Business Reference Guide: The Law & Society (PDF)

This volume begins with an essay by Sara Rogers that broadly defines the vast legal environment surrounding business.
In her analysis, she covers the primary law sources and illustrates their abilities to control, regulate, or assist
current business practices. Among the businesses that need to strictly adhere to government laws are new ventures. In
examining these laws, Seth M. Azria notes how federal intellectual property law can help entrepreneurs protect their
ideas. However, while these may help start-up organizations, different tax laws, tort laws, and employment laws can
hamper organizational growth. Due to these laws and others, Azria emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurs discovering
which laws apply to them and which they can use to their advantage during the building process. Businesses
must also pay attention to the sweeping variety of employment laws, which have grown substantially over the past
century. As Azria mentions, many of these laws work to end discrimination within the workplace and provide a fair
work environment. Rogers expands on Azria’s ideas by outlining other elements of labor relations law and by examining
the Railway Labor Act and the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act. Another key legal component
some corporations need to pay attention to is environmental law and regulation. In her essay covering this topic, Vanessa
A. Tetteh discusses the difficulty the government has in making effective environmental laws and reviews some of
the major environmental laws and their historical context. Among some of the regulations are the ISO 14000 environmental
management standards. To help organizations adhere to such standards, there are environmental management
systems. Michael Erbschloe discusses some of the challenges organizations face when implementing such systems and
also covers the difficulties small and medium-sized enterprises encounter when implementing ISO 14000 standards.