The reading that was investigated consisted of a case study from Marianne Jennings entitled “Fannie Mae: The Most Ethical Company in America”. Jennings (2009a) writes about how Fannie Mae’s ranking was number one in the United States of America in 2004 as being the most ethical company. Jennings (2009a) writes that CEO Franklin Raines challenged his employees to double Fannie Mae’s earnings per share (EPS) within five years from $3.23 to $6.46. Consequently, this enabled employees and managers to be eligible for an award under incentive plan (AIP) provided they met the five-year goal Mr. Raines created. Employees and managers were enthusiastic about the ability to influence their salaries, but then human greed took over and things went horribly wrong for Fannie Mae. Jennings (2009b) writes that the government audited Mr. Raines and found that he was behind the altering company’s earnings to meet forecasted projections. After the government’s investigation into Fannie Mae it was determined that Raines created a culture of arrogance and unethical behavior. This paper examines five discussion topics, which Jennings (2009a) poses in a case study that links to the article “Fannie Mae: The Most Ethical Company in America”.
The first discussion topic posed was, “Consider the ethics recognition that Fannie Mae received and the reasons given for those awards. Then consider that Fannie Mae was rated by Standard & Poor’s on its corporate governance scoring system as being a 9, with “10” being the maximum CGS score. Fannie Mae received a 9.3 for its board structure and process. What issues do you see with regard to these outside evaluations of companies that relate to governance and ethics? Is there a difference between social r...
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Jennings, M. (2009). Business ethics: Case studies and selected readings. Mason, OH: South- Western Cengage Learning.
Jones , K. (2007, January 18). It's official: Pretexting is illegal [Information on Business Technology]. Retrieved from http://www.informationweek.com/news/196901982?queryText=pretexting
Shamoo, A., & Resnik, D. (2009). Responsible conduct of research. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=dP7oKntCUUUC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq =egal+conduct+versus+ethical+conduct.&ots=PD- 4J3Mydp&sig=E1CFrgctPXyV0Sp9eIrHmPzTmgA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Suh, M. (2010). Corporate counsel: In the crosshairs of a criminal investigation. Business Torts Journal, 2(2), 8-12. Retrieved from http://www.gibsondunn.com/publications/Documents/Suh- CorpCounselInTheCrosshairs.pdf
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.
Verschoor, CMA, Curtis C. "Ethics: Do The Right Thing." Strategic Finance (2006). Retrieved on 18 September 2006 .
While some scholars argue for more teaching of ethics in college curriculum, others argue that a business culture or environmental change is needed. Some experts and experienced members of the field argue that business is not an inherently bad field, but that the reputation has been soiled by a few bad apples. Given all this information, I tend to agree with the argument that finance and business are not bad fields, they have just been soiled by a few evil people. I believe there are several bad businesses such as the Nestlé Corporation; and good businesses like Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that prove cases of evil and corrupt business practices can be linked to the actions of a few evil people in power. I find this argument to be relevant and interesting because unethical business practices often appear in the news, and this influences the public perspective on businesses. Many people tend to think most businessmen are evil, greedy, and corrupt. This is not always the case, and I aim to demonstrate why others should think in the same
Enron was the model for rapid growth in the 1990’s but part of the culture and ethics of Enron was disturbing. Falsified documents, cutthroat competitiveness among employees and accounting schemes that hid the truth of the company’s indebtedness were just a few examples of the lack of business ethics within the organization. Perhaps a more virtuous management team could have saved Enron from collapse.
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
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.
For this paper Washington Mutual has been selected to show how the ethical decision making process can be achieve. When it comes to business ethics in the workplace Washington Mutual has designed what can be considered a well balanced workplace with behaviors that are aligned with their moral values and business ethics. Business ethics are sometimes depicted as resolving conflicts where one option can appear to be the correct choice. There are many different ethical dilemmas that are faced by managers and leaders everyday that are highly complex and have no clear choice or guidelines to assist in making the choices for resolution. There are times when an employee has to decide whether or not to cheat, lie, steal, or break their contract. These ethical decisions are real-life situations where they are forced to make on a daily basis. This is why it is ultimately important that all employee know the six steps to ethical decision making that the company uses.
Gallagher, S. A. 2005. Strategic response to Friedman’s critique of business ethics. Journal of Business Strategy, 26(6), 55-60.
An organization needs to adhere to ethics in order to effectively implement its mission, vision, and objectives in a way in which offers a solid foundation to management and their subordinates to properly develop and implement its strategies. By doing so, the organization as a whole is essentially subscribing to one commonality that directs all of the actions of the employees of the organization. Additionally, it assists in preventing such employees from divergence in regard to the proposed strategic guideline. Ethics additionally ensures that a strategic plan is developed in accordance to the interests of the appropriate stakeholders of the organization, both internal and external (Jin & Drozdenko, 2010). Likewise, corporate governance that stems from various regulatory parties makes it necessary for organizations to maintain a high degree of ethical standards; this is done by incorporating ethics within the organization’s strategic plan so as to foster a positive corporate image for the stakeholders and general public (Min-Dong Paul, 2009).
In this paper I will identify and analyze the Wells Fargo scandal as it pertains to the breakdown of leadership and ethics. I will first identify and analyze the event and discuss the challenges and conflicts the scandal presented. Then I will evaluate the issue by explaining why the issue has interest and concern to stakeholders followed by discussing the challenges presented to individuals and/or organizations around this case. Lastly, I will recommend action steps that should be taken to those involved as well as discuss what I have learned from exploring this topic.
Based on what you read in this chapter, summarize in one page or less how you would explain Enron’s ethical meltdown.
The movie “Glengarry Glen Ross” presented a series of ethical dilemmas that surround a group of salesmen working for a real estate company. The value of business ethics was clearly undermined and ignored in the movie as the salesmen find alternatives to keep their jobs. The movie is very effective in illustrating how unethical business practices can easily exist in the business world. Most of the time, unethical business practices remain strong in the business world because of the culture that exists within companies. In this film, the sudden demands from management forced employees to become irrational and commit unethical business practices. In fear of losing their jobs, employees were pressured to increase sales despite possible ethical ramifications. From the film, it is right to conclude that a business transaction should only be executed after all legal and ethical ramifications have been considered; and also if it will be determined legal and ethical to society.
For the corporate culture in Enron, Enron employees and internal executives are largely influenced by groupthink. In Enron’s corporate culture, Enron’s members usually misuse motivation to help company achieving lofty growth goals. Enron promoted individuals who were highly motivated by monetary rewards and promotions (Bills 2001, paras 6-9). For example, company provided an incentive to employees to take risks on making profits, no matter the actions is ethical or not. No matter on peer influences or pressure from groupthink, it directly promotes
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.