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Enron case study outline
The impact of the Enron case
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Introduction
Ethical aspects of businesses here in the United States have had many implications in recent years. From the Martha Stewart being found guilty for insider trading, to Bernie Madoff’s pyramid scandal, leaving many retirees working throughout their retirement because the man they trusted spent their hard earned money on a frivolous lifestyle filled with yachts and houses bigger than many of us have ever seen. Then there is Enron who left a path of destruction greater than hurricane Katrina. Stakeholders were left without jobs after years, many non-profit organizations that depended on the company for donations were forced to close down, and the wake that was left behind was devastating for years to follow.
The Enron scandal made Congress realize that these unethical practices could and probably would happen again. “The Invisible Hand” (Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011) was not working. This led to the “The Governmental Duty Perspective” (Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011) Sarbanes Oxley Act Known as ‘S.O.X’ which was established by US Congress in July 2002 (Anand & Pei Fong, 2005) following many of these fraudulent incidents. Because of S.O.X, “European corporations are threatening to withdraw from American stock exchanges; and in Asian a number of companies have cancelled or delayed plans to list in the US, opting instead of other means of raising capital”. (Anand & Pei Fong, 2005)
According to Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011:
The Invisible Hand approach essentially posits that the only duty management has is to make profits and enhance stockholder wealth in a legal and moral fashion. Without the presence of guardians, such a model may not yield the best results for individual consumers and investors, es...
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...s (1st ed.). Retrieved from vitalsource.com Chapters 6- 8.Web site: http://online.vitalsource.com/#/books
Rakas, S. (2011). Global Business Ethics- Utopia or Reality. Megatrend Review, 8(2), 385-406. Retrieved from ebscohost.com Web site: http://ehis.ebscohost.com/eds/detail?sid=a5fa9e88-d94e-4bb3-a6eb-8750f06a6255%40sessionmgr4001&vid=1&hid=4111&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=bth&AN=70970531
Sun, L. (2014). In BusinessDictionary.com (Ed.), Impact of Globalization on Small Businesses. Retrieved from BusinessDictionary.com Web site: http://www.businessdictionary.com/article/583/impact-of-globalization-on-small-businesses/
Thomas, J. (2007, January). Globalization creating new ethical problems in Asia. Message posted to The Advertiser-Tribune.com: http://www.advertiser-tribune.com/page/content.detail/id/501961/Globalization-creating-new-ethical-problems-in-Asia.html
More and more people are holding businesses to a higher ethical accountability. A companies decisions effect its employees, costumers the environment, and even the community, so decisions should not be taken lightly. It also becoming more obvious that managers feel that trustworthy employees with good worth ethics are an intangible asset to their company. Managers will not receive such employees if they do not have high ethical and moral standards themselves. I think that people ultimately want ethics that will produce a productive and honest workforce that also increases profits.
It's difficult not to be cynical about how “big business” treats the subject of ethics in today's world. In many corporations, where the only important value is the bottom line, most executives merely give lip service to living and operating their corporations ethically.
Ethics policies are implemented in almost all businesses. Companies search for candidates that will be moral in their actions so they can ensure long-term financial success. Throughout history we have seen businesses fall due to unethical behavior. In recent years the business Enron Corporation is best known for the scandal that led to the bankruptcy of a company with more than 60 billion dollars in assets. We will examine the circumstances that led to the downfall of Enron, how the scandal was realized, as well as the outcome of one of the largest bankruptcies in American history; a case that exemplifies unethical professional behavior.
Are businesses in corporate America making it harder for the American public to trust them with all the recent scandals going on? Corruptions are everywhere and especially in businesses, but are these legal or are they ethical problems corporate America has? Bruce Frohnen, Leo Clarke, and Jeffrey L. Seglin believe it may just be a little bit of both. Frohnen and Clarke represent their belief that the scandals in corporate America are ethical problems. On the other hand, Jeffrey L. Seglin argues that the problems in American businesses are a combination of ethical and legal problems. The ideas of ethical problems in corporate America are illustrated differently in both Frohnen and Clarke’s essay and Seglin’s essay.
Do you agree with Schmeltekopf that business schools are not preparing students well for the for the ethical challenges they will face in the workplace? Why or why not?
Business ethics simply can be defined as the application of business values in the business practice of a company (Seawell 2010, p. 2). For a multinational company, business ethics is one of the critical aspects need to be taken into account in business decision-making processes. Failure to give attention on ethics may bring consequences on company’s reputation (Meyer & Jebe 2010, p. 159). The company is expected not only to pursue its own profits but also contributing to the environmental and social welfare of the community where it operates (Svensson & Wood 2008, p. 308).
Enron was one of the major energy corporation in America before it went bankrupt. A contributing reason to Enron’s failure was a lack of ethical management. Enron scandal proves that the company infringed the transparency, dignity and responsibility ethical principles of the Global Business Standard Codex (Paine et al. 2005). Effective management practices help businesses manage risk by reducing the likelihood of breaching the misconduct, but ethical dilemmas cause illegal or immoral activities.
Broadly defined business ethics is, knowing the difference between what is right and what is wrong. It is the written and unwritten, principles and values that govern how decisions are made within a company (Cross & Miller, 2012). The focus of business ethics is to identify the moral standard, and provides guidelines to follow when making tough ethical decisions. Unethical behavior is typically the result of corrupted interactions between individuals within the organization (Brown & Mitchell, 2010). Many times, unethical acts steam for behaviors that are socially or culturally acceptable within the organization. Ethical behavior can enhance a work environment and maximizes contentment, while unethical behavior may have the opposite affect. Not only can this behavior cause stress in the work place, there is the possibility of it ruining a business (Cross & Miller, 2012). Unlike corporate governance, ethical standards are not as easy to define. A code of ethics expresses fundamental principles and provides guidance to decision makers, but there are no set rules written into a code of ethics. A code of conduct is created using a company’s code of ethics. It is a statement of standard that discloses how a company chooses to conduct its business activities (Driscoll &Hoffman, 2011). Following the scandals of the early 2000’s, many companies adopted a code of conduct to ensure the compliance
Explain the connection between the economic model of corporate social responsibility and “free market” or “neoclassical” economic theory.
Kidder, R, M., (2010), Center for corporate Ethics, Institute for Global Ethics, retrieved on August 08,2010 from www.globalethics.org/ reserve reading from ethics news line
Ethics are the driving force behind good business. Every ethical choice made by a professional can and will have a much different outcome than any unethical choice. Bad ethics can ruin many aspects of a business and as (Gaye-Anderson, 2007) states how quite easily the lives and professional reputation of the employees can even be severally damaged (para. 3). Everything from morale to motivation can be severely affected by poor ethical choices. Customers will take their business elsewhere. Employees will abandon ship. Other, competing businesses reap the benefits of the bad moral choices. Ultimately, the entire business can be brought down by one poor ethical choice.
This paper discusses the role of ethics in corporate governance. I seek to show the application of moral and ethical principles in corporate governance. Ethics is a topic that has generated a lot of interest in the last decade especially after high profile scandals. The failures of prominent companies such as WorldCom, Enron, Merrill lynch and Martha Stewart portrays the lack of corporate ethics. The failure of such business has seen an increased pressure to incorporate ethics in corporate governance. The result of corporate scandals has been eroding investor and public confidence. The entire economic system has experienced some form of stress from loss of capital, a falling stock market and business failures.
Science Initiative Group Institute for Advanced Study, 2007, Globalization: Trends and Prospects, Available from: http://sig.ias.edu/files/Egwang-_Welcome.pdf
The Facts: Kermit Vandivier works for B.F. Goodrich. His job assignment was to write the qualifying report on the four disk brakes for LTV Aerospace Corporation. LTV purchased aircraft brakes from B.F. Goodrich for the Air Force. Goodrich desperately wanted the contract because it guaranteed a commitment from the Air Force on future brake purchases for the A7D from them, even if they lost money on the initial contract.
Ethics is the study of right or wrong and the morality of the choices that individuals make. That basicly means the set of morals or responsibility that a person, group, or field have. Ethics can also be classified as code of morals. In business there are ethics that portray to business. These are called business ethics, business ethics just happen to be the application of ethics, morals, into the business field. Some examples of business ethics are obeying all rules and regulations even when nobody 's looking, which is pretty self explanatory, you shouldn’t be breaking rules. Even if it is as simple as washing your hands after you use the restroom or straight up lying to your customers, they are the ones making you money so if they find out