Ethical Ethics At Enron: Ethics, Ethics And Ethics

1177 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: ethical egoism and utilitarianism

Enron, one of our nation’s greatest success stories, was riddled with fraud, insider trading and a complex account scheme amongst other things. The board of directors set a standard of business that honored the values of respect, integrity, and excellence. The issue was, the company didn’t follow what it preached and corruption trickled down the corporate ladder. Enron set such a high level of intense competition that it used a system referred to as “rank and yank” which promotes employees to compete not only with rival companies but also with each other. While the board of directors attempted to set ethical business standards they weren’t complying with anything other than their non-existent ethical values. Allowing their employees greed and need for power to overstep the need for ethical compliance throughout the company. This lack of corporate culture at Enron was based off individual factors such as an apathetic culture, intense competition and a lack …show more content…

The utilitarian does what is best for the greatest number of people. Enron laid off 4,000 people who lost everything from their retirement to their sense of security. The company acted not as a utilitarian but rather as an egoist. A utilitarian would have never switched to market-to-market accounting because in actuality it does not show the real profit of a company, but opens the door for accounting flaws. A utilitarian would not have allowed a rank and yank system because it creates more opportunity for the employee to act unethically in order to get ahead. The board of directors was caught selling off shares in order to cover themselves when in the future they would end up laying off 4,000 employees and destroying these employees’ retirement plans. A utilitarian would not have to make this choice because he or she would not allow things to escalate to this

Show More
Related

  • The Enron Disgrace

    2858 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...FO at the Houston airport. While Mr. Fastow's parents were undergoing a random search, he stopped to chat with Mr. Schwieger. "I never got an opportunity to explain the partnerships to you," he said, according to Mr. Schwieger. Mr. Schwieger replied, "With everything that has come to light, I probably wouldn't like the answer I would have gotten."

    Read More

  • Enron Case

    851 Words  | 2 Pages

    Enron corporation, a company establisted at 1985, in Taxes. Until 2001, it becames one of the biggest company in the world, which service for energy, natural gas and telecommunications. In 2000, the disclosure turnover reached $101 billion. Everything is going well for Enron corporation. However, at beginning of 2001, Jim - a good reputation of the short-term investment agency owner. Publicly on Enron’s profit model expressed doubts. He pointed out that alough Enron’s business looks very brilliant, but in fact they cannot really make the amount of moeny like the data shown before. No one can say they can understand how Enron is making moeny. According to the inverstment owner’s analysis, Enron’s profitability in 2000 to 5%, to the beginning

    Read More

  • Enron Corporation: The Downfall Of Ethical Behavior In Business

    784 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Enron Leadership Dilemma Analysis

    790 Words  | 2 Pages

    The dilemma shows that although there are leading people in all corporations most leaders cannot be trusted with big responsibilities. Choosing this real life scandal educates me in what is happening in my major of business and it also opens my eyes to what essentially can happen in big corporations like Enron. Pondering on this dilemma allows me to bring up a different approach. Asking why those leaders weren’t caught in the beginning? In a small business like a sporting store or grocery store thefts are caught at hand and penalized for their wrong doings. This turns into a leadership dilemma we are faced with the questions of, what those leaders of Enron believed to be right and wrong or in their heads what was right and right.

    Read More

  • The Enron Scandal

    608 Words  | 2 Pages

    Enron deliberately created artificial shortages in California for electricity, two days in a row, causing the price to skyrocket. Enron is a natural gas and electricity plant/business that buys and sells energy. The most influential historical event that has happened during the 21ST century is The Enron Scandal because the loss sustained by investors exceeded $70 billion and only a small amount of the lost money was returned.

    Read More

  • Enron's Fall: An Examination of Corporate Ethics

    877 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Enron Corporation was founded in 1985 out of Houston Texas and was one of the world 's major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies that employed over 20,000 employees. This paper will address some of the ethical issues that plagued Enron and eventually led to its fall.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The NASW Code Of Ethics

    700 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many organizations have been destroyed or heavily damaged financially and took a hit in terms of reputation, for example, Enron. The word Ethics is derived from a Greek word called Ethos, meaning “The character or values particular to a specific person, people, culture or movement” (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2007, p. 295). Ethics has always played and will continue to play a huge role within the corporate world. Ethics is one of the important topics that are debated at lengths without reaching a conclusion, since there isn’t a right or wrong answer. It’s basically depends on how each individual perceives a particular situation. Over the past few years we have seen very poor unethical business practices by companies like Enron, which has affected many stakeholders. Poor unethical practices affect the society in many ways; employees lose their job, investors lose their money, and the country’s economy gets affected. This leads to people start losing confidence in the economy and the organizations that are being run by the so-called “educated” top executives that had one goal in their minds, personal gain. When Enron entered the scene in the mid-1980s, it was little more than a stodgy energy distribution system. Ten years later, it was a multi-billion dollar corporation, considered the poster child of the “new economy” for its willingness to use technology and the Internet in managing energy. Fifteen years later, the company is filing for bankruptcy on the heels of a massive financial collapse, likely the largest in corporate America’s history. As this paper is being written, the scope of Enron collapse is still being researched, poked and prodded. It will take years to determine what, exactly; the impact of the demise of this energy giant will be both on the industry and the

    Read More

  • Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

    1884 Words  | 4 Pages

    The three main crooks Chairman Ken Lay, CEO Jeff Skilling, and CFO Andrew Fastow, are as off the rack as they come. Fastow was skimming from Enron by ripping off the con artists who showed him how to steal, by hiding Enron debt in dummy corporations, and getting rich off of it. Opportunity theory is ever present because since this scam was done once without penalty, it was done plenty of more times with ease. Skilling however, was the typical amoral nerd, with delusions of grandeur, who wanted to mess around with others because he was ridiculed as a kid, implementing an absurd rank and yank policy that led to employees grading each other, with the lowest graded people being fired. Structural humiliation played a direct role in shaping Skilling's thoughts and future actions. This did not mean the worst employees were fired, only the least popular, or those who were not afraid to tell the truth. Thus, the corrupt culture of Enron was born. At one point, in an inter...

    Read More

  • Lack of Ethical Behavior in the Cases of Bernie Madoff and Enron

    669 Words  | 2 Pages

    Ethical behavior is behavior that a person considers to be appropriate. A person’s moral principals are shaped from birth, and developed overtime throughout the person’s life. There are many factors that can influence what a person believes whats is right, or what is wrong. Some factors are a person’s family, religious beliefs, culture, and experiences. In business it is of great importance for an employee to understand how to act ethically to prevent a company from being sued, and receiving criticism from the public while bringing in profits for the company. (Mallor, Barnes, Bowers, & Langvardt, 2010) Business ethics is when ethical behavior is applied in an business environment, or by a business. There are many situations that can arise in which a person is experiencing an ethical dilemma. They have to choose between standing by their own personal ethical standards or to comply with their companies ethical standards. In some instances some have to choose whether to serve their own personal interests, or the interest of the company. In this essay I will be examining the financial events surrounding Bernie Madoff, and the events surrounding Enron.

    Read More

  • A Corporate Code of Ethics is Not Enough

    2353 Words  | 5 Pages

    After news of the scandal of Enron, one of the hottest items on e-Bay was a 64-page copy of Enron’s corporate code of ethics. One seller/former employee proclaimed it had “never been opened.” In the forward Kenneth L. Lay, CEO of Enron stated, “We want to be proud of Enron and to know that it enjoys a reputation for fairness and honesty and that it is respected (Enron 2).” For a company with such an extensive code of ethics and a CEO who seemed to want the company to be respected for that, there are still so many unanswered questions of what exactly went wrong. I believe that simply having a solid and thorough code of ethics alone does not prevent a company from acting unethically when given the right opportunity.

    Read More

  • Ethical Business Case Study

    1111 Words  | 3 Pages

    A Utilitarian is a person that believes, if an action produces more good than harm, then that action is morally correct. Shkreli believes that if he raises the price Daraprim, Turing Pharmaceuticals will raise more profitable, and therefore is able to spend more money on research to help develop more drugs down the road. There are however, two types of Utilitarianism. There is Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism believes that any action that produces more good than harm, it is the moral thing to do. While Rule Utilitarianism believes that any action that does not breaking the law and produces more good than harm, is the moral thing to do.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Enron, Ethics And Organizational Culture

    1213 Words  | 3 Pages

    What role do you think culture played at Enron? Give five specific examples of things Enron’s CEO could have done to create a healthy ethical culture. It has been stated that ethical culture can be measured by the following key attributes. “Employees must feel a sense of responsibility, and accountability for their actions and the actions of their peers. Employees must feel secure enough to raise issues, and concerns freely without fear of retaliation. Most importantly managers must lead by example, and model the behaviors that they demand from their employees.” (Dessler, pg.489) The following are examples, of things Enron’s CEO could have done to promote a strong ethical culture. First there must be a checks and balance system put in motion. For example, Office of Inspector General sole purpose is, “OIG’s mission is to (1) conduct and manage independent audit, evaluations, and investigations concerning Agency programs; (2) prevent and detect against Agency fraud, waste, and abuse; and (3) promote economy and efficiency, and effectiveness in Agency programs and operations.” (EEOC, OIG Semiannual report to Congress) “OIG is conducting ongoing investigations in several field offices involving prohibited personnel practices, ethics violations, conflicts of interest, time and attendance fraud, falsification of government records, misuse of government vehicles,

    Read More

  • Essay On The Enron Corporation Scandal

    2377 Words  | 5 Pages

    “When a company called Enron… ascends to the number seven spot on the Fortune 500 and then collapses in weeks into a smoking ruin, its stock worth pennies, its CEO, a confidante of presidents, more or less evaporated, there must be lessons in there somewhere.” - Daniel Henninger.

    Read More

  • What Are The Ethical Issues In Enron

    874 Words  | 2 Pages

    Enron was on the of the most successful and innovative companies throughout the 1990s. In October of 2001, Enron admitted that its income had been vastly overstated; and its equity value was actually a couple of billion dollars less than was stated on its income statement (The Fall of Enron, 2016). Enron was forced to declare bankruptcy on December 2, 2001. The primary reasons behind the scandal at Enron was the negligence of Enron’s auditing group Arthur Andersen who helped the company to continually perpetrate the fraud (The Fall of Enron, 2016). The Enron collapse had a huge effect on present accounting regulations and rules.

    Read More

  • The Enron Corporation Case Study

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    Through an organizational culture that focused on financial greed for self, illegal accounting practices, conflicts of interest partnerships, illegal business dealings, fraud, negligence, and massive corruption at all levels, the Enron scandal help to create new laws and regulations with stiff penalties if violated (Ferrell, et al, 2013). The federal government implemented the Sarbanes Oxley Act (SOX) (Ferrell, et al, 2013).

    Read More

More about Ethical Ethics At Enron: Ethics, Ethics And Ethics

Open Document