I have been using parts of this book in multiple classes where I teach using OER. I use some of the foundation chapters in my "Introduction to Legal Studies" class and I use more advanced chapters in my "Business Organizations for Paralegal" Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less. I use some of the foundation chapters in my "Introduction to Legal Studies" class and I use more advanced chapters in my "Business Organizations for Paralegal" course. I like this book because it offers a very comprehensive coverage of each topic.
I really appreciate the cases and exercises that come at the end of the chapters, which I often use as well. I like the interface and the way the book is laid out. I can links to particular chapters without sharing the entire book. This book can be used in different ways - either in its entirety in a Business Law class where the instructor would still have to pick and choose the material to cover or, as I have done, use individual chapters in a OER class where materials from various sources are used throughout the semester.
Appropriately comprehensive for a lower undergraduate course in the subject. One noticeable omission is any serious discussion of intellectual property issues patent, trademark and copyright each of which likely merit a section of their own in a Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less. One noticeable omission is any serious discussion of intellectual property issues patent, trademark and copyright each of which likely merit a section of their own in a text like this. As a broad based overview of the subject, the book is accurate throughout.
It largely avoids delving into nuanced concepts, or applications of law specific to limited jurisdictions, areas likely to be volatile. An instructor should expect to supplement materials with information that is relevant for jurisdictions they are teaching in, or significant recent developments.
Content deals largely with broad principles of business law, and avoids treatments of specific cases or rulings. As such it is likely to remain relevant. Since the book is organized into discrete topic units, content areas requiring updates can be easily updated. Prose is straightforward, suitably readable for a lower undergraduate course. New terminology is defined, and examples are frequently provided.
Book is made up of 32 chapters, each on a discrete topic. Within each chapter are sections that are prefaced by a "Learning Takeaways: summary, and conclude with "Key Takeaways" and exercises. As such this book could easily be used in a course that was a broad overview at an undergraduate level of business law, or as a text that was a smaller in-depth look at particular topics.
Individual sections would be excellent supplementary materials for other courses, where relevant, as well. Chapter Employment Law in an HR course, or chapters 20 to 23 on business entity choices in a general business course for example.
The only odd choice made by the other was to place the chapters dealing business entity types in the middle of the text. Given that so many other topics stem from this, it would seem to be more logical and intuitive to place this as one of the earliest matters discussed. Note that the pdf version does not have a table of contents included.
The cited case law serves the basic purpose of a first-level survey course: it provides an historical context and tracks the consistency of or changes made up to the early 21st Century. But, again, instructors will need to update the law with contemporary cases and statutes. For example, while the content on Alternative Dispute Resolution Chapter 3 clearly delineates the options available there is no reference to the Supreme Court ruling that companies can use arbitration clauses in employment contracts to prohibit workers from banding together to take legal action over workplace issues — an important business law issue!
The text will easily guide a layperson through a survey of the law. However, by the end of the chapter, a student may be overwhelmed by this first introduction to the language of law. The text would be easily and readily divisible to focus on a particular course of study on the discrete aspects of business law that can be reasonably studied in a 16 or fewer week course of study.
Students are first introduced to the organizational structure of the U. They are then well positioned to understand the confines of and freedoms available for the application of the law. I would, however, realign two topics: Agency Chapters should be immediately followed by Employment Law Chapters as the latter is a natural subset of the former.
Also, Chapter 53, Contracts, replicates the comprehensive devotion of 12 earlier chapters to contract law and the UCC Chapters Technically, there were no problems with the links and the charts were clear. However, the learning experience would be significantly enhanced by the addition of more detailed charts summarizing the narrative.
Generally, the presentation of law is inclusive, particularly with the introductory worldwide examples of legal and political systems, and inoffensive. There is, however, some bias in the historical review of civil rights law Chapter The text is comprehensive and covers the broad topic of business law. Only one area would require supplementation for my course, that is professional responsibility and ethics, and typically the area of "Accountant's legal liability" As the Only one area would require supplementation for my course, that is professional responsibility and ethics, and typically the area of "Accountant's legal liability" As the course targets accounting students with the intent of taking the CPA exam, a section of accountant's legal liability and professional ethics would require supplementation.
As most business law books on the market do not include this, I think it is fair to state the book is comprehensive and comparable to most texts available for our students through the various publishers. Text was accurate and I did not find it to be biased. Any errors were minimal, i.
I am reviewing in , the copyright is It did not seem dated or lacking in content, but I do wonder when it might be updated. Many great examples were given, the points were made quickly and succinctly. Law books necessarily contain a lot of jargon, but it was well explained in laymen's terms. The book was consistent in terminology and framework; , and authors were able to get major points across without excessive wording on a consistent basis.
Book feels like it can be assembled in a different order and without inclusion of all chapters to meet my needs in the course I would consider this book for. Topics are presented in a typical order for business law.
The flow is clear and logical and well organized. The text is free of distortion. I think more visual stimulation in various forms might be good for a dry topic like business law. It gets the job done, however. I was pleasantly surprised to find an open textbook that was worthy of adoption for a business law class in our School of Management.
I had been skeptical about the quality of open texts, but was surprised to find materials that could be used and would save students a great deal of money. It was on par with many of the expensive texts that I have used in the past or used in a supplemental fashion for my level class.
I commend the authors for their hard work and commitment to creating an open textbook. I do think that the book would benefit from some form of visual design to be more stimulating. This is a topic that is not a real "page turner" and getting students to read is a challenge. I would like to experiment and see if students can see the value of the open text. I will need to see how I as a faculty can deal with the ancillaries or without the ancillaries that I am used to having with typical publisher textbooks.
The book provides an extensive overview of many if not most of the relevant issues that would arise in the business law context. In fact, due to the comprehensive nature of the book, some of the chapters may in fact be redundant and could be In fact, due to the comprehensive nature of the book, some of the chapters may in fact be redundant and could be streamlined for instance, many of the issues that arise in Chapters relating to agreements, assent and, consideration, could also be covered within the context of Chapter 53 — Contracts.
One drawback is that the textbook does not appear to have an index of any kind, which could be a significant drawback, particularly for those students who have no prior familiarity with either business or legal issues. Perhaps, in the future, the authors would consider maintaining the key terms but then hyperlinking those terms back to a glossary or vice versa.
The book also seems to place the right amount of emphasis on the subjects that business students would encounter more in their field — so there is a significant amount of information on corporate law and less information devoted to criminal law. Although I am not an expert on every aspect of the legal environment, it seems that all of the information presented is accurate. In those areas in which I have a specific expertise business and securities laws the information seems to be error-fee and accurate.
In addition, the information was presented in an objective way with no errors detected. One thing that I would like the book to have included more often is relevant discussions regarding the ethics of a particular situation. While the book does include a chapter on ethics as well as having small discussion of ethics within some of the chapters given the relevance of ethics to the average business graduate, I would have liked to have seen more ethics discussion relating back to that foundational chapter in each of the sections — as well as more self-test and exercises that cover them.
The book seems largely relevant. The challenge in a textbook of this magnitude is that the law, as a dynamic entity changes very quickly. For instance, in the chapter on securities regulation, there have been significant developments in the areas of crowdfunding that would be of particular interest to business students.
Since these occurred after , the book does not mention those. Similarly, there have been a big development in the law regarding hybrid businesses — specifically with the rise of benefit corporations and, to a lesser extent LC3s. The book mentions neither of these developments although these were occurring during the original date of publication.
As such, a select update for certain aspects rather than a complete new edition would be recommended. The tone of the book is perfect for the type of student that will be using it. The writing is clear. Complicated, technical concepts are explained in such a way that even those students with little background or familiarity can cover the information.
The hyperlink to glossary terms and definitions adds to the clarity although it is unclear whether that feature would also be available in the PDF version and allows readers to familiarize themselves with concepts without disrupting the overall flows of the book.
The text is internally consistent in terms of terminology and framework. The same format is used throughout- for instance the sections are organized the same way. Exercises and self-tests are also consistent throughout. The textbook does an excellent job of allowing the different sections to be mixed and matched in a way that helps instructors. In addition, the sections within a chapter are presented in such a way that is not overwhelming for the reader.
The organization of the book is generally easy to understand. It is confusing that there are two separate sections with several chapters in between that both discuss contracts. This could easily have rectified by the authors by moving contracts topics all to the same section or for the instructor by assigning those chapters all at the same time. The interface is largely appropriate for a book presented in this medium.
All charts and textbox are clear and undistorted. The textbook authors have hyperlinks to appropriate forms, terms and organizations. They also include self-tests that benefit the students. Given the digital medium of the book, I do feel that there were other opportunities that the authors could have taken advantage of for the benefit of the student for instance, by having more interactive components — perhaps with the self-tests or the learning objectives however, the content and method of interface as it stands now is perfectly adequate.
The book is written in a culturally relevant and sensitive way. For instance, the authors, when discussing separatist issues in the chapter on international law use examples from North America whereas many other resources would use examples from less develop countries. The exercises presented in the book seem to be presented in a largely cultural neutral way in that the authors discuss hypotheticals using many different gender roles, geographical locations and ethnic appellations — showing the diversity that is present in business and law issues.
I think the book does an excellent job of presenting the material related to business students and the law in a clear and comprehensive fashion. I would consider adopting this book for my students. Our goal is to provide students with a textbook that is up to date and comprehensive in its coverage of legal and regulatory issues—and organized to permit instructors to tailor the materials to their particular approach.
This book engages students by relating law to everyday events with which they are already familiar or with which they are familiarizing themselves in other business courses and by its clear, concise, and readable style. This textbook provides context and essential concepts across the entire range of legal issues with which managers and business executives must grapple.
The text provides the vocabulary and legal acumen necessary for businesspeople to talk in an educated way to their customers, employees, suppliers, government officials—and to their own lawyers. Don Mayer teaches law, ethics, public policy, and sustainability at the Daniels College of Business, University of Denver, where he is professor in residence. His research focuses on the role of business in creating a more just, sustainable, peaceful, and productive world.
Daniel M. Warner is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Washington, where—following military service—he also attended law school. In , after several years of civil practice, he joined the faculty at the College of Business and Economics at Western Washington University, where he is now a professor of business legal studies in the Accounting Department.
He has served on the Faculty Senate and on various university and college committees, including as chairman of the University Master Plan Committee. Professor Warner has also been active in state bar association committee work and in local politics, where he has served on numerous boards and commissions for over thirty years.
George J. Recent publications focus on proactive law and the use of law to gain competitive advantage. His work in progress includes research on the impact of litigation on large corporations and the use of electronic communication as evidence in litigation.
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