Using an integrated approach, Foundations of The Legal Environment of Business thoroughly explores the intersection of law, business strategy, and ethics by providing over 200 real-world applications and exercises. Instead of presenting law through a rote learning method, Foundations of The Legal Environment of Business provides cases and critical-thinking exercises that illustrate, on almost every page, the clear relevance of the material to issues students will face in the business world. The text's solid theme on ethics challenges students to develop their own moral barometer. Foundations of The Legal Environment of Business, a briefer version of Jennings's successful Business: its Legal, Ethical, and Global Environment, is an excellent resource for teaching future managers how to understand and apply legal and ethical concepts. It fulfills current curricular and AACSB accrediting standards.

Key Feature

• Critical thinking: To build students' reasoning skills, "Consider . . ." features appear after cases and present relative or alternative fact patterns. These features are often from a real court case, and ask students to evaluate and analyze the legal and ethical issues just discussed. The author takes students through an analysis of each "Consider . . . " feature at the end of the chapter in an easy to understand Think/Apply/Answer format.
• Case treatment: Carefully selected to pique student interest, detailed excerpted cases (one to two pages long) often include dissenting and concurring opinions. Each case includes a catchy one-line introduction that provides a quick synopsis of the legal and ethical issues being presented. In addition, Case Problems challenge students to better understand and think critically about the court's decision.
• Red-flagged legal issues: "Red Flags for Managers," an end-of-chapter feature, outlines the most critical topics that students need to know about the legal environment when they enter the business world.
• Business practice: Useful "Business Planning Tip" notes build a solid bridge between law and business. The notes appear in the margins, providing quick encapsulations of how business professionals should watch out for legal issues.
• Ethics integration: Instead of requiring students to memorize ethical "theory" or "rules" of behavior, the author believes the best way to teach ethics is to develop in students an internal moral barometer. The text helps students develop a sense of "moral courage and ethical gumption" by challenging them to think about what their values are and what they would do in difficult business ethics situations.
• Cases: A host of relevant cases includes a laser vision case describing whether or not arbitration can be set aside, the Heald case on a state's power to regulate interstate shipments to consumers, the New London eminent domain case, a U.S. Supreme Court case on greenhouse gases and EPA authority, and a case on the FTC's control of product comparisons (mouthwash vs. floss).
• Hot topics: The text includes discussions on the ethical and legal issues surrounding YouTube, MySpace, and Hannah Montana tickets; backdating of stock options; the popular "it's a gray area" rationalization category; taxes and the Internet; political strategy funds; Sarbanes-Oxley; Boesky and Milken; the dean dismissed after 28 years because she lied on her résumé; and U.S. Supreme Court case loads.
• Ethical issues: Insightful discussions give students experience in grappling with real-world dilemmas such as new ethical issues on student loans. The text highlights complex issues with real examples such as PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Russian tax agency illustration of how complex the decision to do business in another country can be--far beyond the simplistic "to bribe or not to bribe" issue. Also, students are asked to evaluate the conduct of Qualcomm when it did not turn over 200 emails that revealed its failure to honor an industry agreement on raising infringement issues.

Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction to Law.

1. Introduction to Law.
2. Business Ethics and Social Responsibility.
3. The Court System and Dispute Resolution.
4. Business and the Constitution.

Part II: Introduction to The Legal Environment of Business.

5. Administrative Law.
6. International Law.
7. Business Crime.
8. Business Torts.
9. Product Liability.

Part III: The Legal Environment of Business Operations.

10. Contract and Sales: Formation.
11. Contracts and Sales: Performance and Remedies.
12. Financing of Sales and Leases: Credit and Disclosure Requirements.
13. Forms of Doing Business.
14. Securities Law.
15. Business Property.

Part IV: The Legal Environment of Business Relationships.

16. Trade Practices: Antitrust.
17. Management and Employee Rights and Laws.
18. Employment Discrimination.
19. Environmental Regulation.