Legal and ethical dimensions of business in society

Business, Law and Ethics

Business Law

The ethical and legal concepts of a business are normally intertwined. Government put in place effective regulations which necessitate gathering information. When regulatory needs conflict with principles obtained the constitution, ethical and legal needs are raised. Legal strategies nowadays include legal, compliant programs that help institutions to be competitive. Different businesses have one goal of attaining profits, but in the process they should consider different legal issues and ethics required in a business. The literature below is a discussion of law and society article that focuses on dispute resolution system in the context of consumer protection laws in the organizations. The study expands on how organizational governance influences the law.

Rise of governance in private organizations is a matter which has had constant debate. By creating a disclosure of ethics and policies, governance boards, organizations, reporting, systems and private governance can adopt a significant amount of rulemaking, application, sanctioning and interpretation within their own domain. Different organizational structures like alternate dispute resolution and internal grievance have risen, hence enabling dispute resolution without involving the courts (Samuel, 2004). Internal grievance and dispute resolution are operated by private sectors, which help to resolve consumer, and other parties like shareholders and employees grievances. It is well established that aggrieved parties adjudicate for the alternate resolution system, but there is remarkably little research, which addresses the process, which law is constructed through different organizational structures. This implies that the resolution structure affects the meaning and implementation of the law. Following complaints by consumers in 1970's, about manufacturers who failed to issue warranties for consumer products; the fifty states passed consumer lemon laws which afforded consumers powerful remedies and rights.

California and Vermont represent two distinct extremes on how disputes are resolved under the lemon laws. Vermont consumer disputes are resolved a dispute resolution structure operated by the state only. California has lemon laws, which provide that, disputes should be resolved by forums operated by external third parties and funded by automobile manufacturers. The two dispute resolution structures give different meanings to the same lemon laws. This shows how business and managerial values influence construction of law and compliance in organizations. The study in the article shows how dispute resolution structures and shapes business and managerial values that influence the law, and consequently how repeat players are advantaged. The comparative analysis shows processes or mechanisms which shapes the meaning or conditions of law. The article further shows that organizational self-governance, in service delivery and benefits of the society; can potentially undermine the rights of social have-nots. This shows that privatization of dispute resolution by organizations will undermine adjudication of public and legal rights (Shauhim, 2012).

The laws encouraged manufacturers to make safe products and stand behind warranties issued to consumers. If the manufacturers could not accomplish their warranties, the consumers could seek full restitution or product replacement. Over time, consumers ability to claim for remedies have become contingent, and the structures have become institutionalized; hence organizations moved the structures out of their institutions and contracted third parties. In the fifty states, these third party resolution processes have been codified into law.

According to the article, different organizations have different values hence difference in value emphases, which will gain, advantage for the organization. Large organizations are the repeat players that impede social reforms, and shape the development of law through the legal process; by playing rules that are favorable to them or promote their interests. The study of institutional organizational sociology shows that managerial values shape the way institutions respond to law and compliance. This causes marginalization in law because there is a difference in understanding of compliance, legality, and law. Different business conceptions of law dissociate the meaning of law, and it is interpreted differently leading to unlawful factors that undermine the law; an excellent example is when sexual harassment claims are transformed to personality conflicts. The private institutionalization, therefore, protect organizations from legal liability while limiting laws impact on managerial power.

Repeat players devote little time researching on alternative dispute resolution that shapes the meaning of law; this facilitates further repeat player advantage. Vermont uses collaborative justice systems that balance the dispute resolution structure; this is achieved by a model that balances various stakeholder values. This ensures that repeat player advantage does not exist at the expense of consumer, interests, unlike in California. The difference in adjudication in both states inhibits and facilitates the conditions to which the organizations are less or more likely to flow into the law.

Recommendations

Although sometimes the alternative dispute resolution systems can be unfair to other stakeholders others like, the employees can use strikes to ensure enforcement of their rights. Despite the presence of different dispute resolution systems, there should be rights-based system which ensures abuses and problems of the systems are corrected (Charles, and Scott, 2012). Interest-based dispute resolution systems can be utilized as a substitute because they were established as alternatives to the right-based systems. There should be the formation of dispute solving systems which are based on changing organizational culture and employee attitudes. Dispute resolution systems should be properly examined to ensure that there is a dispute design which has a purpose, deliberate and conscious planning in the organizational alternate dispute resolution systems. Different organizations should implement sub-systems of organizational management policy which ensures that all parties' interests and roles are well defined. There should also be measurement and evaluation in the dispute design process because they are fundamental concepts, which are overlooked, yet they have a positive return value. In the process, most importantly all stakeholders should be involved to ensure that an interest-based model can be formed (William and Kiliaan, 2003).

Conclusion

Alternate dispute resolution systems are advantageous, because they are alternative to the law, and help in solving many disputes that arise in the organizations. These disputes take time, and the courts cannot effectively deal with them. The employee satisfaction, performance and loyalty, are attributed to the alternate resolution systems that offer employee satisfaction. Hence the alternate dispute resolution policies should effectively focus on all stakeholders in the drafting process, in organizations. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) can as policy guidelines in the arbitration process in employment disputes. In the alternative dispute resolution procedures, other labor laws and employment policies can be combined to ensure that they promote public law.