority of the population believes an ethical business is. Many people wonder, what is considered ethical. Some ethical organizations practices can be:

* Promote participation in the decision making process

* Institute procedures, structure, and policies

* Communication ought to be dialogic

* Aligns organizational aspirations, professional, personal, and behaviors

* Anticipating and responding to ethical dilemmas

* Encourage workers to recognize and solve ethical crisis

With these practices being enforced within the company, Levi founded the Global Anti-bribery Policy, World Code of Business Conduct and Anti Corruption Policy (Levi Strauss & Co.).

The company, in 2008, together with some stakeholders addresses a problem where children were required to harvest cotton in Uzbekistan. One of Levi Strauss' major cotton producers is Uzbekistan. Knowing about this problem for some time, Levi was unease about the child labor and subsequently banned the use of Uzbekistan cotton in their products. They went as far as to get the government of the United States and some international labor organizations to get the government of Uzbekistan to resolve the forced child labor also (Levi Strauss & Co.).

When outside stakeholders showed concern about the child labor, Levi approached the problem in a different way. They did not let go of the underage workers, they kept them on the payroll and required of them to attend school, after graduating from school and reaching the legal age to work, the company gave them their jobs back. If the public schools were full and there was no room for