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Case studies of corporate crime
Case studies of corporate crime
Case studies of corporate crime
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Management Planning at Tyco International Incorporated
The year 2000 was a year marked by scandal over the accounting practices of some of the biggest corporations in the world, including Tyco International Incorporated. Tyco's top executives were indicted and convicted of fraud charges stemming from both improper accounting practices as well as improper personal use of company funds. The planning strategy of these executives seems to have been more focused on personal gain than on the best interests of the company and its shareholders. They ignored their responsibilities to the laws governing corporate management and to their investors and employees. Dennis Kozlowski, the chief executive officer, alone plundered the company of over 400 million dollars. Using company funds, he threw a "toga party" for his wife's birthday that cost two million dollars. He bought millions of dollars worth of art to decorate his home. He spent six thousand dollars of company money on a shower curtain and 15 thousand dollars on an umbrella stand shaped like a poodle. Unlike most of the companies targeted by those investigations, Tyco survived the scandals and is still in business today because it changed the way that it operates. Three of the factors that influence management planning today are their ability to obtain materials and components for manufacturing, the rate of attrition for their home security products and services and the ongoing litigation and investigations.
On the surface, the motives behind decisions and events leading to Enron’s downfall appear simple enough: individual and collective greed born in an atmosphere of market euphoria and corporate arrogance. Hardly anyone—the company, its employees, analysts or individual investors—wanted to believe the company was too good to be true. So, for a while, hardly anyone did. Many kept on buying the stock, the corporate mantra and the dream. In the meantime, the company made many high-risk deals, some of which were outside the company’s typical asset risk control process. Many went sour in the early months of 2001 as Enron’s stock price and debt rating imploded because of loss of investor and creditor trust. Methods the company used to disclose its complicated financial dealings were all wrong and downright deceptive. The company’s lack of accuracy in reporting its financial affairs, followed by financial restatements disclosing billions of dollars of omitted liabilities and losses, contributed to its downfall. The whole affair happened under the watchful eye of Arthur Andersen LLP, which kept a whole floor of auditors assigned at Enron year-round.
The first blatant ethical issue in the Adelphia scandal stems from the idea that the Rigas family used corporate money for personal use. Nearly $12.8 billion was used to start construction on a personal golf course on their own private land and even more to cover the expenses of the use of the company aircraft for personal reasons. The use of this money was then hidden thro...
In modern day business, there can be so many pressures that can cause managers to commit fraud, even though it often starts as just a little bit at first, but will spiral out of control with time. In the case of WorldCom, there were several pressures that led executives and managers to “cook the books.” Much of WorldCom’s initial growth and success was due to acquisitions. Over time, WorldCom discovered that there were no more opportunities for growth through acquisitions when the U.S. Department of Justice disallowed the acquisition of Sprint.
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...
In 1919, Company founder, Conrad Hilton, purchased his first hotel in Cisco, Texas. Since that time, Hilton Worldwide has become a worldwide operator, franchisor, and licensor of hotels and timeshare properties in more than 91 countries. In nearly 100 years of existence, the Company now finds itself as one of the largest and fastest growing hospitality companies with over 4,115 properties and 678,630 rooms. With a commitment to high quality and customer satisfaction, the company has established a portfolio of 10 world-class brands including the most recognizable hotel brand in the world, the company’s flagship full-service Hilton Hotels & Resorts brand. Its premier brand portfolio includes the luxury hotel brands, Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts and Conrad Hotels & Resorts, full-service hotel brands, DoubleTree by Hilton and Embassy Suites Hotels, focus-based hotel brands, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton Inn, Homewood Suites by Hilton and Home2 Suites by Hilton, and the company’s timeshare brand, Hilton Grand Vacations. Hilton operated properties are staffed with more the 314,000 team members focused on providing a complete experience at each location. The company’s award-wining customer program, Hilton Honors, defined rewards programs in the industry and now has over 40 million members (Hilton Worldwide).
Introduction: Leighton Holdings is Australia’s one of the most reputed organization, which is active in engineering and infrastructure, mining and resources, environmental services industries and telecommunications which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange since 1962. This company has operations in different countries including Australia, South East Asia, New Zealand, Vietnam, China and Middle East. The main focus and activities of Leighton Holdings include market positioning, strategic direction and planning, financial management and corporate and public affairs.
Unethical accounting practices involving Enron date back to 1987. Enron’s use of creative accounting involved moving profits from one period to another to manipulate earnings. Anderson, Enron’s auditor, investigated and reported these unusual transactions to Enron’s audit committee, but failed to discuss the illegality of the acts (Girioux, 2008). Enron decided the act was immaterial and Anderson went along with their decision. At this point, the auditor’s should have reevaluated their risk assessment of Enron’s internal controls in light of how this matter was handled and the risks Enron was willing to take The history of unethical accounting practic...
YakkaTech Corp. is growing IT services firm which mainly installs and upgrades enterprise software systems and related hardware. They have grown and consolidated as well as become more efficient at their business but this isn’t without growing pains. Their employees seem to lack job satisfaction and their customers feel that the employees “seem indifferent to their problems.” The company’s voluntary quit rates have risen above the industry average while management raises pay rates in the hopes that customer service quality and productivity would improve. However, customer service complaints and productivity remain low and employee moral seems to be low as well.
Prior to 2000, Enron was an American energy, commodities and service international company. Enron claimed that revenue is more than 102 millions (Healy & Palepu 2003, p.6). Fortune named Enron “American most innovative company” for six consecutive years (Ehrenberg 2011, paragraph 3). That is the reason why Enron became an admired company before 2000. Unfortunately, most of the net income for the years 1997-2000 is overstated because of unethical accounting errors (Benston & Hartgraves 2002, p. 105). In the next paragraph, three main accounting issues will identify for what led to the fall of Enron.
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.
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).
Dennis Kozlowski, is the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tyco International Ltd. During his tenure, Kozlowski engaged in activities that were considered unethical. In 2005 Kozlowski was convicted of misappropriation of corporate funds. Kozlowski had been involved in illegal and unethical behavior during most of his tenure. The findings that lead to the conviction of the former CEO were due to the persistent questioning and interrogating tactics of the shareholders and stakeholders because Kozlowski held within his authority to make decisions that could change the course of the company. Business ethics, auditing practices, and government regulations will forever be affected by the $500 million loss endured by the company. Needless to say this scandal had an major impact on the economy and the business world.
In management, each of the four functions, planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, are crucial to the development of any business. Involving employees in the planning process help them understand the goals of the organization. Planning is analyzing a situation, determining the goals that will be pursued, and deciding in advance the actions needed to pursue the goals. This paper will evaluate the planning function of the Halliburton Company and analyze the impact that legal issues, ethics, and corporate social responsibilities have on management planning along with examples of each, and analyze three factors that influence strategic, tactical, operational, and contingency planning.
Operations management focuses on managing the processes of producing and distributing products and services. Operations activities often include product creation, development, production and distribution. It deals with all operations within the organization. Related activities include managing purchases, inventory control, quality control, storage, logistics and evaluations. The nature of how operations management is carried out in an organization depends very much on the nature of products or services in the organization, for example, retail, manufacturing, wholesale, etc.
The Tyco accounting scandal is an ideal illustration of how individuals who hold key positions in an organization are able to manipulate accounting practices and financial reports for personal gain. The few key individuals involved in the Tyco Scandal (CEO Kozlowski and CFO Swartz), used a number of clever and unique tactics in order to accomplish what they did; including spring loading, manipulating their ‘key-employee loan’ program, and multiple ‘hush money’ payouts.