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Legal environment: laws, statutes, regulations
Laws, Statutes, Regulations Description Examples Frameworks Frameworks
Laws differ from ethical principles and concepts in that laws prescribe the minimally moral while ethical principles and concepts routinely explore higher moral "spaces." Criminal Law : Applies to individuals; interested party in a criminal trial is society, not the victim. Civil Law : Torts concern wrongful injury. The objective of a tort is to make the victim "while" after an injury. US and British law work through a common law system where current decisions are based on past decisions or precedent.
Ethical principles challenge and criticize laws by bringing into question their normative content. Involves proving a mens rea (guilty mind) and actus reus (guilty or law-breaking act) and that the mens rea caused the actus reus. To prevail in a tort one ust prove (in order of severity) negligence, recklessness, or intent. The Puerto Rican system of law is based on the Napoleonic code where decisions relate directly to existing law and statute and precedent plays a weaker role.
Laws can challenge ethical principles and concepts by raising issues of practicality. Also, as in responsibility theory, the law can structure and inform the moral discussion. Criminal law does not apply to corporations because they "have no soul to damn and no body to kick" Baron Thurlow Negligence involves proving that the defendant failed to meet some standard of due care . Question: How does the statute-based Napoleonic system in PR constrain and enable business practice in relation to other systems such as the British and American common law systems?
Contract law concerns the violation of the terms of a contract.
Market environment
Market Environment Description Examples Frameworks Frameworks
Business takes place within different markets that shape supply, demand, and price. Globalization frequently requires that a business be adept at operating across different markets Laissez Faire : Each economic unit makes choice based on rational (enlightened) self-interest. (Private ownership of goods.) Assumptions of a Free Market System : (a) Individual decisions are aggregated. (b) Information flows through price structure. Recent economic studies of the limits of laissez faire markets :
Liberal use made here of notes from Economics class taught by CR Winegardner, University of Toledo, 1971-1972 Liberal Democratic Socialism : Limited government intervention is needed to improve upon the choice of individual economic units. (Mixture of private and public ownership) (c) Free association. (d) Absence of force or fraud. (e) Individual agents are rational utility maximizer (a) Information Asymmetries (as studied by Stiegliz). (b) Monopolies which, in the absence of competition, can dictate standards of price, product and service.
Materials also take from Natural Capitalism from Lovins and Hawkings. Communist, Authoritarian Socialism : The state is in the best position to know what choices and policies are beneficial for the economy as a whole and its component parts. (Public ownership of goods and services) (f) Governments should adopt a hands-off stance because interference disrupts the ability of markets to produce utility-maximizing conditions.(4,4) Animal spirits deflect economic decision-making away from perfect utility maximizing. They include confidence, fairness, corruption, money illusion, and stories.(4,5)
(5,1) (5,2) (5,3) (5,4) Ghoshal: bad management theories are destroying good mangement practices as they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Ghoshal is especially critical of agency theory, compliance/punitive approaches to corporate governance, and the theory of human nature he calls "Homo Economicus."(5,5)

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Source:  OpenStax, Professional ethics in engineering. OpenStax CNX. Aug 29, 2013 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10399/1.4
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