Week Two
Intellectual property – including trade secrets, patents, copyrights and trademarks, are a key component in my business. Clients consult us and hire us to promote their products and services. Information regarding new products, unique formulas and other trade secrets are entrusted to us and many clients require the agency to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to protect their proprietary information. Our employees are also bound by this non-disclosure agreement – even if they would leave the company. Clients must feel their information is safe, protected and respected. When I worked at The Hershey Company, vendors were required to sign an NDA before even talking to employees about their services. This protected the employee from inadvertently sharing too much during a meeting and allowed the vendors to fully assess our needs and offer a proposal of their services that addressed specific needs. Interestingly, the Hershey NDA Hershey required was a one-way document. Many vendors requested Hershey to sign a reciprocal NDA and/or make changes or amendments to the document. In my three years at Hershey, every request for a reciprocal NDA was declined and I only saw one change approved by the legal department.
Trademarks are also an important part of the day-to-day operations of my business. Special consideration to the appropriate use of trademarks and copyrights is needed when creating advertising and articles for publication in print and online. If hired to create a logo or corporate identity, our agency must make sure that a trademark is “sufficiently distinct to enable consumers to identify the manufacture of the goods easily and distinguish between those goods and competing products” (Clarkson, Miller, & Cr...
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... wire fraud. Of course, any organization that accepts payment is open to embezzlement by a ‘resourceful’ accountant or accounts receivables employee.
While there is no way to prevent any of these crimes entirely, leading by an ethical example without a sliding scale sets a precedence that any unethical, let alone illegal, act will not be tolerated. As mentioned, background checks and pre-employment agreements would also assist in reducing any illegal acts. Regular ethical training, I believe is necessary to deter the “I didn’t know” excuse on illegal or ethical behavior. New employees should be reviewed after 30 days, 90 days and then on an annual basis – unless there are behavioral or performance-related issued requiring follow-up.
Works Cited
Clarkson, K. W., Miller, R. L., & Cross, F. B. (2012). Business Law: Text & Cases (12 ed.). Mason, Ohio: Cengage.
Miller, R. L., and Hollowell, W. E. (2006). 2007 Business law and legal environment texts. Mason, OH: West Legal Studies in Business.
Moran, J. J. (2008). Employment law: New challenges in the business environment. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Schmitz, A. (2012). The Legal Environment and Business Law (Executive M.B.A. Edition v. 1.10 ed.). [Adobe PDF]. Retrieved from
McAdams, T., Neslund, N., & Zucker K.D. (2009). Law, Business, and Society (9th ed). New
In an age where instant access to information has influenced the privacy workplace model, which once prevails over what were inalienable assumptions of privacy is no longer a certainty in the workplace. Some companies require employees to sign confidentiality agreement to protect their patents, formulas, and processes. There are instances where companies dictate a “no compete” clause in their hiring practices, to prevent an employee from working for competitors for typically two years without legal implications. While these examples represent extents, employers go to protect their company’s privacy; companies do not go to that extent to protect the privacy of their employees.
Within a company, illegal practices can be seen by many as the “in thing” and the people working within that environment may not see what they are doing as morally wrong. The issue of the lack of media coverage of these types of crimes must also not be overlooked.
Miller, R. L., & Hollowell, W. E. (2011). Business Law: Text & Exercises 6th Edition. In R. L. Miller, & W. E. Hollowell, Business Law: Text & Exercises 6th Edition (pp. 22-23). Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Mallor, et. al. "Business Law and the Regulatory Environment", 11th edition, Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001
Twomey, D. P., Jennings, M., & Anderson, R. A. (2011) Anderson’s business law and the legal
Bennett-Alexander, D.; Hartman, L (2012) Employment Law for Business 7th Edition. New York, NY. McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2013). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases: 2011 custom edition (9th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
As the boys spent more time on the island they began to show more beast like behaviors as time went on and the behaviors started small then start to intensify as time went on. It started with them simply undressing and running around the island nearly naked then slowly escalated into the boys stealing from each other. Such as how “Jack snatched the glasses off” Piggy’s face without asking showing how uncivilized the boys were and how different they treated each other compared to when they were civilized in England (Golding 40). Then this behavior was followed by how they did not listen to what others had to say like how the boys repeatedly told Piggy to “shut up” (44).Closely following behind was the uncivilized behavior of how “they just scattered everywhere” and “ran away” without thinking everything through like a person with civilized behavior would do (46).Then the boys begin to ignore the rules they came up with as a group like where to use the bathroom and where to bath. But most importantly by doing this they ignored their leaders and hierarchy even though they were getting advice about the best things to do to survive which shows how in England they would follow what the adults in charge and leaders say.
Roberts, Barry S., and Richard A. Mann. "Essentials of Business Law and the Legal Environment" SouthWestern; 9th edition, 2006.
This week for me was a stanch contrast to last week. God truly moved in ALL that I sought to accomplish. His divine hand guided me in all my endeavors. The reading this week paralleled my sentiments, regarding God, and going back to square one, which simply is the “word God.” And that’s exactly what I did this week, I went back to the basics.
Barnes, J., Dworkin, T., & Richards, E. (2011). Law for business (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.