...Week 4 Tutorial 1. What is Hypothetical Future Value (HFV)? How did this contribute to Enron’s downfall? A: Hypothetical Future Value can be defined as the value has not been earned but it is believed to be received in the future. The Enron used fair value accounting to make the balance sheet and, the money which has not been earned was written down as profit. For example, if a house worth $10,000 today, and the price increases to $20,000 tomorrow, however, if do not sell this house, there is no profit. It only has capital holding gain. If fair value accounting is used, it only has comprehensive income but operating profit. However, Enron wrote down the comprehensive income as operating profit. Due to this, it can be said that Enron cooked the books. Therefore, Hypothetical Future Value contributes to Enron’s downfall. 2. Why would ‘good’ people engage in unethical activities in business? A: There are several reasons for that. To begin with, obedience to authority, it means that those people who may not have enough knowledge to judge something or may feel indecisive when they do not have sufficient experience, they are willing to take those people who have a better understanding on it and those people who can play a lead role on it, for instance, specialists’ and boss’s advice usually is willing to be taken. Therefore, it is not hard to explain why good people would engage in unethical activities, in terms of obedience to authority, because those good people may not have...
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...significance to Enron. Kenneth Lay, the president of Enron hires a new CEO who is very energetic and a “dreamer” and joins Enron with one condition. That they utilized mark-to-market accounting, allowing the company to book potential profits on certain projects right after the deal are signed. Enron began a venture that could make $50 million in 10 years; it could claim the $50 million as current income. This gives Enron the ability to appear as a profitable company even if it isn’t. 2. Describe the Enron culture. Enron’s culture seems to be very competitive and all the employees had the same attitudes of their bosses. 3. What is Andy Fastow's significance to Enron? Andy Fastow’s was the Enron’s CFO. He helped the company by hiding the losses with a “Tom Ponzi’s scheme”. 4. What is Sherron Watkins significance to Enron? She was the Vice President at Enron. She is considered by many to be the whistleblower that helped to uncover the Enron scandal. She wrote a concerned internal email message to Enron CEO Kenneth Lay warning him that the in the financial reports didn’t make sense. 5. Why did Wall Street wait until the collapse of Enron to investigate the company? Was there a diffusion of responsibility whereby the executives at Enron told thmeselves that their behavior was okay because the bankers and the lawyers knew what they were doing? 6. In the Stanley Milgram experiment, why were 50% of the suspects willing to shock to the death? In what way does the Milgram's...
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...Ethical Culture Project PART 1: Enron displayed all four cultural dimensions which are: high-risk taking, outcome orientation, aggressiveness, and low/no people orientation as a company. Kenny Lay, who was the CEO and Chairman from 1985-2002, displayed high-risk taking during the Vahalla scandal. He had two oil traders, Louis Borget and Tom Mastroeni that would make bets for Enron on whether the price of oil would rise or fall. This is a risky market because you can lose ten times your original investment, and it was hard to make the amount of money legitimately that they were at the time. Borget and Mastroeni were gambling with Enron’s money. Jeff Skilling organized high-risk company trips where he would plan dangerous activities that Enron employees would participate in. Andy Fastow, Enron’s chief financial officer, wanted to please his boss, Skilling, so he tried to increase Enron’s stock up even though they were 30 million dollars in debt. He got hundreds of special companies to prop up Enron’s stock by making Enron debt disappear. To outside investors it looked like cash was coming in, but Enron was hiding their debt in Fastow’s companies so investors couldn’t see it. Fastow was participating in outcome orientation, and Skilling encouraged him to do so. Skilling created a very aggressive company culture for Enron by implementing a performance review committee (PRC) that people were graded a one to a five and 10% people had to be a five and if they were they would be fired...
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...Enron as an ethical dilemma can only be described as a travesty. The violations of ethical code and moral obligation ceased to exist while the company was alive. A tremendous contributor to the scandal is Arthur Anderson, who was Enron’s outside auditor since 1985. Arthur Anderson was able to hide major losses from Enron. Many projects that had failed through Enron seemingly went unnoticed as they were covered up by Anderson. Not only was this illegal, but it was ethically wrong of Anderson and Enron to do. Most of what Enron did violated business legality. The decision to break these laws is surrounded by the unethical approach the company took in order to maintain company power. The categorical imperative of the energy giant is that in order to maintain power, we as a company must hide our losses. This is one of Immanuel Kant’s theories that focuses on imperatives and what human beings deem as necessity, and what actions must occur in order to reach ones goal. So in this case it is clear what Enron deemed as necessity. Next, I will talk about the utilitarian theory and how it relates to the ethical dilemma at Enron. Utilitarian is the theory in which we as people attempt to minimize the harm in our decision making process while also maximizing the good. In the case of Enron, executives, on the surface, may have acted in a utilitarian manner, but ultimately created more harm than good. The deeper levels of unethical behavior and illegal activity would show that Enron was...
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...Lessons from the Enron Scandal On March 5, 2002, Kirk Hanson, executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, was interviewed about Enron by Atsushi Nakayama, a reporter for the Japanese newspaper Nikkei. Their Q & A appears below: Nakayama: What do you think are the most important lessons to be learned from the Enron scandal? Hanson: The Enron scandal is the most significant corporate collapse in the United States since the failure of many savings and loan banks during the 1980s. This scandal demonstrates the need for significant reforms in accounting and corporate governance in the United States, as well as for a close look at the ethical quality of the culture of business generally and of business corporations in the United States. N: Why did this happen? H: There are many causes of the Enron collapse. Among them are the conflict of interest between the two roles played by Arthur Andersen, as auditor but also as consultant to Enron; the lack of attention shown by members of the Enron board of directors to the off-books financial entities with which Enron did business; and the lack of truthfulness by management about the health of the company and its business operations. In some ways, the culture of Enron was the primary cause of the collapse. The senior executives believed Enron had to be the best at everything it did and that they had to protect their reputations and their compensation as the most successful executives in the U.S. When some of their...
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...significance to Enron. When the President of Enron, Kenneth Lay, hires new CEO Jeffrey Skilling, a very energetic and a “dreamer” who joins Enron on the condition that they utilize mark-to-market accounting, allowing the company to book potential profits on certain projects immediately after the deals are signed. To keep its stock price going up par example Enron began a venture that might make $50 million 10 years from now, it could claim the $50 million as current income. However, this projects turn out to be successful. This gives Enron the ability to subjectively give the appearance of being a profitable company even if it isn't. 2. Describe the Enron culture. The culture of Enron was very competitive and all the employees had the same attitude of their bosses. Par example Jeffrey Skilling imposes his idea on Enron by establishing a review committee that grades employees and annually fires the bottom fifteen percent. This creates a highly competitive and brutal working environment. 3. What is Andy Fastow's significance to Enron? Andy Fastow’s was the Enron’s CFO. He helped the company, hiding the losses with a “Tom Ponzi’s scheme”. One of Enron tactic was to create phony offshore corporate shells and move their losses to those companies, which were off the books. The film shows a schematic diagram tracing the movement of debt to such Enron entities. Two of the companies are named "M. Smart" and "M. Yass." 4. What is Sherron Watkins significance to Enron? She was...
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...Enron and Organizational Behavior The book I chose to read for my book report was The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. The book was published by the Penguin Group and copyright (C) Fortune, a division of Time Inc., 2003. The Smartest Guys in the Room is about Enron’s rise and fall. Enron was created in 1986 from a combination of InterNorth and Houston National Gas which is basically a natural gas pipeline company. The Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Enron was Kenneth Lay who had a Ph.D. in economics and pushed for deregulation of government power because he believed that was the best way for a company to make money and become successful. In June 1990 Jeff Skilling joined Enron. Jeff Skilling was called a visionary and prophet because of his way of thinking and planning for the future. Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling shared the same interests and Lay wanted Skilling to start making Enron money with Skilling’s ideas. Skilling’s biggest idea was to find a new way to deliver energy rather than be bound physically by the pipeline. Skilling suggested that Enron would become a kind of stock market for natural gas and transform energy into financial instruments that could be traded like stocks and bonds. A year later in June 1991, Enron asked the Security Exchange Commission to approve their mark to market accounting. What is mark to market accounting? Mark to market accounting allowed Enron to book potential...
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...The Enron and Corporate Governance Company Enron Corporation Industry Energy Founded Omaha, Nebraska, USA (1985) Founder Kenneth Lay Employees approx. 22,000 (2000) Fate Bankruptcy, 2001 Website enron.com To write about Enron I was inspired by documentary movie “Enron: The Smartest Guys in The Room”. It explains in details how negligence and ‘cheating’ in corporate governance can lead to disaster for whole nation. The case of Enron became classical example of the company where executives can manipulate whole industry using ‘creative accounting’ and corporate governance. Enron bankruptcy is the greatest knowing corporate failure in the US from the time when the crash of numerous savings and loan institutions in the 1980s. This scandal showed the necessity for important improvements in accounting and corporate governance in the country, along with a tight control at the moral values in the culture of business in whole and of enterprises in the country. Actually, one can find a lot of reasons why this collapse happened. And there is the problem of interest between the two roles played by Mr Andersen, as auditor but also as consultant to Enron; the lack of attention shown by members of the Enron board of directors to the off-books financial entities with which Enron did business; and the lack of truthfulness by management about the health of the company and its business operations. In some ways, the culture of Enron was the primary cause of the collapse...
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...Examining a Business Failure - Enron Patricia Davis LDR531 May 14, 2012 Thomas Ach Examining a Business Failure - Enron * Organizational behavior is defined as a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within the organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organizations effectiveness; specifically organizational behavior focuses on how to improve productivity; reduce absenteeism, turnover and deviant workplace behavior; and increases organizational citizenship behavior and job satisfaction (Robbins & Judge, 2007). This paper will summarize the Enron scandal that caused the company to fail and show how organizational behavior theories could explain the failure. * According to Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia, retrieved on May 13, 2012, “Enron was formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay after merging Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Several years later, when Jeffrey Skilling was hired, he developed a staff of executives that, through the use of accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting, were able to hide billions in debt from failed deals and projects. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives not only misled Enron's board of directors and audit committee on high-risk accounting practices, but also pressured Arthur Andersen, their outside accounting firm, to ignore the issues” (Enron Scandal). * To make Enron’s shares...
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...at public accounting firms who participate in audits of corporations. It was passed in response to a number of corporate accounting scandals that occurred between 2000-2002 (Peavler, n.d). This act set new standards for public accounting firms, corporate management, and corporate boards of directors. Sarbanes-Oxley, or SOX, is a federal law that is the most comprehensive reform of business practices since Franklin D. Roosevelt was President of the U.S. and passed the New Deal. What caused the need for the Sarbanes-Oxley Legislation? The Enron scandal was certainly enough to show the American public and its representatives in Congress that new compliance standards for public accounting and auditing had to be put into place. Enron was one of the biggest and, it was thought, one of the most financially sound companies in the U.S. Enron was perhaps the catalyst for the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. Enron stands for the greatest company scandal in the history of the US economy and has become a symbol of corruption for the whole Western economic system. In 2001, the nation was rocked by the collapse of Enron, a multibillion dollar corporation that employed thousands of people and had affiliations right up to and including The White House itself. Amid the financial chaos and destroyed lives and reputations the collapse left in its wake, questions arose concerning exactly how the catastrophe occurred, why it occurred, and who was involved (Raver, 2006). Enron purchased and sold gas and...
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...Sherron Watkins—Revelations of a Letter Who Is Sherron Watkins? Sherron Watkins gained fame as the so-called “whistle-blower” in the Enron accounting scandal. “Enron hid billions of dollars in debts and operating losses inside private partnerships and dizzyingly complex accousnting schemes that were intended to pump up the buzz about the company and support its inflated stock price.” Watkins wrote two letters, one anonymously, to Enron’s chairman, Kenneth Lay. In those letters she “exposed top officials—perhaps including Lay himself—who for months had been trying to hide a mountain of debt, and started a chain reaction of events that brought down the company.” Watkins had a “flair for numbers” and the training and expertise to recognize a “funny accounting scheme.” She received an accounting degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1981 and a master’s degree in accounting in 1982, after which she went to work for Arthur Andersen’s Houston office. Watkins transferred to Andersen’s New York City office and then subsequently returned to Houston in the early 1990s to work for Enron. Eight years after joining Enron, Watkins had risen to the position of vice president for corporate development. According to one retrospective account of the Enron scandal, Watkins “understood that something very bad was going on, something everyone else seemed to think was perfectly okay, and that public revelation would be disastrous.” Somehow Watkins “was able to escape the groupthink...
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...* What is unethical Accounting * Why companies follow unethical accounting * Leaders of Enron * Kenneth Founder, Chairman, and the CEO from 1985 until his resignation in 2002 * Jeffery Skilling, former president and board member from 1997 to August 2001, when he resigned from Enron * Andrew Fastow, COO, fired because of LJM transactions & his excessive compensation from those transactions * Company Background : Essentially called Enteron but then the name was quickly abbreviated to Enron. Industry: Energy Founded in United States, Omaha, in 1985 Enron Corporation, U.S. company that in 2001 became the largest bankruptcy and stock collapse in U.S. history up to that time. The company was formed in 1985 when InterNorth purchased Houston Natural Gas to create the country's longest natural-gas pipeline network. Renamed Enron in 1986, the company transformed itself in the 1990s from a gas-pipeline business into a natural-gas and electricity trading giant. By 2000 it was the seventh largest U.S. corporation. 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 (a global business magazine) named Enron "America's Most Innovative Company" for six consecutive years. * Truth Behind the scandal : Enron employed shoddy and deceptive accounting practices to hide its financial losses...
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...Shannie Raya Enron Response November 13, 2013 Mgt 3310 Enron Response Shannie #1: identify and discuss the key ethical issues arising in the video. Enron, the ‘big idea.’ Enron earned the biggest profits as a stock trading company who focused their ideas on the basis of fraudulent behavior that was made acceptable by the CEO (Jeffrey Skillings). A structured company such as Enron made sure that the employees shared the same mentality the management team aspired; to make more profitable earnings. ‘Ask why?’ was the known phrase for the skilled accountants working behind the desk who scammed their way through stock trading; trading stock with the advantage of choosing the winning side because of the made up corporations that invested money into Enron. Regulating and selling stock that they didn’t have tangible access, managing these exchanges to the outside world was an easy task to carry out due to Andrew Fastow. Fastow hid the debt of failed projects that sky rocketed to an x-amount of billions of dollars in actual debt instead of return investments on stocks. The major ethical issues that we found arising from the video (Enron) for our management theory and practice course; are the accounts that were not adding up on behalf of the shareholders and analyst who noticed that the dots were not connecting when money was coming out of made up corporations. Consequently, Skilling’s and Lay acted on bribery, insider trading, money laundering, monopoly dictatorship and conspiracy...
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...Deloris Alston November 26, 2011 Enron and WorldCom scandals chp#2 1. Which segment of its operations got Enron into difficulties? They didn't have a governance system as we know them today They spent more time trying to find loopholes in tax law rather than how to make legitimate operations profitable 3. Did Enron’s directors understand how profits were being made in this segment? Why or why not? I believe they knew that the company was cheating on the books to make profit for themselves they were using different books for the company and themselves. 5.Ken Lay was the chair of the board and the CEO for much of the time. How did this probably contribute to the lack of proper governance? He was ultimately in charge on Enron. He allowed a free-wheeling, high-risk environment. Governance means how the company was run/operated/supervised. So if he was running it he pretty much knew what was going on inside the company. 6. What aspect of the Enron governance system failed to work properly, and why? I believe poor management of the company in the accouting office, and poor keeping the books and reporting profit and hiding things that were taking place in the company. 9. Identify conflict of interest in: * SPE activities * Arthur Andersen’s activities * Executive activities THE FALL OF ENRON has understandably generated significant interest in the professional literature as well as in the popular press. The activities and events underlying Enron's collapse...
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...Auditing 1/26/15 Enron Enron began as Northern Natural Gas in 1932. In 1979 the company reorganized and became InterNorth. InterNorth was in the business of creating energy products such as natural gas and plastics. Later InterNorth merged into what was known as Enron with the new CEO Kenneth Lay running the show. He then began moving the headquarters to Houston, where they began selling off assets to limit their losses initially. The misleading financial accounts began when Jeffrey Skilling wanting to hide their losses. He and Andrew Fastow used special purpose entities to off load liabilities to those company to keep their main business looking as if they were profiting. Which intern made them look as though their business is successful and made their stocks increase because investors saw that the business was profiting not failing. A way that they were able to show the company as profitable was transferring debits and losses to offshore businesses that made it look as though on the books they were profiting and to make those unprofitable parts of the company disappear into an offshore business. To hide their losses in the trading business Skilling used mark-to-market accounting. Mark-to-market accounting is used in the security business but what Skilling did was use it for everyday business. Doing this let them write out what they thought a certain venture would be making in the future, without having to have actually made a dime. This let Enron show on the books that...
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