Ethical and Cultural Issues Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ethical and Cultural Issues - Essay Example Many people tend to believe that business is business and it is about standardized business practices that happen to be same around the world. They think that the relevance of culture in business is overrated. However, nothing could be far from the truth. The thing that needs to be understood is that every business system happens to evolve around a culture and is significantly influenced by the cultural norms and beliefs (Johnson & Turner, 2007). Thereby while undertaking business operations in foreign nations, it is quiet feasible to offend people from a different business culture, without even intending to actually do so. Yet, it is also a fact that even if one agrees to the fact that business systems do get influenced by culture, it is difficult to ascertain as to how much one should know about a culture while engaging in business with it. There is no definite answer. Certainly, cultural knowhow is important, yet more important is the attitude of the managers managing business in a foreign culture (Johnson & Turner, 2007). ... A manager working in a foreign culture also needs to retain an attitude that is caring about the society in which one operates. For instance while doing business in China, a manager needs to remember that the Chinese society is highly shaped and moulded by traditional Confucian values that affiliate to a strict sense of propriety and norms (Alon, 2007). It is these norms and values that determine as to how a person ought to operate, act and behave while dealing with a range of social hierarchies. In addition, it is a fact that the Chinese tend to maintain little separation between their business life and personal life, and each business decision tends to have a personal context (Alon, 2007). One important thing to be understood is that the concepts of ‘mianzi’ and ‘guanxi’ happen to highly influence the business ethics in China. Guanxi happens to be a system of business connections, contacts, networks and relations that is really complex and deeply imbedded (Alon, 2007). These connections are formed over decades and happen to run deep. Mianzi is affiliated to the concept of face and in a broader term it could be interpreted as a concern for one’s personal self respect and self respect of the others (Alon, 2007). Hence, while dealing with ethical issues in China a manager always needs to remember that no concern for ethics may supersede the notions of guanxi and mianzi. The Chinese notion of ethics is flexible in the sense that while deciding about ethics it does tends to show consideration for personal relationships and the onus of allowing others to save their sense of face, even if it involves somewhat

Intellectual property law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Intellectual property law - Essay Example With regards to a brief of this situation, it can be said that Trevor who was working as a laboratory assistant in the University of East shire’s Chemistry Department and his work involves assisting the PhD students in their experiments and also running the laboratory. Officially no project has been assigned to him, but the Head of the Department of Chemistry has permitted him to do research tasks if he intends to provided that they do not interfere with his routine tasks and responsibilities at the Department. An important fact of this case was that Trevor worked over the weekend beyond office hours with a PhD student into developing a cure for common cold. Since the student developed common cold, Trevor considers developing a cure for her problem. The student is working on a particular compound and Trevor decides to add the compound Millenniumium (Mil) to that compound. Mil is usually used to treat tropical diseases and in the past according to the author, the use of it for treating common cold has not been obvious to any body reasonably skilled in the art. Trevor immediately tests out the drug on his friend, and to his surprise the drug cures the common cold. Trevor immediately reports the invention to his boss the Head of the Department, who applies for a patent but does not put Trevor’s name in the application form. The head of the department does not offer credit Trevor. The facts of the other issues are that a professor from another rival university claims that Trevor’s invention may be obvious to a person skilled in the art and would not pass the non-obviousness test. The professor from the other university suggests that Trevor’s invention may have been found out by another person at some time as a lot of random testing had been going on with drugs. Trevor’s rights over the invention It may be difficult to ascertain the rights that Trevor would be having, but important facts of the case are that:- Trevor was the actual inventor of the drug combination containing Mil Trevor was using the resources of the university to test out the drug and develop the same Trevor was given permission by his HOD to carry out a research project he wanted provided that it did not interfere with his work in the organisation Trevor conducted the work beyond his work timings and hence it was not interfering with his work There were no efforts put by his HOD in developing the proposed combination of drugs that could be considered for the patent. Under Section 10(1), 10(2), 10(3) and 10(4) of the Patent Rules 2007, the Mention of the Inventor has been included. Under section 10(1), if the inventor has not been mentioned in the patent application, he/she has to be mentioned in the appendix or erratum. Under Section 10(2), if the inventor has not been mentioned, he can apply before the comptroller of Patents. Under Section 7(1) of the Patent Act 1997, there is a mention that any person can apply for a patent either alone or jointly. Under 7(2) it has been mentioned that person would include not only individuals but also corporate bodies including universities. The patent may be granted either to the inventor, joint inventor or to the successor/s of the inventor or inventors. Under section 7.06, the inventor has primarily the right to grant the invention to any person but this law may be overridden by legally enforceable