...Staying On Track: How to Stay Engaged as an Adult Learner in an Online Learning Environment Advancements in technology have brought tremendous changes and reforms in the education sector. It is of interest to scholars that anytime-anywhere is a strategy used to entice students to enroll in online courses. Unlike in the recent past where traditional classes were the only way to achieve academic excellence, it is now possible to attend virtual classes.It Provides flexibility in one's schedule. However, even with this advancement in education, it becomes a challenge to students enrolled in this kind of learning to cope and maintain the high degree of academic excellence. There are several reasons that explain this, but the fundamental one is the lack of proper follow-up. You will agree with me with this kind of program there is no one to see what you are doing and how you are doing it. This system lacks monitoring tools of evaluation that are important for students. It is for this reason that that the following guideline has been developed to help in improving performance in an online assessment. Reading the syllabus is a paramount point. The curriculum provides a guide as to the expectations of a particular course. The adult will understand what is required in that particular unit. They can prepare themselves in terms of resources necessary for that group. A Syllabus is a road map, a blueprint of the real academic journey. It is in the syllabus that assignments due dates...
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...Ethics case, "A Sad Tale: The Demise of Arthur Anderson" located in the WileyPLUS Week Fundamentals of Corporate Finance Chapter readings. Discuss the mistakes made by Arthur Anderson and potential actions that leadership could have taken to prevent the organizational failure. Write a 350- to 700-word summary of your discussion. Click the Assignment Files tab to submit your assignment. Team A, You did a great job on the team paper! I like how you stated what caused the downfall and what the company should have done to fix the issue. You received a 4/4 Thank you, Robert Summary of A Sad Tale This paper summarizes “A Sad Tale: The Demise of Arthur Andersen,” a consulting firm once known for its strong ethics, that was eventually destroyed by unethical practices. A discussion of the mistakes made by the organization, and what leadership could have done to help prevent the organization’s failure concluded with the following. According to dictionary.com, a consultant is a person who gives professional advice or services to companies for a fee (dictionary.com, 2014). Merriam-Webster.com states that an accountant is a professional person who performs accounting functions such as audits or financial statement analysis (merriam-webster.com, 2014). An individual giving professional advice to a company along with providing accounting functions and audits leads to a serious breach of ethics if they are acting for the same corporation. Arthur Andersen accounting firm turned...
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...The Enron disaster resulted in $66.4 billion dollars of losses to shareholders and 6,100 losses in jobs. Arthur Anderson LLP played a major role in the demise of this billion dollar company. Arthur Anderson provided auditing services for the Enron firm as well as consulting services. Due to Arthur Anderson’s failure to properly audit the Enron Corporation, Enron fell under criminal investigation. Author Anderson negative contribution of auditing services ultimately caused a chain of events that eventually caused Enron to disappear. Instead of Author Anderson focusing on the interest of the public and the shareholders, Author Anderson focused on increasing its revenues and maintaining the relationship of their clients. And after Enron was further investigated, it was found that Author Anderson’s behavior was the same for other company’s such as Waste Management, World Com and Sunbeam, all of which suffered similar fates as Enron. If Author Anderson would have corrected the flaws within their internal controls, Enron and the other companies may still be in operation today. For example, Author Anderson allowed David Duncan who was a partner in charge of the Enron account to overall the decision of a quality control officer. This put the entire company at risk because a vital company decision was made based on increased revenue rather than the best interest of the public. Also, AA elected Joe Berardino as the company’s CEO. Joe Berardino is known for being driven by increased...
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...Team Reflection: Week 2 Arthur Anderson was a leading accounting firm in 2002 and the organization was destroyed that same year A number of mistakes were made by Arthur Andersen leading to the failure of the organization; these were portrayed in the case, “A Sad Tale: The Demise of Arthur Anderson”. Arthur Anderson became commonly known for the motto “Think Straight and Talk Straight” (Parrino, Kidwell, & Bates, 2012). This motto served as an ethical guideline for the organization. Mistakes Made within the Organization Arthur Andersen quickly fell victim to accounting scandals within the accounting practice. The first mistake made within the organization was due to financial conflicts between the auditing department and the consulting department. Some of the consulting clients were also auditing clients and when the consulting departments profits exceeded the auditing departments profits, this created a conflict of interest. Maintaining the separation between these departments and the funds would have alleviated this issue. Another mistake made by the organization was the unethical act of forcing auditors to sell consulting contracts to their clients. This led to the largest mistake of reporting false information; the SEC charged Arthur Andersen with obstruction of justice, as the organization was found guilty of falsifying documents relating to Enron’s financial records. Actions to Prevent the Organizational Failure Leadership within Arthur Andersen had several options...
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...structures that led to the demise of Enron. The structures will also be compared and contrasted to help better understand why the company failed. Enron Corporation was founded in Omaha Nebraska 1985 and was defunct on December 2, 2001. In the year 2000 Enron had published revenues of $101 billion and employed approximately 22,000 employees. The Company’s founder and CEO was Kenneth Lay Other notable people who lead Enron where Jeffery Skilling, Andres Fastow, Rebecca Mark-Jusbasche. Fortune magazine nominated Enron as “Americas Most Innovative Company” for six consecutive years. At the end of 2001 it was discovered that Enron had been creatively distributing its debt through fraudulent planned Accounting making the company seem very profitable in previous years ("Enron", 2012). Leadership, Management, and Organizational Structures (contributed to the failure) Leadership has many different definitions; one definition is “the behavior of an individual directing the activities of a group toward a shared goal. (Hemphill & Coons, 1957, pg 7). This definition is closely is related and applies to Enron’s leadership, Management and structure. Enron’s leadership directly contributed to the failure of its organizational structure. The leaders of this organization manipulated accounting reports through loopholes and fraudulant accounting. Enron leaders, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow influenced the accounting firm Arthur Anderson to report misleading information...
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...Questions 1) Enron chose to have an aggressive corporate culture that rewarded high performance and eliminate the “weak links.” The culture encouraged fierce competition between employees and rival firms which led to the removal of loyalty and ethics. This ultimately led to the falsification of information to make it look like Enron was rolling in money to the market when it truly was failing as a company. 2) Enron’s bankers, auditors, and attorneys contributed to the demise of Enron. Companies like Merrill Lynch (brokers and bankers), Vinson & Elkins (law firm), and Arthur Anderson (auditing) allowed the misrepresentation of data. When Merrill Lynch allowed the sale of Nigerian barges, it became a collective issue with the two companies. And with Arthur Anderson, they allowed the misrepresentation of data by Enron to make the company look like it was a prospering company with false information. When the walls came falling down it shined light on how Enron could misrepresent themselves by the help of Arthur Anderson. 3) The chief financial officer, Andrew Fastow, created problems that led to Enron’s financial issues by inflating Enron’s profits which led to 98 federal counts. He was charged with fraud, money laundering, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. As he inflated numbers, people would invest into the company, losing their money eventually and unknowingly to pay for the high end employees of Enron. The company, for most employees, did not know what was going on besides...
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...In, 1985 two gas 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...
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...be getting off its balance sheet and the company itself could boost and have not had to show the real numbers to stockholders. Andrew Fastow was using SPEs to conceal some $1 billion in Enron debt. Overall, according to Enron, Fastow made about $30 million from LJM by using these partnerships to get kickbacks which were disguised as gifts from family members who invested in them and enriching himself. His manipulation of the off-balance-sheet partnerships to take on debts, hide losses and kick off inflated revenues while banning employees' stock sales was one of the reasons triggered the collapse of the company and its bankruptcy. Did Enron’s bankers, auditors and attorneys contribute to Enron’s demise? If so, what was their contribution? One part of the fallout from Enron's demise involves its relations with banker, auditor and attorneys. Although the banks knew there was a problem with Enron finance, their underwriting filings on debt issues sold to the public proved that wwithout its bankers,...
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...This paper will address and analyze the different ethical issues and the questionable accounting practices that occurred to one of the largest accounting firms in the United States. We will look and review the mandated requirements for legal compliance (from Chapter 4) and determine which requirements apply to the Arthur Anderson case. Then we will discuss how the issues with the Arthur Anderson case may have played out differently if the Sarbanes-Oxley Act had been enacted in 1999. Next we will determine and discuss which elements of the framework for ethical decision making in business (from Chapter 5) played the biggest role in the Anderson case. Explain your reasoning. Lastly, we will discuss how the situations at Arthur Anderson may have played out differently if their senior management had displayed the habits of strong ethical leaders. Provide specific examples to support your response. Introduction Known as one of the Big Five the Arthur Andersen firm was founded in 1913 by Arthur Andersen and his partner Clarence Delany. The company name was very synonymous for their integrity, ethics and trust, which is necessary for an accounting firm to have and stand by. Our textbook states, “Andersen set standards for the accounting profession and advanced new initiatives on the strength of its then undeniable integrity (pg. 348). Andersen once shown a strong character but with the rise of many high-profile companies filing for bankruptcy, that same...
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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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...Houston, Texas, and the dissolution of Arthur Anderson, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. Enron collapsed in large part because of unethical practices of its top officials; they abused their power and manipulated information, and put their own interests above those of their employees and the public. Examining the ethical and social responsibilities of Enron and lessons learned from the collapse will be reviewed. Analysis To better understand the company’s collapse, is to start by understanding the roles of Enron and Arthur Andersen and their top leaders. Enron was founded in 1985, and was one of the world’s leading electricity, natural gas, communication and pulp and paper companies before it bankrupted in late 2001 (Arnold, Beauchamp, Bowie, 2013). Independent stock analysts and journalists publicly raised questions about the value of Enron’s stock. Enron’s stock was trading at more than $80 a share, and Enron’s CEO, Jeffery Skilling was claiming that is should be valued at more than $100 a share. In October 2001, the Arthur Andersen auditing firm reversed their previous decisions and restated Enron’s financial situations. Arthur Andersen was once one of the “Big Five” accounting firms and was driven out of business by its role in the Enron case (Arnold, Beauchamp, Bowie, 2013). In the beginning of 2002, the United States Justice Department begun a criminal investigation into Arthur Andersen’s activities related to Enron...
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...Room” Peter Elkind & Bethany McLean; Alliance Atlantis Exercise: Your group will prepare a presentation to the class (max 5 mins) on the results of the discussion of your assigned question. All questions are examinable on the final exam: 1) Who was impacted by the fall of Enron? Who were the users of Enron’s financial statements? There was implied or explicit reliance placed on various parties by the shareholders. Who were some of the parties mentioned, and what complaints were raised about these parties (whether legal or ethical)? 2) What was the “tone at the top” at Enron? How did this contribute to their demise? Does a company’s corporate culture impact an auditor’s assessment of audit risk? Explain. 3) Assess audit risk at Enron. Explain the factors that contributed to your risk assessment. (Also reference the Arthur Anderson e-mail notes from the retention meeting.) 4) Kenneth Lay, Chairman of the Board and prior CEO, testified at hearings that “I can’t be responsible for things I didn’t know about.” Jeffery Skilling, former CEO also testified that he couldn’t answer questions about some of the accounting as “I am not an accountant.” The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was signed into law in response to Enron and other corporate frauds. Explain some of the provisions of the Act (and similar Canadian Provincial Securities Acts) that address issues raised around external financial statements. 5) What Independence rule(s) in the Rules of...
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...traded companies, stockholders and investors rely on accurate financial statements and on an outside auditor’s statement to determine if they have a good company to invest in. There were several merger and take overs in the telecommunication community by WorldCom. When mergers occur there many factors that affect the work of both employees and major management. This case analysis will point out problems and issues that were involved in the failure of WorldCom. It will describe how the mergers put stress on the company to show positive financial statements. (The WorldCom Accounting Scandal) How the company manipulated the statements to their advantage, and legal issues that occurred in this case. There was the misconduct by Arthur Anderson which helped in the demise of this case with WorldCom. This analysis will pinpoint as many problems and issues of WorldCom while they were alive. Capstone Case Analysis – Identifying the Problem or Issue The history of WorldCom is the company was created in 1983 was created by two business men named Murray Waldron and William Rector. They created this company as a long distance discount service (LLS) after the breakup of AT & T . (Reuters and Washington post, March 2005) The company problems started with hiring Bernie Ebbers who was an investor but had no experience at all in management. I consider him a “jack of all trades” with all the odd jobs he held. Bernie lacked technology skills (Kaplan & Kiron, 2007). Ebbers took...
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...Enron Research Paper In 2001, the world was shocked by the demise of Enron, a multibillion dollar corporation that had thousands of employees and people that had affiliations with the company including The White House itself. Because of the financial chaos and destroyed lives and reputations this catastrophe left in its path, questions arose concerning how exactly it happened, why it occurred, and who was behind it. It is essential to understand how this multibillion dollar corporation rose to power and later imploded. Enron itself was born as the result of Houston’s Natural Gas and InterNorth, a gas based pipeline company from Nebraska in 1985. In the final analysis, the conspiracy of Kenneth Lay, Jeffery Skilling, and others, including the accounting firm of Authur Anderson, led to the collapse of Enron due to fraud, shady accounting practices, false reporting revenue, and general disregard of virtually every principle of business ethics. Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Richard Causey went on trial for their part in the Enron scandal in January 2006. The 53-count, 65-page indictment covers a wide range of financial crimes, including insider trading, making false statements to banks and auditor’s bank, fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy. Another huge player in the Enron scandal was Arthur Anderson, who was charged with obstruction of justice for destroying thousands of documents, e-mails, and company files that connected the firm to its...
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...the world's largest trader in gas, electricity, water, and all sorts of post-modern commodities such as bandwidth” (Gutman, 2002, p. 1). It appeared that Enron was one of the most successful companies in the United States. Share prices were doing well in the stock market, and the share value consistently grew, making them very attractive. The company’s growth was perceived as genuine until the company suddenly collapsed, leading to a disclosure of a scandal that involved the top leadership of the company. The scandal that led to the failure of Enron did not happen overnight. The failure was rooted in the company’s unethical leadership (Weidlich & Calkins, 2006). Enron’s fast rise to the largest energy management firm mirrored its demise because of unethical practices by Jeff Skilling the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Andy Fashow, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) (Gutman, 2002). Enron’s leadership were accused of profiting from their activities, allowing the company to hide the massive debt but yet report good results until the lies could not hold, costing the investors upwards of $30...
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