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Lessons from Lehman Brothers

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"Lessons from Lehman Brothers: Will We Ever Learn?"
Maria Diana Lazaro, Freda Macaisa, and Patricia Molina
MGTP/521
February 20, 2013
Richard Dettling

"Lessons from Lehman Brothers: Will We Ever Learn?"
#2.Discussion Question: What was the culture at Lehman Brothers like? How did this culture contribute to the company’s downfall?
Discussion: The unethical culture by the top executives in the Lehman Brothers company was one of the major contributions to the downfall of this organization. According to the legal expert Anton R. Salukis, Lehman Brothers excessively used accounting manipulations. The negligence or the willful blindness of Lehman’s CEO, Richard Fuld, promoted the practice of filing misleading financial reports by abusing an accounting device, Repo 105. Through this accounting manipulation, they could remove fifty billion of unwanted assets off the balance sheets on 2008 [ (Robbins, 2012, p. 147) ]. Looking into the culture of this corporation, it can be said that this company was corrupted and the only purpose of its leaders was the appetite for money. Because of the company’s success, the leadership became greedy. This greediness motivated them to falsify information that covered up the true company’s financial health. They engaged into bigger and riskier deals just to maintain their image to the stakeholders. The Lehman Brothers executives used a corrupted strategic plan to create a picture of a respectful status and an excellent financial statement. The culture of this company encouraged unethical practices within the employees of the company. Lehman Brothers was a company that had unrealistic plans, and money was their main objective.
#3. Discussion Question: What role did Lehman’s executives play in the company’s collapse? Were they being responsible and ethical? Discuss. Discussion: The financial services firm, Lehman Brothers

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