Introduction

This chapter aims to present information, the characteristics and particularities of social work in Brazil, considering its origins, history, and development, as well as the collective forms of organization of the profession, highlighting the main entities representing the professional category. Through a literature review and information collected from the web pages of organizational entities, this text presents a contextualization of Brazilian social work, taking into account its history, advancements, challenges, social recognition, professional legitimacy, and collective organization forms. It is worth considering that the organizational structure of social work in Brazil contains unique traits and elements, resulting from the country's social, cultural, political, and economic development.

It is important to highlight that the approach to social work from its inception, its institutionalization process, and its collective forms of organization and professional representation did not occur in an endogenous and decontextualized manner. To the contrary, analysing the profession in a broader societal context generates an understanding of the contradictory dynamics of social relations. As such, the profession can be situated in the totality of social life, its values, social practices, ways of life, culture, consciousness, correlation of forces, and human needs. Therefore, this text presents a brief contextualization of social work in Brazil, describing its historical progression, the setbacks, challenges, and achievements that have contributed to the profession's recognition and legitimacy.

Based on these introductory considerations, we intend to methodically present the national particularities, the ways in which social work was organized collectively, its experiences, actions, mission, and challenges.

This chapter analyses the use of non-traditional trademarks (NTTMs) in the fashion industry. With reference to selected cases in the United States, the European Union and Singapore, the authors study the arguments for and against the protection of these signs as trademarks, as well as the appropriate test for the evaluation of distinctiveness. Although some fashion designers and enterprises have celebrated victories in court, it has been widely noted that the registration and protection of these NTTMs can be problematic and potentially detrimental to innovation in the fashion industry. The authors also critically examine the different tests of ‘association’ and ‘reliance’ as discussed in recent court decisions on acquired distinctiveness of NTTMs and conclude with a recommendation that the ‘reliance’ test is the preferred test.

Luxury fashion seeks to aestheticize scarcity and transform its possession into a sign of social distinction. Intellectual property law plays a crucial role in this process. This essay considers the social function that intellectual property law may continue to play in a purportedly ‘post-scarcity’ society of the future. It asserts that though intellectual property law has long played a technologically progressive role in modern societies, its social function in such societies has been and will continue to be largely reactionary. Even in an otherwise post-scarcity society, intellectual property law will be used, as it is already being used, to preserve ‘social scarcity’ and regulate signs of social distinction.

Introduction

The Israeli Union of Social Workers (IUSW) is an interesting case of an SWPO, which functions as both a trade union and professional organization exclusively for registered social workers and that appears to differ from the SWPO structure prevalent in most other countries (Guidi 2025). Though there have been some sporadic and generally short- lived efforts to establish other SWPOs in Israel, the IUSW (which was founded in 1937) enjoys considerable support among Israeli social workers and seeks to combine worker representation with professional goals and policy advocacy. It is active in a society in which social work enjoys a relatively privileged position due to legislation that protects the profession and its fields of activity, because of the profession's longstanding position within academia, and thanks to social work's traditional role in the policy process as a source of expert knowledge in the fields of poverty and social services.

Nevertheless, the IUSW faces diverse external challenges due to the outsourcing of welfare services, which makes the recruitment of new members problematic, and the difficult working conditions for social workers within the public sector that have led to widespread attrition in the field. Internally, the IUSW is a part of the Histadrut trade union federation. While this affiliation provides a crucial source of support and leverage during struggles for improved working conditions, it also severely limits the autonomy of the IUSW with regard to its trade union and policy- related activities. In addition, the heterogeneity of social workers and the wide diversity in views and interests within the IUSW places major constraints on its capacity to reach consensus on positions regarding key social and political issues and to participate effectively in public debates concerning these issues.

We begin to draw the book to a close here with assembling together our main interests in a sympathetic – systemic, processual and morally imaginative – manner. We consider a pluri-perspectival, technical approach to our context in which the boundaries and the goals are clear. We establish outlines of what we mean by each of these terms in the context of business ethics as a field of interest. By historic reference to the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh as managed by Mohammed Yunus we explore how moral decision making occurs and how it can be shown to work.

This chapter opens with a discussion of the Boeing Company and the 737 MAX safety testing case. It explores the concepts of moral blindness and self-interestedness with reference to Adam Smith’s contribution to ethics from the eighteenth century. We consider the power of description and discuss how this can affect role responsibility though the case of Adolph Eichmann as interpreted by Stanley Milgram. We discuss and analyse the impact on ethics of Michael Walzer’s concept of thick and thin description and we explore the development of training in moral reasoning. The chapter closes with a fuller consideration of Sam Bankman-Fried’s impact on crypto currency with FTX.

The Introduction presents the background, scope, aims, and outline of the book. The starting point is the necessity of broadening the range of normative ethical theories used in business ethics. In addition to the three main theories – consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics – there are other frameworks that can assist researchers and students in addressing moral dilemmas in market contexts. Western philosophy presents another triad: political economy (Adam Smith), civil economy (Antonio Genovesi), and moral economy (Immanuel Kant). The first part of the book will show how these theorists provide distinct perspectives on the ethics of market transactions, grounded in moral principles and reasoning applicable to economic agents. The book’s second section focuses on applying the three moral principles to three fictional case studies concerning incomplete contracts.

This chapter fully develops the concept of moral imagination through a discussion of Bayer CropScience. A historic review of the concept of moral imagination is explored and with particular reference to Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and John Dewey, leading to the more recent work of Martha Nussbaum. A technology of how to apply moral imagination is developed drawing extensively on Adam Smith’s figure of an “impartial spectator” and Immanuel Kant’s approach to practical reasoning as evident in the recent work of Mark Johnson. We consider the scope and applicability of moral imagination in practice through the work of Amartya Sen.

Clothing designs can be beautiful. But they are also functional. Fashion’s dual nature sits uneasily in intellectual property law, and its treatment by copyright, trademark, and design patent laws has often been perplexing. Much of this difficulty arises from an unclear understanding of the nature of functionality in fashion design. This chapter proposes a robust account of fashion’s function. It argues that aspects of garment designs are functional not only when they affect the physical or technological performance of a garment but also when they affect the perception of the wearer’s body. Generally, clothes are not designed or chosen simply to look good. They are also characteristically designed or chosen to look good on. This approach clarifies the appropriate treatment of fashion design in intellectual property, and it exposes the conceptual limitations of the U.S. Supreme Court’s copyright decision in Star Athletica, L.L.C. v Varsity Brands, Inc.

This chapter examines the views of Smith, Genovesi, and Kant on the moral principles and motivations of economic actors. Smith’s perspective emphasizes self-interest, the invisible hand, and non-tuism – a concept introduced by his interpreters. In contrast to Smith, Genovesi argues that within the framework of civil economy, self-interest serves as a primary motivation for economic agents, alongside the desire to help one another. According to Genovesi, the moral foundation for economic actors lies in mutual assistance, perceived as intended mutual benefit. Kant’s viewpoint is more aligned with Genovesi’s than with Smith’s. However, for Kant, mutual assistance is not an inherent desire among economic actors but rather a directive of practical reason. Therefore, Kant’s perspective will be expressed through the concept of the duty to uphold the spirit of mutually beneficial contracts.

Fashion – the way we dress – is often an important reflection of the zeitgeist or the spirit of a given point and place in time. The fashion phenomena of recent years, such as self-disruption, upcycling and phygital experiences, can be studied as characteristics of a post-postmodern condition where a new cultural paradigm has emerged. The term post-postmodern has appeared in an increasing number of scholarly works that address a new cultural milieu – one that faces shifting global political centres and geopolitical boundaries, threats of climate change and an endangered ecosystem, destabilisation from armed conflicts and pandemics, obsessions with autonomous individuality, accelerating advances in artificial intelligence and the pervasiveness of information and communications technology in our daily lives. This chapter explores how such theories may be relevant to understanding contemporary fashion trends and their implications for intellectual property laws.

The global fashion industry is increasingly subject to accusations of cultural appropriation. We analyse why the fashion industry’s practices – in particular, its mashup-magpie mode of creativity and its rapid innovation cycle – make it a frequent target of these claims. We explain the challenges to legal protection for cultural designs; explore and critique the normative case for property claims in traditional cultural designs; and offer a qualified defence of the industry’s practice of re-interpreting those designs. Throughout, we suggest that many designs seen as originating in a particular culture have roots that extend outward to other cultures; this network of cultural interchange often undermines any particular ownership claim. And while appropriation can signal disrespect for source cultures and be objectionable for that reason, appropriation is not disrespectful per se. Indeed, there are strong normative arguments supporting many instances of appropriation.

Introduction

Social workers in Japan work in traditional areas of practice such as elderly welfare, disability welfare, child and family welfare, social security, community welfare, and in related fields like healthcare, education, or justice. Social Work Professional Organizations (SWPOs) apply the Global Definition of the Social Work Profession (IASSW and IFSW 2014) as well as its Regional Amplification (APASWE and IFSW- AP 2016) and National Amplification (JASSW and JFSW 2017) in professional settings, and more general definitions aimed at people outside the profession include the following by the Science Council of Japan:

Social work refers to social welfare assistance, specifically, supporting the quality of life (QOL) of service users by solving or alleviating problems in people's lives. Therefore, social work supports people to solve their life problems by themselves while utilizing social services, and aids them to nurture life skills. In the process of such support, if necessary, it also engages in the improvement of the social environment, including the development of social resources to solve problems that are lacking existing social services. (SCJ 2003)

Japanese SWPOs operate in a professional context described in this section in terms of legislation and history.

Current legislation and status

The present national qualifications for social workers in Japan are the Certified Social Worker (CSW) and the Certified Mental Health Social Worker (CMHSW).

The former qualification is regulated by the Certified Social Worker and Certified Care Worker Act of 1987.

Since the 2000s, Chinese factories have been notorious for imitating and copying luxury fashion designs, a phenomenon known as ‘shanzhai’. Within the fashion industry, two primary categories of shanzhai practices exist: the imitation or copying of a brand’s name or trademarks, referred to as “counterfeits,” and the imitation or copying of a brand’s designs, referred to as ‘knockoffs’. While band owners can easily enforce their legal rights against the trademark-infringing counterfeits, knockoffs remain a significant concern for international brand owners, since these design features are frequently denied trademark protection. Recent judicial practices suggest that fashion designs and design features in China can be protected under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. Moreover, Chinese courts are increasingly open to the registration of signature design patterns as non-traditional trademarks, including three-dimensional trademarks and colour trademarks. This chapter provides a comprehensive exploration of China’s evolving approach to these issues and provides a detailed comparison of copyright, trademark, design patent and unfair competition protections against fashion copycats.