Ethical Issues of the Enron Scandal A Potential Solution

Ethical Issues of the Enron Scandal: A potential solution Enrons entire scandal was based on a foundation of lies characterized by the most brazen and most unethical accounting and business practices that will forever have a place in the hall of scandals that have shamed American history. To the outside, Enron looked like a well run, innovative company. This was largely a result of self-created businesses or ventures that were made off the balance sheet. These side businesses would sell stock, reporting profits, but not reporting losses. Treating these businesses off the balance sheet meant that Enron pretended that these businesses were autonomous, separate firms. But, if the new business made money, Enron would report it as income. If the new business lost money or borrowed money, the losses and debt were not reported by Enron (mgmtguru.com). As the Management Guru website explains, these tactics were alls designed to make Enron look like a more profitable company and to give it a higher stock price. Unfortunately, scandals like Enron ar e not isolated incidents and the last decade has offered Americans a disheartening perspective with comparable scandals like that of WorldCom and Tyco, Sunbeam, Global Crossing and many more. Companies have a concrete responsibility not just to their investors but to society as a whole to have practices which deter corporate greed and looting and which actively and effectively work to prevent such things from happening. ThisShow MoreRelatedLegal And Regulatory Environments And Ethics1712 Words   |  7 Pagesattention should be paid on the ethical standards, corporate governance feature and codes of ethical conduct. 2. Title: The Press as a Watchdog for accounting fraud Press plays a major role in today world and almost each and every report is published in press. Therefore it is an essential source to publicize the information and to spread the information. However press is always in search for reports so they can publish it. Same thing happened in the accounting scandals where press plays a major roleRead MoreEthical Issues Faced By Enron Should Have Be Aware Of Certain Risk Factors1301 Words   |  6 PagesFacing Ethical Problems Head On Enron should have be aware of certain risk factors can lead to unethical behavior. Top management must adhere and emulate the highest ethical standards. In order to stop unethical behavior within an organization, there must be a way employees to discuss their experiences with someone outside the organization. This creates a firewall between employees and management where fear of retribution for their actions does not exist. Addressing unethical behavior quickly andRead MoreArthur Andersen: Failure to Report Accurately Essay1214 Words   |  5 PagesEnron Corporation has been accused of cooking the books and overstating company profits in its financial reports. In addition, Enron’s trading business adopted mark-to-market accounting, which meant that once a long-term contract was signed, income was estimated as the present value of net future cash flows, even though in some cases there were serious questions about the viability of these contracts and their associated costs. Author Andersen provided both consulting and auditing services whichRead MoreEthical Dilemma in Consulting Essays1406 Words   |  6 Pagesreason. Just look at the headlines: Rajat Gupta Scandal, Anil Kumar and Rajaratnam scandal, Enron, Worldcom, Health South, Great depression, financial crisis due to unethical behaviour by the banks etc. All of these cases are related to consultants either directly or indirectly and they occurred due to the moral fallacy of some of them. Ethics is an extremely relevant value in business and consulting. The presence of recognized ethics and/or ethical practices tends to diminish the need for informativeRead MoreEthics Reflection Paper1082 Words   |  5 Pagesresides in an important set of our own personal values. When it comes to Business matter and operation the customer must feel confidence and this has been taken for granted several times on recent corporate scandals and collapses, a perfect example of missed conducted ethic and responsibility is Enron. Is extremely important for companies to incorporate ethics and responsibilities to their strategic planning. Strategic planning using ethics and responsibility corresponds to company who are engaged withRead MoreThe Sarbanes Oxley Act ( Sox )1604 Words   |  7 PagesFraudulent financial reporting has gained substantial attention from the public after the scandals of many high profile companies in the 21st century. Periodic cases of financial statement fraud rais e concerns about the credibility of financial reports and are as a result of problem in the capital markets, a dropping of shareholder value, and, the bankruptcy of the company. Thus, to respond to the public pressure over acts of corporate offense, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) was enacted in 2002. SOXRead MoreThe Demise Of The Andersen Accounting1746 Words   |  7 PagesThe Enron scandal was one of the most notorious bankruptcies of all time. Many people know about the energy titan’s downfall but less realize that it was also one of the biggest auditing blunders in American corporate history, leading to the dissolution of the Arthur Andersen LLP, which at the time was one of the five largest auditing and accountancy partnerships in the world. The most intriguing aspect of this case is that Andersen was eventually cleared by the United States Supreme Court, yet theRead MoreDishonesty in Business ENvironments2785 Words   |  11 Pagesthe exception in business† (Smith 19). Although deception is common in the corporate world, there are always outbursts of trauma and disturbance every time the business history observes the occurrence of major fraud, failures and other illegal acts. Enron Corporation, dubbed the most innovative company in corporate America from years 1999 to 2005 by Fortune, was not spared from the epidemic of dishonesty. The question is: what causes or influences people and society to commit and indulge in such deedsRead MoreThe Ethics Of The Accounting Profession2258 Words   |  10 Pagesfraudulent reporting. In this paper, we will examine one of the largest hallmark scandals in history. Using this example as the backdrop, we will then discuss the circumstances in which the risk of accounting fraud is highest. We will also touch on the systematic aspect of how they can occur. This will lead into a discussion of what has been done to attempt to rectify the situation and the perceived effectiveness of the solutions. Finally , we will discuss some proposed alternative ways that we can detectRead MoreEthics And Ethics Of Business Ethics1624 Words   |  7 PagesIn 2001, Enron a Houston-based commodities energy and service corporation kept huge debts off the balance sheets. This resulted in shareholders losing $74 billion, thousands of employees and investors losing their retirement accounts and many employees lost their jobs (Accounting-Degree.org, 2015). Crane and Matten (2010) argue â€Å"After all, despite many years of business ethics being researched and taught in colleges and universities, ethics problems persist and the public remains sceptical of the

Analysis Of Fahrenheit And Scarlet Letter

In life, people go on a journey of self-discovery to find who they are which leads the creation of mistakes and struggle to find a place in society. The strive to find a distinctive role leads them to take specific actions to obtain their goal. A major obstacle in their journey is the authoritarian and powerful society who represses the people to conform to their rules. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the government censors controversial issues from the people to ensure that no uprising or rebellion will arise relating their boundaries and laws. Their primary goal of the dictatorial government is to cease the curiosity and creativity of society and force the people to observe their beliefs. To enforce their authority, the government closely observes the people and holds everyone liable to danger; life would pass by too quickly giving them little time to ponder about the world. Similarly to the oppression in Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the protagonist, Hester Prynne, defies th e rules of the strict Puritan community and is cast aside by the townspeople. Refusing to conform to the ideals of society, Hester was unable to regain her position and lives in isolation on the outskirts of Boston. These two characters, however, have some differences concerning their hero’s journey. In Fahrenheit, Montag uncovers his distinctiveness and uniqueness of others in the society while fighting against the government who tries to control independent thought. Hester, on the other hand,Show MoreRelatedI Have Learned About My Writing879 Words   |  4 Pagesschool offered a selected amount of students from beginning of my junior year to the end of my senior year. In those two years we focused really on analyzing poems, Shakespearian plays, and a few novels such as Sula, House of the Spirits, and The Scarlet Letter. We studied intensively how to analyze, annotate, break each part of the novel and ask â€Å"why, what if, how.† Everything I took out of IB help me to this very day when I am reading and examining a novel. However, IB did not teach me how to writeRead More Censorship in the Classroom Essay2774 Words   |  12 Pagesoften occurs as a result.    One teacher, in response to a survey done by Elizabeth Noll on self-censorship and challenges to language arts classrooms, wrote,    Always I cringe when I do The Scarlet Letter, Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, Letter from Birmingham Jail, Othello, etc. [I] deliberately choose not to use The Color Purple and Beloved because of language and concepts...I carefully read everything several times to be sure there is nothing blatantlyRead MoreAr 670-1116218 Words   |  465 Pageschief within the proponent agency or its direct reporting unit or field operating agency, in the grade of colonel or the civilian equivalent. Activities may request a waiver to this regulation by providing justification that includes a full analysis of the expected benefits and must include formal review by the activity’s senior legal officer. All waiver requests will be endorsed by the commander or senior leader of the requesting activity and forwarded through their higher headquarters Read MoreAr 670-1117328 Words   |  470 Pagesthe proponent agency or a direct reporting unit or field operating agency of the proponent agency in the grade of colonel or the civilian equivalent. Activities may request a waiver to this regulation by providing justification that includes a full analysis of the expected benefits and must include formal review by the activity’s senior legal officer. All waiver requests will be endorsed by the commander or senior leader of the requesting activity and forwarded through their higher headquarters to the

Dresden, a city lost Essay Example For Students

Dresden, a city lost Essay Dresden: A City LostDresden was once called, Florence on the Elbe, before the widespread destruction sustained during the war and was numbered among the most beautiful cities in the world, noted for its architecture and great art treasures. On the eve of February 13, 1945, phosphorus and high explosive bombs devastated the city. Everyone was convinced, that there would be no attack here. (Owings, 191) Dresden was of no means a principal military point, furthermore, the majority of its inhabitants actually believed that they would endure the war unharmed. Initially, the alleged reasoning for Dresden being bombed seemed to be related with the operation known as Thunderclap. Dresden was only one of the casualties affiliated with this the operation. This operation was instigated to reduce German civilian morale. According to a secret report dated, August 02, 1944, the rudimentary principles of the maneuver, Thunderclap was that an attack must be delivered in such density that it imposes as nearly as possible a hundred percent risk of death to the individual in the area to which it is applied. (Was the Bombing of Dresden Justifiable, 7) Collectively, between 35,000 to 135,000 human beings are estimated to have lost their lives. The report stated further, the total weight of the attack must be such as to produce an effect amounting to a national disasterthe target chosen should be one involving the maximum associations, both traditional and personal, for the whole population. (Was the Bombing of Dresden Justifiable, 7) Furthermore, The are a selected should embrace the highest density of population. (Was the Bombing of Dresden Justifiable, 7) Dresden was Germanys seventh largest city, in addition, by February 1945 refugees fleeing westward before the advancing Soviet military forces had doubled Dresdens population. An additional supposed purpose of the utter devastation of this capital of Saxony on the Elbe River was that apparently German troops were going through Dresden to fight the Red army. Therefore, the USSR requested the British and Americans to commence a bombing assault on Dresden to hinder the German troops besides there is hardly any evidence to show this migration of troops to the Eastern Front. It was stated in 1953 by a German newspaper, Suddeutsche Zeitung that, The explanation of the Americans that Dresden was bombed, on Soviet instructions, to hinder the movement of troop reinforcements through Dresden, is a clear contradiction of the facts. It would have been simple for the RAF to have destroyed the railway between Dresden and the Czech frontier. (Was the Bombing of Dresden Justifiable, 5) Although, according to David Irving, the writer of The Destruction of Dresden, the Russians deny this. (Was the Bombing of Dresden Justifiable, 5) Ultimately the perpetrating reason behind the mass destruction of this city that was originally a Slavic settlement called Drezdane conclusively devastated its inhabitants. When the waves of attacks arrived there was no escape. Over thirteen hundred British and U.S. bombers dropped more than three thousand tons of high explosive bombs and incendiaries which started a firestorm. Any living being caught outdoors was incinerated. Many of the people in cellars suffocated, then burned. Temperatures soared as high as one thousand eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Low flying planes machine-gunned the fleeing population along the banks of the Elbe River. The exact number of casualties will never be known. A total of twenty seven thousand houses and seven thousand public buildings were destroyed. The following excerpt is from an article by Robert L. Koenig who submits a comparison between tragedies suffered by Dresden and by Hiroshima. The article states that, The firebombing of Dresden was the most intense of the European war, killing somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000 people-a number impossible to confirm because so many bodies were burned without being counted or identified. By comparison, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed at least 80,000 Japanesewhich helped end the war against Japan, the firebombing of Dresden had little, if any, military significance in ending the war in Europe. The main target of the allied bombers was Dresdens historic central city and rail yards, rather than the industries and military encampments elsewhere in Dresden. (Koenig, 1)Prisoners of war from many lands came together that morning at such and such a place in Dresden.(Vonnegut, 213) A POW, Thomas Jones, who had worked on the cleanup of th e ruined city recalled, There must have been a couple hundred tiny babies, all dead, in a pile ten feet highpeople would still be sitting there dead, on benches, weeks after the bombing. Wed drag bodies into the streets, pile them up by the hundreds, pour gas on them, and burn them up. Nobody was counting. (Koenig, 3)In conclusion, it is incomprehensible whether or not the rationalization for the horrendous actions collating with the bombing of Dresden or any city is thoroughly justifiable in a moment of war. A statement by Robert Saunby, the chief aide of Sir Arthur Harris, the commander-in-chief of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, in 1963, expressed some doubts of the bombing of Dresden. His statement is as follows; the bombing of Dresden was a great tragedy none can denyit was one of those terrible things that sometimes happen in wartime, brought about by an unfortunate combination of circumstances. .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 , .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .postImageUrl , .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 , .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1:hover , .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1:visited , .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1:active { border:0!important; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1:active , .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1 .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u38152c5cfacc8d95d0db8bf555b7f8e1:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Eutahnasia Essay

Surprise Under the Carpet at Northern Sigma free essay sample

Based on the information generated by the interviews with the two different groups, what have you learnt about this plant? What I have learnt about this particular plant is the fact that the workers are not in harmony with each other. They also tend to assume things as per the behaviors of the other groups for instance the white male groups tend to think that or rather assume that these women and disadvantaged groups feel that not only were they left out of important task forces but were required to be ten times better than their white counterparts in order to be promoted (Robbins, et al. We will write a custom essay sample on Surprise Under the Carpet at Northern Sigma or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page 2011). Midrand plant employees have no communication channels whatsoever with their senior management and this is rather obvious by the reaction seen on Peter Barnes once the results of the interview have been given. 2. What may have led to these problems? There are a number of factors that may have led to the problems currently being experienced in this plant for instance lack of motivation and training especially for women and disadvantaged groups, lack of proper communication channels and directions from the top management to the workers and vice versa as well as lack of conflict management skills (Robbins, et al. 011). It is clear that conflict exists between the workers thus resulting in poor performance. And despite the fact that majority of employers are highly educated there are no programs offered for enhancement of skills for these employees which makes them stagnant in a business world that is forever changing and in need of new and unique business skills (Robbins, et al. 2011). 3. What consequences are likely to emanate from these problems? Such problems as experienced by this plant result in a number of consequences for instance not being able to keep and maintain workers. Those already experiencing conflict within this plant are pressured into quitting as revealed from the interview results with the case of women and disadvantaged groups by the white male groups (Robbins, et al. 2011). Such companies also tend not to attract potential workers and this may be harmful for the company’s future success in as far as meeting its objectives is concerned. Organizational conflicts also result in low morale amongst the workers, reduced ollaboration, reduced productivity, passive or aggressive behavior and distrust (Robbins, et al. 2011). 4. Do you agree that Barnes should be responsible for these problems? Explain. I agree that Barnes should be responsible for these problems since he is the general manager having the responsibilities of not only hiring and recruiting of staff but also training process managers under him. A general manager is expected to encourage team members in their work as a way of getting the best output from them (Robbins, et al. 20 11). In this particular case, Barnes left the workers to do carry out the tasks without any particular supervision and expected results by the end of the day. He is not seen as having followed up any of his workers’ performance progress and that is why he is shocked at the results of the interview. An effective general manager must have leadership qualities to be able to lead and direct his workers (Robbins, et al. 2011). 5. What specific recommendations would you offer to Barnes to improve the management of diversity at the plant? As a way of improving the management of diversity at the plant, Barnes should first and foremost consider establishing a conducive working environment where all workers can work in harmony with each other without feeling discriminated or overworked (Robbins, et al. 2011). He should also create equal opportunities for both groups of workers where women and the disadvantaged groups can feel that their contributions are taken seriously in group projects. Clear communication channels should also be established in order for the workers to feel comfortable enough to open up and share their opinions, doubts or ideas regarding projects or the management of the company. This is especially so in the case of the Asian group whose members were considered difficult to understand and very secretive (Robbins, et al. 2011). In this way, Barnes will better manage this diverse workforce and experience better results the next time such an interview is conducted.