Enron: Opportunity for Corruption

It could be argued that the majority of Enron employees knew that something was not right with the company. So much money was being made yet there was no solid evidence on how that money was being made. The Enron financial scandal that swept the nation was the primary result of a company with too much free will. The purpose of this paper is to show with evidence from the Enron case how no government regulation on companies can lead to humans making unethical choices based on greed and ambition. Enron executives initially applied for and were granted deregulation by the government. This allowed Enron executives to portray financial statements in any way they pleased. Government deregulation allowed the opportunity for the executives to manipulate these statements in a way that made the company seem profitable and in good financial standing. These false and misconstrued financial statements fooled shareholders into further investing into the company. With this type of freedom to exercise their business in which they pleased, Enron employees were bound merely by their ethical values. Enron employees failed as ethical gatekeepers by not putting a stop to the unethical actions of fellow employees and by they themselves participating in this unethical behavior. As an employee of a company everyone has an ethical duty to perform their job and do it in an ethically acceptable way. Many Enron employees did not question the practices of the company because of their desire to make money. Employees had the choice of working for this company and making a large amount of money or challenge its ethical practices and receive nothing. Many high ranked individual from the business world were caught up with this scandal. It was showed that even investors like Citigroup and Morgan Chase were caught up in this financial scandal. The