Business Law, Ethics, and Sustainability

Reviewed by Amy Hummel, Visiting Lecturer, Framingham State University on 6/24/25

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The book seems relatively comprehensive. It does not include environmental, real property or intellectual property topics, which are often included in Business Law or Legal Environment texts; however, for a semester long, undergraduate business student, the index and materials are sufficient/appropriate.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Overall, the content appears to be accurate and error free. I did not encounter any areas of concern regarding accuracy.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The textbook is a recent (2023) legal environment OER, which is useful as legal examples and cultural references that are more likely to resonate with students in 2025 are present.

Clarity rating: 4

Overall the text is clear and explains concepts well. There are exceptions. For example, the following quote in Section 3.1 : "Although it is sometimes said that there are two separate court systems, the reality is more complex. There are, in fact, fifty-two court systems: those of the fifty states, the local court system in the District of Columbia, and the federal court system" seeks to provide clarity, but may add to student confusion. To be fair, the textbook continues and provides more detail regarding the differences between the state and federal court systems, but this provocative introductory quote may create unnecessary confusion for undergraduate students unfamiliar with the court systems.

Consistency rating: 4

The content throughout the text seems reasonably consistent and accessible, although students unfamiliar with the law and who are more interested in business than law and philosophy may find the section on Schools of Legal Thought (Section 2.2 on page 28) a bit more heady than the majority of the material in the text.

The authors efforts to provide explanations of legal terms in each section is very useful.

Modularity rating: 5

The material in the textbook is chunked into clear and logical sections within each chapter. The material in each seems even in it's depth and breadth as a general rule. The ability to view and jump to subsections may be a useful technical add to consider.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Overall the flow of the text mirrors that of the traditional information building blocks in many legal environment or business law textbooks.

Interface rating: 5

The text includes a useful links from the table of contents to the correlating materials, some helpful graphics and a few charts that illustrate/interpret written content effectively.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

There were no outstanding grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Nothing appeared to be culturally inappropriate or insensitive. The Latin root "rectum" seemed ill placed in section 9.1.1 Definition of a Tort. It may be academically correct, but arguably unnecessary given the audience (undergraduate business students), distracting from the definition and explanation.

The learning objectives and key takeaways in each section are useful and stand out graphically.

Adding test banks for the purposes of reading checks that dovetail with the material would be useful in future iterations of this shared material.