Project Guidelines

Overview

The second part of the final project for this course is the creation of a memorandum.

Legal situations arise frequently in everyday business practice, but the assessment of the key issues is not always clear. A working understanding of essential business law concepts is critical for the successful navigation of complex and diverse business environments. Successfully addressing real-world situations will sharpen your skills in spotting issues, identifying vulnerabilities that you may face as a member of the corporate world, and becoming more sensitive to legal dilemmas that commonly arise in business.

For your two-part summative assessment, you will be preparing two professional business memorandums related to the application of business law in specific hypothetical scenarios. For Final Project Part II, you will prepare a five-page professional memorandum for your supervisor in a hypothetical U.S. corporation that is considering doing business overseas. Your findings and critical assessment of the cases will help shape the approach of corporate stakeholders to the legal matters raised, including each company's response to each situation.

The project is divided into one milestone, which will be submitted before Final Project Part II to scaffold learning and ensure quality final submissions. This milestone will be submitted in Module Seven. The final submission for Final Project Part II will be submitted in Module Ten.

In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:

• Assess the impact of business law on organizational decision making for informing strategic legal decisions
• Analyze pertinent facts of business client cases by effectively employing foundational law principles
• Select key legislation and legal precedents that impact client cases for informing legal decisions
• Assess the impact of public perception on companies in legal situations for informing business practices
• Assess the legal and ethical implications of United States companies doing business abroad for informing business decisions that are compliant with applicable domestic laws

Prompt

For the second part of your summative assessment, you will assume the role of an employee at a fictional company and prepare an executive memo pertaining to the legal and ethical implications of a company doing business internationally.

Scenario

You are working for a major U.S. corporation that wants to expand its reach globally and has narrowed the search to either Mexico or Japan. Your supervisor has asked you to prepare a memo that analyzes potential compliance issues with respect to aspects of law and ethics that are specific to one of the two countries.

You will choose to prepare your memo for either Mexico or Japan and address the critical elements below. This will help inform the final executive decision.

Because you have some fluency with domestic laws, and given your background and history with the corporation, you have been asked to assess the pros and cons of the decision, and to provide your insights with respect to the ethical and legal implications of the expansion.

Specifically, the following critical elements must be addressed:

I. What pertinent aspects of U.S. law should the company be aware of in its goal to do business internationally?
II. Assess the legal implications of moving business abroad specific to your chosen country. What are the advantages and disadvantages?
III. What are the ethical implications involved in this business decision?
IV. Explain how other domestic companies have managed to comply with the U.S. laws related to this business decision in the past. How did these companies address potential compliance issues?

Milestone One: Outline of Memorandum

In Module Seven, you will submit an outline of your memorandum highlighting the following concepts: What pertinent aspects of U.S. law should the company be aware of in its goal to do business internationally? Assess the legal implications of moving business abroad specific to each country. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? What are the ethical implications involved in this business decision? Explain how other domestic companies have managed to comply with the U.S. laws related to this business decision in the past. How did these companies address potential compliance issues? The milestone should be completed using the provided Outline Template.

Project: Milestone: Outline Template

Prompt: Use this template to complete your outline for Milestone One of Final Project Part II. Add or delete letters as needed to complete each question. An outline does not always use complete sentences and does not need to be detailed. Generally speaking, the best memos include references to at least two cases for each point of law that is mentioned. You also earn high marks when you cite cases that appear to support a different legal resolution than the one presented, and then distinguish that case from the scenario described in this assignment.

I. What pertinent aspects of U.S. law should the company be aware of in its goal to do business internationally?

II. Assess the legal implications of moving business abroad specific to each country. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

III. What are the ethical implications involved in this business decision?

IV. Explain how other domestic companies have managed to comply with the U.S. laws related to this business decision in the past.

V. How did these companies address potential compliance issues?