...analyse the groupthink’s concerns in the collapse of Enron. The collapse of Enron is less than three months, which Enron from a very prosperous company to a bankrupt enterprise. The collapse of Enron is one of the most grievous business failures in United States. This disastrous business failure had causes a large number of employees lost their jobs and retirement savings. Groupthink leads groups to make faulty judgments. Groupthink occurs when a group make wrong decisions as the pressures of group lead to deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment”. There are several symptoms of groupthink. The issues to be resolved for Enron are collective rationalization, stereotypes of out-group, illusion of invulnerability, deceit to increase shareholders’ investments and self-censorship. The causes of the case study are illusion of unanimity, self-appointed mindguards, complicated transactions, belief in inherent morality of the group and direct pressure in dissenters. The solutions to the case study are challenge the norms, discuss with trusted associates, forbid related-party transactions for the senior officers, monitor the power of CEO and assign the role of critical evaluator. When there are symptoms of groupthink, there must be solutions to prevent and solve. TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1.0 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Purpose of the report 1.2 Company Background 2.0 SUMMARY OF THE CASE STUDY 3.0 GROUPTHINK 3.1 Definition of groupthink ...
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...Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility Professor Dr. Dana Legette-Traylor Unit 5 Case Study Accounting for Enron By Accounting for Enron 1. Donald Duncan had responsibilities to everyone mentioned and he definitely failed by acting negligently and by showing a complete lack of ethics throughout his involvement with Enron. Due to the fact that Donald Duncan was the head auditor he had a responsibility to maintain the highest professional accounting and auditing ethics, and to lead his team morally as possible. When people are seeking wealth without thinking about who they hurt in the process they will continue to cheat and wait until there is no going back to correct the issue. Auditors were taught to maintain ethics and to be as unbiased as possible and to be very aware that fraud can present its self at any time. Duncan should have made sure that he provided the shareholders with a detail audit report that is accurate to ensure them that everything is okay or if something is needs attention. But Duncan in this case was deceiving the shareholders because his boss instructed him to do so for a very large amount of payment. When Duncan got rid of the documents he incriminated himself right away because he was trying to hide the evidence that he played a part in the scandal. 2. There is nothing wrong with aggressive tactics when it comes to accounting because companies can lose when this practice is unethical. A person can be as aggressive as possible so as...
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...THE ENRON CASE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This study is about the fraudulence that happened in Enron, the conspiracy and other charges, the scandal that brought down the former US energy giant in 2001. The study is going to answer the question : "Is the Enron experience an illustration of the market system working or failing?” on the basis of a normative economy inquiry.` NORMATIVE ECONOMY Normative economics is that branch of economic inquiry that deals with value judgments—with what prices, production levels, incomes, and government policies ought to be. To arrive at an answer, the economist weighs the results of various minimum wage rates on the groups affected by them—the unemployed, employers, taxpayers, and so on. Then, on the basis of value judgments of the relative need or merit of each group, the normative economist recommends a specific minimum wage rate. Of course, values differ from one person to the next. In the analytical jump from recognizing the alternatives to prescribing a solution, scientific thinking gives way to ethical judgment. Objective of normative theory is to define what the responsibilities of an organisation in respect of stakeholders, and to define why companies should take care of other interest than just the shareholders interest. this theory is linked to moral, values and philosophic purposed. According to Freeman's normative theory, Evan and Freeman (1990), they define stakeholders as those groups which are vital to the survival and success of the...
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...Case Study 1: Enron The story of Enron is one of corporate greed and intense competition. Former Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling appears to be the person that created such competition between employees. He created a system where employees are ranked every six months, the employees ranked in the bottom 20% were forced out of the company. This ranking system led to a belief that high performance meant everything to the company. Ethical behavior was falling by the wayside at Enron and top executives either failed to notice it, or were too blinded by the stacks of money they were collecting to care. Sherron Watkins was a vice president at Enron. At the time she had been employed there eight years. It was at this time she was given the task of finding some assets to sell off. Watkins was quite possibly the first person to become concerned by Enron’s shoddy accounting practices. What she found was that many of Enron’s transactions were unclear at best, and most of them appeared to be backed only by their deflating stock. Concerned about what she saw she took her concerns to Mr. Ken Lay. Lay assured her that her concerns would be looked into by Vinson & Elkins, the company’s law firm. However, it appears that Vinson & Elkins quickly dismissed any concerns brought forward by Watkins. In fact, the law firm may have helped structure some of Enron’s special-purpose partnerships. The law firm never did claim liability, but did pay $30 million to Enron for...
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...pipeline decided to merge to form The Enron Corporation. Enron was once the seventh largest publicly-held corporation in the nation. The purpose of this case study is to first research how the corporate leaders at Enron, who are so smart, managed to display such poor judgment. Secondly, answer the question: What do you see as the contributing factors to the demise of corporate giants like Enron, World Com, TYCO, Arthur Andersen, and others? This case study will identify at least three, and explain how their poor judgment contributed to their demise. Also in this case study I will address the questions: What might possibly happen when a corporation is placed in an oversight role of a business partner? One example of this was Arthur Andersen serving as Enron's auditor. How might a corporation ensure that this does not happen? What risks are involved if an individual decides to blow the whistle on unethical behavior within their company or institution? Are they really protected by law? The corporate leaders at Enron although smart managed to make poor decisions first by falsely reporting net income and cash flow. “Enron claimed a net income of $979 million in that year, it earned $42 million” (Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2015). Enron could also be defined as a cooperation with an arrogant culture, which “Enron executives believed competitors had no chance against it” (Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2015). Enron had a belief that its employees were...
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...Enron Corporation (Case 1.1) Most of us work from rags to riches but this is not the case of the Enron Corporation. Instead of becoming the nation’s greatest company, Enron instead laid claim to being the largest corporate bankruptcy in the history. The greediness and egotism wiped out the honesty and integrity that should instill on the persons who were involved in this case. Arthur Edward Andersen built his firm, Arthur Andersen & Company, into one of the largest and most respected accounting firms in the world through his reputation for honesty and integrity. His motto was “Think straight, talk straight” and he insisted that his clients adopt that same attitude when preparing and issuing their periodic financial statements. Arthur Andersen’s auditing philosophy was not rule-based; instead he invoked a substance-over-form approach to auditing and accounting issues. He avidly believed that the primary role of the auditor was to ensure that clients reported fully and honestly to the public, regardless of the consequences for those clients. Ironically, Arthur Andersen & Co.’s dramatic fall from eminence resulted from its association with a client known for aggressive and innovative uses of “accounting gimmicks” to window dress its financial statements. Enron Corporation was the second largest client of the firm and was involved in large, complex transactions with hundreds of special purpose entities (SPEs) that it used to obscure its true financial condition and...
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...Business Ethics: Enron Case Study Introduction Enron was a very powerful company that was doing very well in the market. The value of its share was high and the company was enjoying an overall healthy position as a business. The employees were happy and new recruits would have killed to get a job at Enron. However, this was not to last. Enron enjoyed so much success that it got to its head and it started making all sorts of problems. Enron decided to change its organizational structure by employing new people at high posts who were given the opportunity to make big decisions that could directly affect the organization. Thus, their organizational design was altered. The reward system within the organization was also changed since the top performers were given the opportunity to receive many bonuses and stocks options. This new system was to be controlled by an internal controlling authority but this did not work well because the people who were reviewing and those who were being reviewed were working on the same levels and this caused them to form alliances among themselves. They all ‘looked out’ for each other and were not honest with their reviews, and everyone was given good reviews. Employees were scared to do something that would anger their superior and this is why they all became ‘yes men.’ This created a very unstable culture that was based on dishonesty and this caused Enron’s downfall. Division of Workers and Executives: The Culture at Enron Enron’s earlier organizational...
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...Business Ethics: Enron Case Study Introduction: Enron was a very powerful company that was doing very well in the market. The value of its share was high and the company was enjoying an overall healthy position as a business. The employees were happy and new recruits would have killed to get a job at Enron. However, this was not to last. Enron enjoyed so much success that it got to its head and it started making all sorts of problems. Enron decided to change its organizational structure by employing new people at high posts who were given the opportunity to make big decisions that could directly affect the organization. Thus, their organizational design was altered. The reward system within the organization was also changed since the top performers were given the opportunity to receive many bonuses and stocks options. This new system was to be controlled by an internal controlling authority but this did not work well because the people who were reviewing and those who were being reviewed were working on the same levels and this caused them to form alliances among themselves. They all ‘looked out’ for each other and were not honest with their reviews, and everyone was given good reviews. Employees were scared to do something that would anger their superior and this is why they all became ‘yes men.’ This created a very unstable culture that was based on dishonesty and this caused Enron’s downfall. Division of Workers and Executives: The Culture at Enron Enron’s...
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...Case Study: Enron Background Once the seventh largest company in America, Enron was formed in 1985 when InterNorth acquired Houston Natural Gas. The company branched into many non-energy-related fields over the next several years, including such areas as Internet bandwidth, risk management, and weather derivatives (a type of weather insurance for seasonal businesses). Although their core business remained in the transmission and distribution of power, their phenomenal growth was occurring through their other interests. Fortune Magazine selected Enron as "America's most innovative company" for six straight years from 1996 to 2001. Then came the investigations into their complex network of off-shore partnerships and accounting practices. How the Fraud Happened The Enron fraud case is extremely complex. Some say Enron's demise is rooted in the fact that in 1992, Jeff Skilling, then president of Enron's trading operations, convinced federal regulators to permit Enron to use an accounting method known as "mark to market." This was a technique that was previously only used by brokerage and trading companies. With mark to market accounting, the price or value of a security is recorded on a daily basis to calculate profits and losses. Using this method allowed Enron to count projected earnings from long-term energy contracts as current income. This was money that might not be collected for many years. It is thought that this technique was used to inflate revenue numbers by...
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...Enron Case Study Kati Finger 1. The Enron debacle created what one public official reported was a “crisis of confidence” on the part of the public in the accounting profession. List the parties who you believe are most responsible for that crisis. Briefly justify each of your choices. I believe that the main parties who were responsible for the Enron Scandal were the CEO’s, as this was an ongoing affair, which had started with prior CEO’s, including Kenneth and Jeffrey Skilling. Another key player was Andrew Fastow, the CFO for Enron who was found guilty for fraudulent reporting and falsifying/destroying the financial documents. Their goal was to make Enron into the world’s greatest company. To make this goal a reality, they created a company culture that encouraged “rule breaking” and went so far as to “discourage employees from reporting and investigating ethical lapses and questionable business dealings” (Knapp, 2010, p. 14). Andersen’s was Enron’s auditing firm, who was cited for numerous fraudulent charges and went through many legal settlements, was clearly allowing the company to go forward with their fraudulent activity. Their failure to recognize fraud and willingly engage in it, allows for their role to serve as being highly responsible. 2. List three types of consulting services that audit firms have provided to their audit clients in recent years. For each item, indicate the specific threats, if any, that the provision of the given service can pose for an...
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...The Enron Corporation, an American energy company based on Houston, Texas was one of the fifth largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. Enron scandal was revealed in October 2001. Enron scandal was different than any others because of its largest bankruptcy in American history and biggest audit failure. Enron were able to perpetrate the fraud by unethical practices that required the company to use accounting restrictions to misrepresent earnings and alter the balance sheet to show favorable performance. Focusing on aggressive earnings targets and management bonus compensation based on those targets, excessive interest by management in maintaining stock price/earning trend through the use of aggressive accounting practice, and inability to generate sufficient cash flows from operation while reporting earnings and earnings growth. Yes, there were certainly “holes” in the profession because people like David Duncan, former Enron audit engagement partner including numerous Enron officials faced criminal indictments for their roles in the Enron fraud, among them were Andrew Fatsow, jefferey skilling and Kenneth Lay. Enron hired numerous CPAs as well as accountants who had worked on developing accounting rules with the FASB who later on would search for new ways to save the company money, including capitalizing on loopholes found in GAAP, the accounting industry standards. In addition, after news SEC investigations of Enron were made public, Andersen later shred several...
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...this, Watkins was not. Third, she started having suspicions about unethical practices as early as 1996, years before she wrote anything to Lay (How Could 29); if she was truly ethical, she would have reported these things when she first became aware of them. Finally, she cashed in her own stocks because she knew Enron's were about to tank, and continued to work in an unethical fashion when she did not get resolution from Lay (Ganske B05), which are not the practices of someone concerned with the ethics of a situation. 2. What facts would you want to know before making a judgment about Watkins? What ethical issues does this situation raise? If I knew nothing about Watkins other than the fact she “blew the whistle” on corrupt practices at Enron, I would want to know when she did so, to whom, and why. I would also want to know what she was gaining from the unethical practices that were occurring (e.g. monetary rewards, status), as well as the risk to her upon blowing the whistle. For example, she noted years later that the initial reaction to her disclosure was that they wanted to find a way to fire her (Beenen and Pinto 277); this is certainly a big risk to take. Finally, I'd like to know her position in the company, meaning was she truly in a position to make her accusations. There are many ethical issues raised by this situation,...
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...Q 1: Evaluate Enron profit and cash flow performance during the period 1998 – 2000? Profitability Measures Enron’s reported net income grew from $703 million in 1998 to $979 million in 2000, totaling 35.1% profit growth for the three-year period. Enron was among the leading of “high performing” companies by sustaining a high earnings growth insight. However, as Table 1 indicates, Enron’s reported profits were microscopic relation to revenues. Net income did not grow at anything near the same rate as revenues, which grew a remarkable rate of more than 3 times of the income from 1998 to 2000. As a result, there was a steady decline in net profit margin, from 2.2% in 1998 to a paltry 1% in 2001. Similarly, Enron’s gross profit margin (gross profits as a percent of revenues) declined from 15.6% in 1998 to 13.3% in 1999, and took a dramatic drop to 6.2% in the following year as earnings more than doubled. Enron’s rapidly declining profitability was not questioned by Wall Street analysts, as long as the reported net profits continued to grow at 15% plus per year—regardless of how small these profits actually were as a percentage of revenues. Table 1: Declining Gross Profit Margin and Net Profit Margin, 1998-2000 | |1998 |1999 |2000 | | | | | ...
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...Frank Bruno Auditing 1:00-2:15 Enron Case 2 Due: 04/28/05 1. Please explain why an accounting and auditing research function (like Andersen's PSG) is important in the operations of a CPA firm. What role does the function play in completing the audit? Due to new regulations, NYSE listed companies are required to have internal audit departments. The purpose and importance of an internal audit team are very obvious. The internal audit team is responsible for determining the scope of the work and having the personnel and budget to complete it. This internal entity is very important ever since such accounting scandals as Enron and WorldCom. They are required to provide management and the audit committee with ongoing assessments of the company's risk management processes and system of internal control. In terms of these groups in association with CPA firms it is also important to have. As seen in the Enron case, the PSG group voiced its nonapproval to the companies formation of a new entity. These groups usually have the companies general goal in mind during the decision making process. In the case of Enron, it did not see any benefit in the creation of a new group. A member of the group cited several reasons including conflict of interests by having the CFO manage the venture equity group. Internal auditing functions play large role in the scope and budget of an audit. 2. Please consult Section 103 of SOX. Do you believe that the Engagement Leader of...
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...A History of Enron Enron is an energy company based in Houston, Texas that deals with the energy trade on an international and domestic basis. It was formed in 1985 when Houston Natural Gas merged with InterNorth. After several years of international and domestic expansion involving complicated deals and contracts, Enron was billions of dollars into debt. All of this debt was concealed from shareholders through partnerships with other companies, fraudulent accounting, and illegal loans. Enron was created by a merge between Houston Natural Gas and Internorth. Houston's Natural Gas's CEO Kenneth Lay headed the merger of the two companies. Kenneth Lay became the CEO of Enron. Enron was originally solely involved with the distribution and transmission of electricity and gas in the United States. In the merger, Enron incurred a large amount of debt, and as a result of deregulation, no longer had exclusive rights to its pipelines. The company had to find a way to generate profits and cash flow. Kenneth Lay hired Jeffrey Skilling to work for Enron as an accountant. Skilling suggested the practice of buying gas from a network of suppliers and selling it to consumers at a fixed price with a contract. Enron was interested in the expansion, building, and operation of pipelines, power plants, and other infrastructure worldwide. After just a year of operation Enron merged with a company called Spectrum Seven, a company whose chairman and CEO is the former president of the United States...
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