BA 513: The Essence of Business - Business Legal Environment

Syllabus

INSTRUCTOR: Professor Nancy King

OFFICE PHONE: 737-3323; EMAIL: kingn@bus.oregonstate.edu

OFFICE NUMBER: Bexell #336

OFFICE HOURS: Monday - Thursdays, July 7-10 and July 14-17, 3:30-4 p.m., or by appointment.

ABOUT THIS COURSE: This course is designed for graduate students only. In addition to this syllabus, students in this class should also consult the information provided by your instructor on the Blackboard website for the course. An Assignments Schedule details lecture topics, reading assignments, quiz dates, required written work and the final exam schedule.

COURSE SCHEDULE:. This course meets four days a week (Monday-Thursday), from 1:00 to 3:20 p.m., 2.5 hours a day, for two weeks. Students who successfully complete the course earn two hours of graduate credit. The course satisfies the foundation requirement in legal environment/business law for the MBA program and is designed to be useful to students interested in acquiring a foundation in business law for their professional careers.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Provides essential legal foundation for business managers in companies operating in the U.S. Emphasizes effective strategies for managers to prevent and resolve legal disputes against companies. Topics include legal issues related to the corporate form of doing business, forming and enforcing contracts, minimizing tort liability, and retaining and managing agents such as employees and independent contractors.

MEASURABLE LEARNING OUTCOMES: Upon the successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

1) Comprehend the legal foundation for doing business in the U.S. including the common law system, sources of law and dispute resolution.

2) Critically analyze the meaning of selected judicial cases and statutes including the management implications of legal rules drawn from those cases and statutes.

3) Formulate legal and ethical management strategies to form and enforce contracts, minimize risk of tort liability, retain agents and avoid consumer protection violations.

4) Discuss the corporate entity form of doing business and appreciate the legal risks associated with managing the relationships between owners, managers and employees in a corporation.

LEARNING RESOURCES --REQUIRED MATERIALS:

Text: Frank B. Cross and Roger LeRoy Miller, West’s Legal Environment of Business (6^th ed., 2007).

Additional Reading Materials: as distributed in class or posted on Blackboard.

Blackboard Course: The blackboard site for the course taught by each instructor contains the syllabus and an Assignment Schedule and other course materials. Student grades are posted on this site.

EVALUATION OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE:

Reading Assignments: Generally the assigned reading for each class includes one or two chapters from the Cross and Miller text and/or additional assigned readings as listed on this syllabus. See Assignment Schedule posted on the Blackboard website for your section for the due dates for reading assignments. For example, the reading assignment for the first day of class is chapters 1 and 2 of the text. You are required to do the reading assignments in the text before the class for which it is assigned. Make sure you read the court opinions (“cases”) in each chapter carefully and that you understand them.

Quizzes: In addition to the assigned reading, you will have quizzes over the reading assignments and lectures. See Assignment Schedule on Blackboard for the schedule for these quizzes. Quizzes are not open book or open note.

Written Case Analysis. This assignment involves reading and analyzing a current court opinion on legal issues related to doing business in the U.S. You will be required to spot the relevant issues and analyze the legal implications for managers that relate to doing business in the U.S. Directions and other materials to complete this assignment will be given in class. You must submit your write-up of your analysis of the court opinion in a typed paper. Your work must be typed and turned in on-time for full credit. Late work will receive a lower grade -- generally the grade will be reduced one full letter grade for each partial or whole day that the work is late. You may turn in your assignment early to cover any absence that you know you may have.

All graded work for this class must be your own work. Plagiarism, copyright infringement and other forms of academic dishonesty are strictly prohibited and will be reported and addressed. The consequences for this behavior may include failure of the course and other disciplinary action. It is academic dishonesty for a student to copy and paste material from the web into the student’s paper without proper quotes or attribution to the author and source, etc. It is academic dishonesty to submit another student’s/person’s work as the student’s own work (in part or whole) or to assist another student in the process of submitting another student’s/person’s work as his or her own work. Link to Statement of Expectations for Student Conduct: http://oregonstate.edu/admin/stucon/achon.htm.

Class Participation: Class participation points will be assigned based on your participation in activities in class and class discussion. Strategies for earning class participation points will be discussed in the first class. As part of class participation, you will be expected to take responsibility for leading the discussion about one of the assigned court cases from your text that are included in your daily reading assignments.

Final Exam: The final exam is comprehensive and may test any material (lecture, text, class problems, etc.) covered in the course. The exam will be two hours long and will be given on the last day of the class as listed on the Assignments Schedule. The final exam is open book, meaning that you may use your text book while completing the final exam. You may also use one page of your own notes (8.5 x 11 inches, both sides of the paper) on the final exam. You may be asked to turn-in your notes with your final exam.

Administrative Rules for the Final Exam:

Identification for exams/rule on no electronic equipment. You are required to bring your student I.D. (with your picture) to the final exam. You are required to present your I.D. when you turn in the final exam if asked. No iPods, computers, cell phones, PDA’s, headphones or other electronic equipment are permitted in the final exam.

Exam materials are the property of the instructor and the College of Business. You will have the opportunity to review the materials and your scores after the final exam, but you will not be allowed to keep these materials.

STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY FOR ASSIGNED MATERIALS:

For all quizzes and exams, you are responsible for all materials in the text and other reading materials that are assigned, as well as lecture material, unless expressly excluded. All aspects of a chapter or other reading assignment will not necessarily be covered in class and current material outside the text will be discussed in class; consequently lecture material will be emphasized on the tests and exams. You are encouraged to be present for all classes and to take good notes.

WRITTEN PETITION FOR EXCEPTION TO SYLLABUS RULES

You may make a written petition for an exception to the syllabus rules if you have a serious emergency or other extreme circumstances that prevent you from complying with the rules in this syllabus or the Assignments Schedule. No make-ups of quizzes, missed writing assignments, class participation or the final exam will be allowed unless arranged in advance or due to an emergency or other extreme situation. The following circumstances generally are not adequate reasons to support a make-up of a missed quiz or exam, failure to participate in class or failure to submit writing assignments when due: illnesses not requiring hospitalization, doctor’s appointments, court appointments, work schedule conflicts, participation in OSU sports or other sports activities, child care problems, lateness due to over-sleeping, conflicts with class schedule and travel home for a holiday or break or travel delays upon returning to campus.

Petition format/Time to Appeal: You must make your petition in writing and state the circumstances and reasons you believe that an exception should be made for you. Include your name, email address, and class number (BA 513) and your class section number on the petition. Petitions regarding late homework or a missed quiz will not be considered unless received by your instructor within two days of the due date for the homework or quiz date. Petitions to take the final exam on a time or date different than the scheduled time and date must be made to your instructor in advance, at least one week in advance of the scheduled exam, except for emergencies, and will be granted only for extreme circumstances. You must deliver your petition to your instructor in person or by email. Do not deliver petitions to your instructor’s office, faculty services, or through the mail. If you are unable to take the final exam as scheduled for any reason other than a conflict between two or more exams, your instructor reserves the right to substitute a 10 page, double spaced, research paper on an assigned legal topic in lieu of the scheduled exam.

GRADING: The 1000 maximum possible points in the class to the following:

1.      Class Participation Points -- 10% 100

2.      Quizzes (2 at 100 points) -- 20% 200

3. Written Cases Analysis -- 20% 200

4.      Final Exam -- 50% 500

Maximum Possible Points 1000

**Unless there is a calculation error, grades are final unless questioned within one week of receiving the grade and before the last day of class.

**Course grades will be on a “+/-“ grading system.

You may calculate an estimate of your course grade at any time during the term by adding up the points you have received and determining if you have at least the minimum percentage of available points to earn the applicable grade as follows:

A >= 94% C >= 72%

A- 90% C- 70%

B+ 88% D+ 68%

B 82% D 62%

B- 80% D- 60%

C+ 78% F <=59%

DISABILITY ACCOMMODATION:

Accommodations are collaborative efforts between students, faculty and Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD). Students with accommodations approved through SSD are responsible for contacting the faculty member in charge of the course prior to or during the first week of the term to discuss accommodations. Students who believe they are eligible for accommodations but who have not yet obtained approval through SSD should contact SSD immediately at 737-4098.

Last revised: June 16, 2008