...Enron case analysis: Occurred because: Leaders’ obsessive attention for the pursuit of profits: The issues that capture the attention of the leader (i.e. what is criticized, praised or asked about) will also capture the attention of the greater organization and will become the focus of the employees. If the leaders of the organization focus on the bottom line, employees believe that financial success is the leading value to consider and traits like integrity became a non-factor within the culture at Enron. One former executive of Enron has describe Skilling as a leader driven by the almighty dollar. “… Skilling would say all that matters is money. You buy loyalty with money”. Enron executives’ attention was clearly focused on profits, power, greed and influence. They wanted their employees to focus on today’s bottom line. Skilling communicated his priorities, “Profits at all costs” to his employees overtly, both in word and deed. Top executives developed a strong success-oriented culture at Enron and the compensation and performance appraisal systems that supported it encouraged employees to exaggerate results and help hide the company’s growing debt. According to Sherron Watkins, a previous employee of Enron, “Enron’s unspoken message was, ‘Make the numbers, make the numbers, make the numbers—if you steal, if you cheat, just don’t get caught. If you do, beg for a second chance, and you’ll get one.’” Enron’s corporate culture did little to promote the values of respect and...
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...The ethical analysis can be conducted with the full understanding of what ethics in fact is. Ethics is all about proper behavior and acting for good; therefore, everyone has his/her own idea of what that means. In any case, the comparison of several ethical scandals should be based on the principles of action and the foundation of ethics. Being a large energy provider, Enron had its good and bad sides. Thus, in 2002 Enron announced its bankruptcy what turned out to be one of the biggest issues in American history. The company’s clients, investors and shareholders lost millions of dollars due to the drop in stock. In addition, many people lost their jobs or even the entire pensions. When and how did the issue start? In fact, there were a number...
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...Analysisof Enron Corporation In: Business and Management Case Analysisof Enron Corporation Name: Janet P. Cambangay Section & Year: BSBA-I Teacher: Sir Zadrack B. Fiel Subject: Management 1 Time Session: 2:00pm-5:00pm 07/23/2011 Weekend Class CASE STUDY I. TIME CONTEXT Regular Staff Meeting (TODAY) II. VIEWPOINT The different considerations being made by every section which results the 40% failure rate in selecting supervisors. In regards, with this, the department manager stabilizes that having a best technical people is just a trouble. It may only lead people to spend their time for technical works only which caused incompetency to manage. Second, is that the basis of seniority will only ignores everything learned about managing and it is unrealistic that the when the candidates get the job he will become capable and proficient in management. III. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The poor quality of the twenty supervisors reporting to the section heads due to poor record in selecting good supervisors. IV. OBJECTIVES * Supervisors must have a high standard in terms of their performances, knowledge and skills in business management. * The promotion of supervisors must base with their capabilities and unique approach to their responsibilities in managing the business. * An excellent supervisor must gain the skills in management, technical and conceptual skills of business supervision. V. AREAS OF CONSIDERATION/ANALYSIS In attaining...
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...Enron Corporation (former NYSE ticker symbol ENE) was an American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, Enron employed approximately 20,000 staff and was one of the world's major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper companies, with claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion during 2000.[1] Fortune named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001, it was revealed that its reported financial condition was sustained substantially by an institutionalized, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud, known since as the Enron scandal. Enron has since become a well-known example of willful corporate fraud and corruption. The scandal also brought into question the accounting practices and activities of many corporations in the United States and was a factor in the creation of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002. The scandal also affected the greater business world by causing the dissolution of the Arthur Andersen accounting company.[2] Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of New York during late 2001 and selected Weil, Gotshal & Manges as its bankruptcy counsel. It ended its bankruptcy during November 2004, pursuant to a court-approved plan of reorganization, after one of the most complex bankruptcy cases in U.S. history. A new board of directors changed the name of Enron to Enron Creditors Recovery Corp., and emphasized...
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...also wrote in an introductory statement to the revised Enron Code of Ethics that they (officers and employees of Enron Corp.) were responsible for conducting the business affairs of the companies in accordance with all applicable laws and in a moral and honest manner. Lay mentioned that the Enron enjoyed a reputation for being fair and honest and that the company was highly respected. Jeff Skilling, on the other hand, implemented a very rigorous and threatening evaluation process for all Enron employees. Known as the “rank and yank” – this process was aimed at getting rid of the lowest ranking employees – probably an attempt to get rid of all the bad apples. But this too backfired when employees intentionally ranked peers lower to enhance their own position and ranking. So with leaders like these, who harboured only “good intentions” for the company… Enron was sure to be headed for success. Along with Enron’s ethic codes based on respect, integrity, communication and excellence; Enron looked like an excellent corporate citizen, with all the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics tools and status symbols in place. A company heralded as a paragon of corporate responsibility and ethics – successful, driven, focused, philanthropic and environmentally responsible. Enron appeared to represent the best 21st century organisation had to offer, economically and ethically. With all this in mind, reasonably, Enron employees should have had no doubt regarding the ethical...
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...wrote in an introductory statement to the revised Enron Code of Ethics that they (officers and employees of Enron Corp.) were responsible for conducting the business affairs of the companies in accordance with all applicable laws and in a moral and honest manner. Lay mentioned that the Enron enjoyed a reputation for being fair and honest and that the company was highly respected. Jeff Skilling, on the other hand, implemented a very rigorous and threatening evaluation process for all Enron employees. Known as the “rank and yank†– this process was aimed at getting rid of the lowest ranking employees – probably an attempt to get rid of all the bad apples. But this too backfired when employees intentionally ranked peers lower to enhance their own position and ranking. So with leaders like these, who harboured only “good intentions†for the company… Enron was sure to be headed for success. Along with Enron’s ethic codes based on respect, integrity, communication and excellence; Enron looked like an excellent corporate citizen, with all the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics tools and status symbols in place. A company heralded as a paragon of corporate responsibility and ethics – successful, driven, focused, philanthropic and environmentally responsible. Enron appeared to represent the best 21st century organisation had to offer, economically and ethically. With all this in mind, reasonably, Enron employees should have had no doubt regarding...
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...The Demise of Enron university of phoenix LDR531 July 09, 2012 The Demise of Enron Introduction: When the issues of business practices, regulation, and ethics are raised in the business world, Enron has frequently finds itself as the flagship example of irresponsibility, and intrinsic fraud. In retrospect, it is clear that Enron lacked a moral compass from the top down. In terms of organizational-behavior theories, these traits manifested themselves as a result of their corporate cognation, and organizational culture. Enrons biggest lack of business ethics was in its accounting. The deeply rooted accounting problem exposed by Enron's failure was the weak consolidation rule prescribed for highly leveraged "special purpose entities" (SPEs), or partnerships that were formed to carry out various projects whose assets and liabilities were not shown in Enron's balance sheet. Enron failed in part because of losses arising out of the many SPEs that it had created. Not only was this poor business practice, but Enron executives knowingly compromised the business so that they could maintain the stock price, and none from the accounting department or any other part of the business acted as a whistle blower or so much as questioned the practice of cooking the books. Unfortunately, these practices did not merely affect the perpetrators, is also destroyed the finances of investors, and faultless employees with stock options, as shares fell from a high near $90.00. Thus...
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...Impact of Unethical Behavior Article Analysis ACC/291 Principles of Accounting II September 18, 2012 Thomas House Impact of Unethical Behavior Article Analysis Reporting financial statements within a business or company is more than a must; it is a necessity to keep ones business up and running. If one were to report false information on any kind of financial statements it then could be costly for the company or business. This is known as unethical behavior in accounting. The unethical behavior in accounting would be to mislead financial analysis for personal gain, misuse of funds, overstating revenue, overstating the value of corporate assets, or even underreporting the existence of liabilities. The purpose of the Sarbanes-Oxley act is to, “Protect investors by improving the accuracy and reliability of corporate disclosures made pursuant to the securities laws, and for other purposes.” ("Sarbanes-Oxley Essential Information", 2003-2012). The Sarbanes-Oxley act was named after senator Paul Sarbanes and Representative Michael Oxley. Sarbanes and Oxley drafted the Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002; both wanted to make sure that any business or corporation would be held accountable for wrongdoings. Enron would be sure to be held accountable. Enron Corporation Enron Corporation was an American energy company located in Houston, Texas. Enron employed nearly 21,000 people and was one of the world’s leading electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper...
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...www.ccsenet.org/ijbm International Journal of Business and Management Vol. 5, No. 10; October 2010 The Case Analysis of the Scandal of Enron Yuhao Li Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University, Logan city, U.S.A E-mail: wyl_2001_ren@126.com, carolee1989@gmail.com Abstract The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at that time, Enron undoubtedly is the biggest audit failure. It is ever the most famous company in the world, but it also is one of companies which fell down too fast. In this paper, it analysis the reason for this event in detail including the management, conflict of interest and accounting fraud. Meanwhile, it makes analysis the moral responsibility From Individuals’ Angle and Corporation’s Angle. Keywords: Enron scandal, Accounting fraud, Moral responsibility, Analysis 1. Review of Enron’s Rise and Fall Throughout the late 1990s, Enron was almost universally considered one of the country's most innovative companies -- a new-economy maverick that forsook musty, old industries with their cumbersome hard assets in favor of the freewheeling world of e-commerce. The company continued to build power plants and operate gas lines, but it became...
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...www.ccsenet.org/ijbm International Journal of Business and Management Vol. 5, No. 10; October 2010 The Case Analysis of the Scandal of Enron Yuhao Li Huntsman School of Business, Utah State University, Logan city, U.S.A E-mail: wyl_2001_ren@126.com, carolee1989@gmail.com Abstract The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at that time, Enron undoubtedly is the biggest audit failure. It is ever the most famous company in the world, but it also is one of companies which fell down too fast. In this paper, it analysis the reason for this event in detail including the management, conflict of interest and accounting fraud. Meanwhile, it makes analysis the moral responsibility From Individuals’ Angle and Corporation’s Angle. Keywords: Enron scandal, Accounting fraud, Moral responsibility, Analysis 1. Review of Enron’s Rise and Fall Throughout the late 1990s, Enron was almost universally considered one of the country's most innovative companies -- a new-economy maverick that forsook musty, old industries with their cumbersome hard assets in favor of the freewheeling world of e-commerce. The company continued to build power plants and operate gas lines, but it became...
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...known for one of the biggest frauds in corporate America. The company is Enron and I found an article that is titled " The Case Analysis of the Scandal of Enron" and in this article the author talks about the business practices on Enron and the unethical research they used to grow their business and in the end they ruined a lot of good people's lives, and damaged their futures. According to "Dictionary.com" (2013) ethics are the values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions. Every person has ethics and a code that they live by, but the difference is that not everyone has that same code and especially in the business world that word can be tricky for people and standing up for the code they believe in is hard for some. Unethical business practices is not a new thing, and as the economy has grown these practices have been more common. One unethical practice would be skewing the research results, or the skewing the research from your company. That is one thing that Enron did do, and they even took a step further and did certain practices that no one had ever thought of before. Enron was a natural gas company, and what they did is that they built power plants in a few different places and they took their future earnings from those power plants and recognized them as current assets, so Enron was the first to sell future stocks for their gas and electric company...
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...09/06/2015 Research Paper – Enron and Ethics in Financial Reporting Table of Contents Cover Page – Page 1 Table of Contents – Page 2 Introduction – Page 3 Statement of Problem – Pages 4-5 Analysis of Problem – Pages 5-6 Conclusion – Pages 6-7 References – Page 8 Introduction A major scandal that still resonates in financial markets today was Enron’s bankruptcy. The business environment of the time included a deregulated energy market (specifically in California) that allowed Enron to inflate their stock prices and offer their commodities at a premium. Additionally, there was little oversight for off balance-sheet transactions. This allowed Enron officials to hide losses in offshore captives with the help of Andrew Fastow. This and other creative accounting practices allowed Enron to report huge profits while in reality Enron was not legitimately profitable. Enron also inflated revenue numbers by buying and selling the same commodities over and over, reporting each transaction at full value (Forbes). In turn, this inflated stock prices of the company beyond what was reasonable. Statement of Problem The decline of Enron began in 2001 with Jeff Skilling being named CEO. During this time, a vice president of Enron voiced her concerns regarding the unethical business practices of the company and described the company as an “Elaborate Hoax” (NY Times). Former CEO Mr. Lay, meanwhile, had been telling investors that the now decreased stock of Enron was an “incredible bargain”...
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...Enron Company Ethical Issues Case Analysis Format I. Time Context After the scandal revealed on Enron Corporation on October 2001 up until in present time (2014) it is still discussed. II. Point of View Enron was founded in 1985, and as one of the world's leading electricity, natural gas, communications and pulp and paper companies before it bankrupted in late 2001. The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, and the dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. Although Enron went bankrupt and disappeared ten years ago, the impacts it has made on the ethical standards never faded. It took Enron 16 years to go from about ten billion dollar assets to more than sixty-five billion dollar assets, and took twenty-four days to go bankrupt. (McLean & Elkind, 2004) III. Statement of the Problem The said company projected itself as a highly profitable, growing company – an image which quickly turned out to be an elaborate mistrurth. Enron’s statements about profits were shown to be untrue, with a very big debts concealed so that they didn’t show up un the company’s accounts. Moreover, the company was seen to have been extraordinary active in political lobbying – with large numbers of legislators close to the company in one way or another. This fact had not been enough to save it, but raised...
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...Enron Case: Enron is known for the world’s biggest scandal in the history of American business. In Dec 2001, Enron Corp filed for bankruptcy. The major factors that led to the dissolution of Enron Corporation are the shortfall of business ethics of Enron’s management, accountants, auditors, board of directors and consultants. Off balance sheet arrangements made transactions between Enron and its partners were not clear and transparent. Between 1993 and 2001, Enron created over 3,000 SPEs that resulted in the overstatement of Shareholders’ Equity by $1.2 billion. This increased the size of loan portfolio of Enron without a corresponding increase in share capital. Securitization was not treated as financing vehicle and no adjustments to leverage ratios were made then. Enron violated US GAAP and recorded inappropriate capital stock transaction. Common stocks issued to SPE were accounted as notes receivable. GAAP doesn’t allow this transaction unless cash is received. This puffed up Stockholders’ equity by 8.5% or by $1 billion in 2001. Enron used its own common stocks to capitalize SPEs to satisfy US GAAP. When Enron shares went down certain partnerships had to invest just enough allow SPEs not to be consolidated into Enron’s Financial statement. Enron had to transfer additional shares to SPE, Rapto, in a futile effort to support. Enron recognized revenues due to increase in stock price on stocks held in SPE. Anderson accounting firm formulated a mechanism to record...
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...Effect of Unethical Behavior Article Analysis Prior to 2002, there were no major regulations that were enforced to maintain lawful ethical accounting practices. Since this was the case, there were no internal controls and thus was a leading cause that enable large corporation to commit fraud by altering books to show more profitability. Due to the overstating of profit in these large companies, investors were provided false information which made their want to invest in these corporations more. An example of a corporation that did this was Enron. Enron Corporation was an American energy company that was based in Houston, Texas. It was one of the world’s leaders in electricity, natural gas, pulp and paper, and communications. Enron reported financial conditions were sustained by systematic and planned accounting fraud. There were several reports that involved irregular accounting procedures which bordered on fraud. These reports were between Enron and their accounting firm, Arthur Andersen. Enron’s stock eventually plunged from $90 a share to $.30 a share. What was once considered a great stock was now a disastrous even in the financial world. All of this was brought to a head when Enron revealed that much of its profits were the result of deals with special purposes entities (Davis, Donna. 2011). Therefore the results were the any debts or losses that Enron suffered were not reported on financial statements. These unethical practices...
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