Enron Swot Analysis

The American corporate system has long faced ethical concerns amongst the citizens of the United States. Often, corporate greed undermines morality and often furthers an agenda that puts profit ahead of people. A prime historical example of this case in ethical obligations is the case of the Enron Scandal of 2001. The CEOs of this Scandal hid millions of dollars of debt from their balance sheets and were able to extort money from shareholders based on surging stock prices, fueled solely on false pretenses propagated by the CEO (citation). This is a modern example of an ethical lapse by a corporate model catering to the public.

This is a cautionary tale of how corporate crime can cause severe harm. The shareholders were prevented by those perpetuating the fraud from selling while the stock was falling, while at the same time they moved their money out of the company. The final outcome was that the perpetrators being Jeff Schilling CEO, Ken Lay, and chief financial officer Andrew Fastow each received hefty sentences. According to CNN, Skilling was originally sentenced to 24 years, the longest sentence of any Enron perpetrator, and has been incarcerated in the federal prison system since his 2006 conviction. He had been facing a release date of Feb. 21, 2028,” (Smith).

The financial scandals in early 2000s caused the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to be created. Enron, WorldCom and the accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, to intentionally mislead their shareholders by exaggerating their profits and understating their expenses. The scandals had raised the importance of internal control for enhancing corporate governance. Therefore, the government established the SOX to protect the interest of the investors and employees and to monitor the companies and auditors.

Kenneth Lay, Mr. Jeffrey Skilling and the company CFO, Mr. Andrew Fastow .The management level of Enron Corporation had misconduct the code of ethics and fail to performing the duties of a corporation which is telling the truth of the situation of a corporation .Instead , they tried try to hide the truth of their financial status and create a false prosperity situation and make the public believe on them in order to support their shares prices . The misconduct of code of ethics by the management level by Enron corporation has led to the another question – The ultimate responsibility of a corporation towards society ? The ultimate responsibility of a corporation is to gain profit or become a stable economic unit ?

I. Strengths of TARGET Corporation Target Corporation is one of the largest and oldest public discount retailing company operate in the United States. The company founded in 1902’s by George Dayton (as also known as Dayton Dry Goods in 1962’s). Target store has a huge store footprint and enjoys considerable brand recognition. Target’s portfolio of owned and exclusive brands is also its strength, which allow retailer to a valuable differentiating lover in high competitive retail environment.

RECENT OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE Gap Inc. Gap Inc. is a global specialty retailer offering clothing, accessories and personal care products for men, women, children and babies. The company has grown from a single store to a global fashion business with five brands — Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta and Intermix. Gap was founded by Doris and Don Fisher in 1969. The Fisher family still owns about 40% of Gap Inc..

During the late 90’s and early 2000’s, several key companies in the United States were exposed for fraudulent reporting profits

In the case of Dale Emerson and Ernest Wallace I believe that Wallace was ethically in the wrong. As common small talk with family, Emerson was talking of a planned takeover of Dakota Gasworks, Inc. to his uncle on a weekend fishing trip. Unfortunately, Emerson’s uncle took the inside information from his nephew and used it to his advantage to gain large profits. As chief financial officer for Reliant Electric Co., under the SEC Rule 10b-5 act, “which prohibits the commission of fraud in connection with the purchase or sale of a security,” (Miller, 2014, pg. 618) both Emerson and Wallace could potentially be liable for the actions.

It is not a recent phenomenon that individuals commit heinous of crimes hiding behind the entity called corporate body. Penny stock scams , pump and dump schemes, chop stocks, dump and dilute schemes are not new for the globe. The world has been witnessing investment frauds and accounting

A great example of fraud was when Peter and the two employees hacked the corporate system in order to transfer money to their personal accounts. Moreover, theft is executed when they stole the copier machine with the only intention to destruct it. These types of frauds have been considered misappropriation of assets since both, the money and the copier machine, were counted as a part of the company assets and they as employees of the IT company abuse of their job positions to benefit their personal needs through the omission of fraudulent

It shows how the fraud was detected and the accounting practices that were used at the time, how the director

1. What factors in the WorldCom case support the conclusion that CEO Bernie Ebbers Knew about the financial statement fraud? What factors support his defense that he did not know about the fraud? Bernie Ebbers Knew about the financial statement fraud because he was the one who encourage others to go into financial fraud because of the stock prices were going down, which was affecting his marginal loan. For that reason, he was trying to sell his stock, but the board of Directors lent him $341 million, along with 2% interest rate.

The fraud triangle is made up by three distinguished elements. These elements in the fraud triangle consist of pressure, opportunity, and rationalization. The overall representation of the fraud triangle can be seen as the specific model to spot any type of high-risk unethical and fraudulent performances being conducted by a company, in this case Cendant Corporation. Cedant Corporations actions can be analyzed by the fraud triangle by the way that their senior management/top management decisions fell into the three categories of pressure, rationalization, and opportunity. Cendant Corporation had the pressure to comply with their shareholders and to maintain a stable financial status to prove that they were a profitable organization with a bright company image.

From Milton Friedman’s view, maximizing profit is the only focus of any business corporation, so long as it does not violate the state’s laws and the fundamental rules of society. Most firms are disposed to agree the above statement, thinking that business as a whole should not perform social responsibility at a cost of shareholders ('Shareholder value or social responsibility?', 2007). However, the case of ‘Brent Spar’ revealed the failure of corporate social responsibilities, showed that complying with the legislative requirements is insufficient from the view of the

Background WorldCom, once known as one of the most powerful telecommunication organizations of the world, is now studied as a case of a fraudulent company that carried out unethical financial activities to cover its weakening position in the market. After some aggressive investment decisions, the company started to witness huge financial pressure. The management used various forged accounting entries to conceal its weakening position. Cynthia Cooper, Vice President Internal Audit, discovered the unethical activities and raised the issue with the management and relevant departments and received bitter responses. She carried out internal audits in her own capacity with her colleagues and compiled evidence against fraudulent activities.