Ethical Behavior and the Sabarnes-Oxley Act of 2002

Ethical Behavior and the Sabarnes-Oxley Act of 2002 Sometimes the most difficult part about running a corporation is not the day to day operations, but how to achieve the desired results while maintaining ethical standards within the corporation. This is evident by some of the more recent scandals of Enron and Worldcom. These organizations sacrificed their ethics for the sake of profits. This is why the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was instituted. Many situations lead unethical behavior especially in accounting, however, the most promising way of limiting the effects unethical behavior has on the corporate structure is to create an ethics culture that is supported throughout the organization.
In their article, “How to instill a strong ethical culture,” Bannon, Ford, and Meltzer analyze the effect that the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 has on ethical behavior in order to determine if it is having the desired effect. According to Bannon, Ford and Meltzer a “significant correlation exists between the strength of the ethical culture and an increased ethical behavior.” They go on to say that this increase of ethical behavior is directly correlated to the economic downturn (Bannon, Ford and Meltzer). This is to say that the economy played a crucial role in the development of workplace ethics, almost forcing corporations to take a hard look at their ethical structure and begin developing a stronger ethical core from the executive office down. However, while developing a strong ethical culture seems to be key in maintaining high ethical standards in a company, it is the employees that play the biggest role in determining the ethical structure of a company. There may be a situation that arises where an employee feels that his job will be threatened if he does not improve his production. This will lead to that