Enron's starting points go back to 1985 when it started life as an interstate pipeline organization through the merger of Houston Natural Gas and Omaha-based InterNorth. Kenneth Lay, the previous CEO Officer of Houston Natural Gas, became CEO, and the following year won the post of administrator. (CBC News, 2006.)
Enron is an example of corporations that has faced bankruptcy in the recent past because of the numerous problems it had with federal and state governments for manipulation of financial statements. While these problems are not only attributed to organizational issues, accounting firms are also blamed for such incidents. Enron's bankruptcy is mainly attributed to ethical and moral issues experienced by the firm's management and leadership
…show more content…
(n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2018, from https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Enrons-Ethical-Dilemma-F3R3ZC6FBZRFA
CBC News. (Ed.). (2006, May 25). The rise and fall of Enron: a brief history. Retrieved February 12, 2018, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/the-rise-and-fall-of-enron-a-brief-history-1.591559
The Rise and Fall of Enron. (2002, April 01). Retrieved February 13, 2018, from https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2002/apr/theriseandfallofenron.html
Holt, A., & Eccles, T. (2006, July 10). Accounting practice in the post‐Enron era: the implications for financial statements in the property industry. Retrieved February 05, 2018, from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bref.80/abstract
Enron Case study. (n.d.). Retrieved February 15, 2018, from http://www.applied-corporate-governance.com/enron-case-study.html
Gladwell. M. (2007, January 8). Open Secrets. The New Yorker.
Bond/Debt Default/Equities/Fraud. (2017, March 01). Enron Corporation. Retrieved February 05, 2018, from https://www.econcrises.org/2016/12/07/enron-corporation-2001/
Investopedia. (2018, February 27). Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling. Retrieved February 15, 2018, from
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.
Michael Lewis brings the dealings of the financial world to light in Flash Boys, a book that analyzes the operations of Wall Street and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) trades. In the book, the author introduces readers to an unobserved aspect of the financial market’s underworld, where words like High Frequency Trading (HFT) raise eyebrows due to their implications for the companies that had held positions as market leaders in previous years. In contrast to past years, technological advancements meant that the individuals who invested heavily in information technology (IT) assets finished first and subsequently gained an advantage over traditional financial traders. While the book makes it apparent through a variety of examples, there is a recurrent theme of
In this OP-ED, Paul Krugman anticipates the resignation of Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Steve Ballmer. He worked with Microsoft for more than a decade and resigned this year in February. Most of his work and efforts were directly related to the massive success of the company throughout its life. The incorporation is already doing badly due to its many competitors in the tech. market.
Enron Analysis Enron is a great play which presents a dry story about business in a colorful and cartoonish way and impressed me with a variety of elements, including video, music, choreography, and dance. This is a play depicts the spectacular collapse of a Texan energy giant-Enron. As an audience, I witnessed how a business empire was built on shadows, accruing debts of 38 billion dollars and finally going bust in this two hours and thirty minutes play. In the following passage, I will describe, analyze, and interpret this play both about its script, including characters and plots, and its production, such as the videos, stage props and customs.
Sammy Friedman Mr. Di Bartolo Term Paper The Standard Oil Company, founded in 1870, was one of the most notable companies in American history. Its success was unprecedented, and its effects on the American economy and way of business were powerful and lasting. Founded and expanded by John D. Rockefeller, the Standard Oil Company absorbed almost all other oil companies in the country and consolidated all of them under one “trust.” It then chartered several smaller branches in different states, such as New Jersey, in order to monopolize the oil industry and create an oil empire.
Eileen Foster was the Executive Vice President of Fraud Risk Management at Countrywide, and later served in the role of Senior Vice President of the Mortgage Fraud Investigation Division at Bank of America after the two companies merged (Foster, n.d.). It was her responsibility to investigate mortgage origination fraud and reporting suspicious activity to regulators and the company’s Board of Directors. After several years of seeing a lot of suspicious activity and blatant acts of fraud she found that the company was playing party to this activity. Any employee who reported fraud and wrongdoing to Employee Relations were being transferred, demoted, harassed or terminated. When Foster reported her concerns to Countrywide’s Internal audit to investigate, the company not only chose to conceal her allegations from Bank of America, but it also directed employee relations to investigate Foster for wrong doing.
“Chasing Madoff”, a documentary released in 2010 portrays the way the whistleblower, Harry Markopolos, uncovered Bernie Madoff’s fraud scheme and his ten-year struggle to get the SEC to investigate. The documentary begins with an introduction to Harry Markopolos and his former coworkers Frank Casey and Neil Chelo. The three men work in finance, with investment portfolios. They were aware that in the finance industry there was much talk about an investment company making their customers high returns. Casey came across some investment information from a client of Madoff and gives the information to Markopolos to look over.
A) Introduction Unethical behaviors in business affect everyone since you either work in the field or are a consumer of its services. Unfortunately, almost every company usually has individuals who act unethically whether it is for their personal benefit or for the sake of the company they work for. Unethical behaviors in business might be as simple as using company property or funds for personal gain to inside trading and financial fraud. According to The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants, nearly one third of business professionals feel pressured to compromise their ethical standards and are increasingly pushed towards unethical behavior. Moreover, “misconduct is common and accepted by business services professionals, the integrity of entire economic systems is at risk”, states Jordan A. Thomas, partner and chair of the Whistleblower Representation Practice at Labaton Sucharow law firm.
Executive Summary Lehman Brothers were an investment bank involved in transactions worth billions of dollars and one of the most powerful investment banks in the world. Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 following bad investment in the sub-prime mortgage market and used bad accounting practices called Repo 105 transactions to try and cover up the bad assets. This report sets out the use of the fraud triangle when describing the actions which led to the collapse. The pressure applied on the bank, the opportunity due to the lack of regulation to carry out the actions and the ability of the bank to rationalise their decision making.
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 ?
The History of Business Ethics and Stakeholder Theory in America Ethics play a huge role in the global business field, since considerations have to be made on moral practices, values, and judgments that govern the direction and overall success of the company. Consequently, over the progression of history, managers, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders at the helm of organizations have always had the mandate of making moral resolves on matters of ethics. According to Hunter (2003), such an approach to ethical behavior prompts a substantial growth in the organizational corporation, as well as maximizing business profits, and creating a reputable company image (Cutler, 2004). Notably, the overall performances of organizations that take part in unethical
1. If you were Monsanto’s CEO, how would you best balance the conflicting needs of the variety of stakeholder groups that Monsanto must successfully engage? Monsanto has improved in terms of its corporate responsibility; however it does not maintain the most ethical culture possible. Monsanto is in a difficult position, as it produces products that many people do not understand or trust. The corporation also does much business in very poor countries where it is very easy for critics to accuse Monsanto of taking advantage of people who do not know any better.
Introduction The key ethical issues that were presented in this case study were quality control, lack of customer care, responsiveness, and harming the customer. The Johnson and Johnson case may have been seen as a turning point due to many things the company did right. However, there were many ethical issues in this case which will be explored more throughout this paper.
Review of Literature Unethical behavior can tarnish a company’s image and reputation. If a company is unethical, they may have to spend additional money to improve their public image, as well as gain back as many customers as possible. The reason I have chosen to use articles that are quite a few years old and that are not so recent is because I feel that they are very good examples of what I am trying to prove in the terms of ethical behaviour within companies and these specific articles relate well to my chosen topic.
The earlier opinion stated that a business cannot be ethical, but this opinion is not used anymore in the modern business. Today business has belief that they must be responsible for social since they live and operate within a social structure. The key factors that make business ethics is important at the quarter of the 20th century are corporate social responsibility, corporate governance, and globalized economy. The culture of an organization, or else we can call it as the philosophy of an organization which is related with ethics have a great relationship with the performance of a business in long and short term. As a business is manage by human being, the people who manage a business