Legal Concepts in Business Environment

Task Description ________________________________________ Today’s business environment requires leaders to have competency in effective organization design and to consider legal factors that influence whether strategic goals are achieved. In this task, you will discuss legal entity types and their influence on taxation, liability, and ownership and control. You are also asked to discuss the legal and ethical obligations that an employer and employees have in a business context. Scenario ________________________________________ A local farmer and a supermarket retailer plan to enter into a business venture to open a downtown farmers market every weekend from April through October. The goal of the farmer’s market is to bring fresh organic produce to an area of the city that would not otherwise have access to organic fruits and vegetables. The retailer would like to have more decision-making authority in order to control the marketing and ownership of the warehouse space that will host the farmer’s market. The local farmer is concerned about the financial impact of having a primary stake in ownership because excessive rain in the past two seasons resulted in decreased profits. The retailer has proposed they include outside investors in order to have access to capital and expertise that will help create distribution efficiencies. The local farmer would like to limit outside investors and external decision-making influence in the business. The retailer has identified plans for growth and would like to start by offering the produce that the local farmer grows (20 stalls) and then double the number of stalls offered each year by adding other organic options from regional farmer’s markets to build sustainable networks. The retailer has proposed organizing the farmer’s market venture as a corporation, while the local farmer has recommended organizing as either a limited liability company or a general partnership. Two years after the retailer and local farmer established the farmer’s market, more regional farmers are providing produce every weekend. The retailer and local farmer have hired general managers with extensive experience in organic retail sales and promotion. The retailer requires that some of the managers work overtime on the first Saturday of each month so that new products can be staged and merchandised before the market opens. The retailer does not pay overtime to the managers, citing the overtime as management training that is an investment in future career development. The female managers are always the ones required to do this extra work even though they have similar levels of experience to the male managers. On the first Saturday in May, the general managers identify substandard produce that has been damaged, is not ripe, and should not be sold, and they notify the retailer. The farmers will only get paid if merchandise sells, so the retailer tells the general managers that they should display the produce so that customers will not be aware of the low quality. The retailer also suggests that if the sales are not 10% higher than last week, the general managers may not receive a full day’s wages for that Saturday. Requirements ________________________________________ You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course. A. Compare two of the proposed legal entity types for the farmer’s market venture by doing the following: 1. Describe how choosing one of the legal entity types discussed in the scenario would affect each of the following in the context of the scenario: • taxation • liability • ownership and control 2. Describe how choosing a different one of the legal entity types discussed in the scenario would affect each of the following in the context of the scenario: • taxation • liability • ownership and control B. Describe legal and ethical obligations that an employer has in the scenario by doing the following: 1. Describe a legal obligation that an employer has in the scenario, based on one of the following laws: • Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) • Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 2. Describe an ethical obligation an employer has in the scenario that is different from the legal obligation described in part B1. C. Describe one ethical obligation an employee has in the scenario. D. Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized. E. Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission. File Restrictions File name may contain only letters, numbers, spaces, and these symbols: ! – _ . * ‘ ( ) File size limit: 200 MB File types allowed: doc, docx, rtf, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, odt, pdf, txt, qt, mov, mpg, avi, mp3, wav, mp4, wma, flv, asf, mpeg, wmv, m4v, svg, tif, tiff, jpeg, jpg, gif, png, zip, rar, tar, 7z