Roles & Functions Of Law
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Role and Functions of Law
With todays business practice stretching across the contents, it is a vital necessity for firms and organizations whether they are nonprofit organizations, large corporations, or even a small mom and pop store to have an understanding of the laws that govern them. This paper will discuss the business decisions requiring such understanding. The different areas of law include but are not limited to, antitrust, contracts, employment, securities regulation and many other areas of law.
In an effort to prevent failure and to regulate business, the government frames various laws. The governments role in helping regulate the way business is conducted may include:
Determination of the conditions under which individuals or groups would be permitted to enter certain lines of business or avail of public facilities and scarce resources.
Regulating the conduct of Industrial or business through legislation.
Regulating the relationship between different segments or interest groups in the economy to protect legal rights.
Many different agencies on local and national levels help to regulate business practices. In the State of Oklahoma, there is the Oklahoma Tax Commission; they regulate such information as state withholding, sales tax and tourism tax and many other type of taxes. In addition, in Oklahoma there is the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission, which regulates the state unemployment. On a national level, there is the Internal Revue Service, which regulates federal withholding and federal unemployment.
By providing framework for the industries and private sectors, it allows economic development, structural change and social welfare. It sets priorities such as defense and utilities and allocates scarce resources accordingly.
Law is also required to enforce business ethics. Following are a list of ethics that need to be considered:
Environment
Community Relations
Employee Relations
Shareholders
Customer relations
Non-U.S. stakeholders
Minorities and Women
Environment looks at positive programs in place such as pollution reduction, recycling, and energy-saving measures; as well as negative measures such as level of pollutants, EPA citations, fines, lawsuits, and other measures.
Community relations looks at philanthropy, any foundation the company has community service projects, educational outreach, scholarships, employee volunteerism, and so forth.
Employee relations looks at wages relative to the industry, benefits paid, family-friendly policies, parental leave; team management, employee empowerment, and so forth.
Minorities and Women look at percent of minority and women among employees, managers, and board members; any EEOC complaints; diversity programs in place; lawsuits, and so forth.
Customer relations