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The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business: An Integrated Approach, Fourth Edition

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Authors
  • Gerald R. Ferrera
  • Mystica M. Alexander
  • Cheryl Kirschner
  • William P. Wiggins
  • Jonathan J. Darrow
Series / Business Law Series
BOOKMARK
Book length
784 pages
Publication Date
2025-02-24
Edition
Fourth Edition
Description
Table of contents
Preface

Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook with Study Center on Casebook Connect, including academic lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities. Access also includes practice questions, an outline tool, newsfeed, and other helpful resources. Connected eBooks provide what you need most to be successful in your classes.



Focusing on today’s complex business setting, The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business, Fourth Edition, by Ferrera, Alexander, Kirschner, Wiggins, and Darrow offers a comprehensive survey of topics affecting the legal environment of business today. By providing students with a thorough understanding of the legal and ethical issues they will face in their careers, this text is designed to prepare students to work within modern industry norms, practices, and legal and regulatory frameworks. Ethics coverage is integrated and featured throughout, ensuring the reader is well-informed and knowledgeable about both the legal and ethical aspects of business. In addition, ethical theory is interwoven with practical applications using novel pedagogical tools, such as simulated manager's meetings, to promote thoughtful inquiry and highlight the interplay between ethics and law.

Covering classical ethicists and philosophers as well as non-traditional voices, such as sub-Saharan African Ubuntu philosophy, this text extends and broadens students’ thinking about ethical frameworks. Chapters include questions and sidebar features that address how diversity, equity, and inclusion issues relate to the topic at hand.

The book's international focus ensures students are well-prepared for the global business environment. It covers critical topics in international business law such as key provisions of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sales of Goods, updates to Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code, and the new provision added to the UCC (Article 12).

New to the Fourth Edition: 
  • Updated discussions on new technologies, including:
    • Treatment of AI-related legal and ethical issues (e.g., the copyrightability of AI-created graphical art and patentability of AI-developed inventions; the use of AI to create “deepfakes” use of AI as part of alleged price-fixing schemes)
    • Coverage of how AI is changing business practices and the extensive legal and ethical implications of these changes, such as changes to contract negotiations and drafting
  • Incorporation of new US Supreme Court cases:
    • 303 Creative LLC (2023)
    • Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (2024) (overturning Chevron)
    • Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States (2023)
    • Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (2023)
    • Sackett v. EPA (2023)
Professors and students will benefit from discussions of:
  • The 2024 real estate fee splitting settlement of $418 million (Burnett et al v. Nat'l Ass'n of Realtors et al., Case No. 19-CV-00332-SRB (W.D. Mo. Aug. 8, 2024 (amended order))
  • The 2021 creation of a new agency in New York State for the regulation of cannabis
  • COVIID19-era calls to make the FDA more independent from the Executive Branch
  • US blockage of new appointments to the WTO’s appellate body
  • Enhanced antitrust enforcement against Amazon and other large technology companies
  • Compliance and ethical aspects of off-shore manufacturing
  • Updated caselaw example of questions involving apparent authority (Stein Eriksen Lodge Owners Ass'n Inc. v. MX Technologies Inc., 508 P .3d 138) and respondeat superior (Tammen v. Tronvold, 965 N.W.2d 161)
  • The FTC rule regarding non-competes
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Table of Contents
Summary of Contents

Contents 
Preface 
A Note to Students 
Acknowledgments 
About the Authors 

Part I: Legal and Ethical Overview
Chapter 1 The United States Legal System 
Chapter 2 Ethics in Business 
Chapter 3 Constitutional Issues in Business
Chapter 4 Administrative Law 
Chapter 5 Legal Aspects of the Global Business Environment 
Chapter 6 Corporate Social Responsibility

Part II: The Business
Chapter 7 Business Organizations 
Chapter 8 Intellectual Property
Chapter 9 Sale of Securities and Investor Protection 
Chapter 10 Business Crimes 
Chapter 11 Antitrust

Part III: The Employee
Chapter 12 Agency Law
Chapter 13 Employment Law 
Chapter 14 Discrimination in the Workplace 

Part IV: The Business Sale
Chapter 15 Contracts: Contract Formation 
Chapter 16 Contracts: Contract Performance 
Chapter 17 Sales Law, Consumer Protection, and E- Commerce 
Chapter 18 The Debtor- Creditor Relationship

Part V: Business Liability
Chapter 19 Business Torts 
Chapter 20 Product Liability and Warranties 
Chapter 21 Environmental Law and Sustainability 

Glossary 
Table of Cases
Index 
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Preface
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About the authors
Gerald R. Ferrera
Professor Emeritus of Law, Taxation, and Financial Planning
Bentley University

GERALD R. FERRERA is the Gregory H. Adamian Professor of Law Emeritus at Bentley University and was the first member of the law faculty to hold that endowed chair. In 2002, Professor Ferrera received the Academy of Legal Studies in Business Senior Faculty Award of Excellence. He chaired the law department at Bentley for 17 years. Over his teaching career of 45 years at Bentley University, he has been active in the legal environment of business curriculum development with an ethical component and has coauthored textbooks on Business Law, The Legal Environment of Business, and Cyberlaw. His scholarly articles on ethics and jurisprudence, authored or coauthored, were published in The American Journal of Jurisprudence and the Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest.

He has also authored or coauthored published material in the New York University School of Law Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, the Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, Texas Intellectual Property Law Journal, the American Business Law Journal, Marquette Law Review, Pepperdine Law Review, Journal of Legal Studies Education, Business Law Review, and Cleveland State Law Review. He is currently a research fellow at the Center for Business Ethics, Bentley University, and a past president and current member of the executive committee of the North Atlantic Regional Business Law Association. He received the Ralph C. Hober publication award given by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business and the Bentley University Scholar of the Year Award. His teaching awards include the Bentley University Gregory H. Adamian Excellence in Teaching Award, numerous Bentley University Innovation in Teaching Awards, and the Master Teacher Award from the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. He holds a B.S. in Finance from Boston College, a J.D. from the New England School of Law–Boston, and an M.S. in Taxation from Bentley. He is a member of the State Bar of Massachusetts and federal bars.

Mystica M. Alexander
Assistant Professor of Law, Taxation, and Financial Planning
Bentley University

Mystica M. Alexander is a Professor in the Law and Taxation Department at Bentley University. She recently completed four years of service as the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at Bentley. A graduate of Harvard Law School, Mystica practiced corporate and tax law before moving into academia. She teaches business law and ethics at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In addition to her role in the classroom, Mystica has been involved with curriculum development. She is a past Holmes Cardozo finalist for best conference paper at the Academy of Legal Studies in Business and the recipient of two Innovation in Teaching Awards from Bentley University. She is also a past recipient of the Charles M. Hewitt Master Teacher Award awarded by the Academy of Legal Studies in Business.

Cheryl Kirschner
Senior Lecturer in Law
Babson College

Cheryl Kirschner is an Associate Teaching Professor of Business Law at Babson College. She received a B.A. from the University of Rochester in English and political science and a J.D. from Boston University School of Law. As an active member of the faculty at Babson, she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in business law and international business law. She was awarded the Babson College Dean’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and is deeply involved in curriculum development and revision in graduate and undergraduate programs at Babson. She taught global entrepreneurship courses for many years in Arusha, Tanzania and Cape Town, South Africa. The Academy of Legal Studies in Business awarded her the Best International Case for her best-selling case, Zidane's Last Red Card. In addition to publishing law review articles, she served as editor-in-chief for the Babson Case Publishing Center and has also served on journal editorial boards.

William P. Wiggins
Professor of Law and Taxation
Bentley University

William P. Wiggins is Gregory H. Adamian Professor of Law at Bentley University. Over the years, Professor Wiggins has held a variety of administrative positions at the university and has chaired many of the university’s major task forces. He is the recipient of Bentley’s highest teaching award, the Gregory H. Adamian Excellence in Teaching Award. He has developed and taught a wide variety of courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Professor Wiggins co-authored a leading treatise on tax practice and procedure and has published articles in academic and professional journals and presented his work at international, national, and regional conferences. Professor Wiggins holds a B.S. and an M.S. from Bentley University and a J.D. from Suffolk University Law School. He is a member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the honor society for business students and faculty.

Jonathan J. Darrow
Professor
Harvard University

Dr. Darrow previously served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Professor of Law at Bentley University. He received his research doctorate in pharmaceutical policy from Harvard, where he completed an LL.M. program in intellectual property theory (waived) and holds additional degrees from Cornell (biology/genetics), Duke (JD), and Boston College (MBA). He served for two years as a law clerk to the Honorable Evan J. Wallach of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, worked in private law practice in Washington D.C. and California, and has contributed to health policy projects at the WTO, WHO, and World Intellectual Property Organization.
Product Information
Edition
Fourth Edition
Publication date
2025-02-24
Copyright Year
2025
Pages
784
Print + eBook
9798892074988
eBook
9798892074995
LLPOD
9798892075015
Audiobook
9798899631085
eBook + Audiobook
9798899634079
Subject
Business Law
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