Preface

You are viewing version 5.0 of The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business! This is the most up-to-date version of this text on the market, and it reflects many important shifts and changes that have occurred in our legal system, and the legal and ethical environment of business. From a student’s viewpoint, it may seem like the law “never changes,” but that simply isn’t true. We have witnessed and recorded monumental shifts in our business legal landscape over the many years that we have written this textbook. It is precisely because these changes are so important for the business world that v5.0 of this textbook has become necessary.

We know that there are many choices on the market to learn about how our legal system shapes and informs business decisions. We are delighted that you have chosen this textbook to serve as your guide. We both have many years of experience in teaching law and ethics in the business environment. When we set out to write the first version of this book, we were motivated by our experiences that students tended to view textbook offerings in business law and ethics as dry, overly formalistic, and irrelevant. We wanted to change students’ experiences of studying for the legal environment of business course that many must complete in furtherance of their business degree. Through each version of this book, we have maintained a commitment to the belief that students deserve an engaging and lively delivery of educational materials, and to not be “put off” in their study of law due to an overly complex presentation of materials. We know that interaction, multimedia, multitasking, bite-size content, and twenty-four-hour cycles are the norm for processing and learning. The challenge for legal environment textbooks, as we see it, is to meet the needs of the current generation while maintaining the academic integrity and rigor that this core course demands. 

Review the Table of Contents of most legal environment textbooks, and they read like the first-year curriculum at ABA-accredited law schools. These other legal environment of business textbooks are unnecessarily topically dense. The necessary content for undergraduate study of the legal environment of business is challenging on its own. We recognize that studying such a breadth and depth of dense content while simultaneously studying other required courses like statistics, economics, and accounting can make success in studying this subject even more challenging. We have considered this problem carefully, and we recognize that many topics contained in some other legal environment textbooks are simply unnecessary to present at the undergraduate business level. We do not believe that undergraduate business students have a need to study all topics and subtopics undertaken in law school, which, of course, is a formalized program of graduate study. Therefore, we have pared back our content to contain only the topics that are necessary to understand as students enter the business world with a successfully completed undergraduate business degree. Of the topical areas retained, we have condensed and streamlined the presentation of material to ensure that every page is relevant, engaging, and interesting, without sacrificing rigor or quality of education. Our textbook is intentionally shorter in length compared to other texts, with much greater emphasis on application of concepts presented to real-life experiences and examples.

We hope that students will look forward to engaging with this book. If you are a student who is reading this, we are looking at you! We believe that learning is best when it is enjoyable, and we have intentionally created a safe space to explore the very powerful force that is law in our business environments. We believe that the concepts of business law must be illustrated with real-life examples in order to be meaningful. The textbook contains dozens of these examples to help students understand and apply the material. We have also included judicial opinions in every chapter, which can help to illustrate the role of judges and how they shape the law every day. Practice worksheets have been included in each chapter to help apply understanding of the material to real-world scenarios. We’ve also included a Practical Ethical Action section in each chapter, where we present an ethical dilemma related to the chapter subject matter. We hope you’ll work through these Practical Ethical Action cases so that you'll fully appreciate how relevant and high-impact the legal environment of business is when it comes to the operation of businesses everywhere. We’ve added a Positive Impact on Society section for each chapter, each of which provides a good lens for students to think about the impact of business law.

Business people cannot avoid having to learn the rules of law. We strongly believe, however, that merely memorizing the law won’t serve anyone—not you, not your future employers, not society. Faith in our capitalist corporate structure has continuously been shaken by scandal, such as from the collapse of Theranos under a cloud of fraud and conspiracy, to the fraud perpetrated against millions of Wells Fargo customers in having accounts opened without their direction, to the lies espoused by VW in the emissions scandal. We live in a time when people are demanding that corporations take accountability for their actions in a way that their corporate personhood might suggest that they do. We assume that the business professionals who are in charge of each corporation that comes to our attention in a headline all know the law. But, what has gone wrong within the business organizations where these scandals have occurred? In order to achieve profitable success that also delivers long-term value to all stakeholders, we believe you have to understand the reason for the law. More than anything else, it is this practical wisdom that we hope to impart. Our textbook is therefore designed to help readers understand the materials through the use of key learning objectives, then assimilate the material through the use of lively and interesting examples, and finally, reinforce the material through key terms, key takeaways, and exercises.

We respect diversity and believe that our world is best when a diverse, inclusive, and equitable platform exists for learning and in business, and in all aspects of life. In this version, readers will note that the default pronouns used are they/them, which reflects respect for all persons and their pronouns without excluding anyone. 

We hope you enjoy this textbook, and we encourage you to contact us directly if you have any feedback for future editions.