Biography Of Bernie Ebbers, The Founder Of Worldcom Essay

During my courses, I frequently remind students that most corporate executives, accountants, and auditors are honest and ethical. This case provides a stark and powerful example of one such individual. When I discuss a case such as this in my courses, I try to provide other examples of positive role models among corporate executives. Granted, most of these examples do not involve accounting or auditing matters, but, nevertheless, they help to blunt the impression that students may receive from studying my cases that most corporate executives are “crooks.”

Ethics, ethical values, and social responsibility should all work in unison in a corporate business structure. These key traits are better defined as maintaining overall good business morals, obtaining employees who possess personal ethical values, and finally to behave ethically and with sensitivity toward social, cultural, economic and environmental issues. For a business to better ensure these quality business traits a code of ethics should be adopted by the business. In the cases of Bernie Madoff and Enron, the most well-known financial scandals in history, I feel, gave a major hand in pushing business all across America to have and enforce the code of ethics.

The capacity for greed Bernie Madoff possessed was staggering; in fact, he was so proficient at luring in investors that his firm stole approximately $65 billion dollars and at one point Bernie Madoff was worth approximately $800 million (Lozada, 2010). The theory that best depicts this behavior is anomie, which dates back to 1591 as a blatant disregard for the law (Hagan, 2013). It is ironic to say the least that Merton’s theory of anomie first appeared in 1938 and viewed anomie as a phenomenon that occurs when attempting to achieve societal goals causes deviant behavior. An interesting fact is that Bernie Madoff was born in April of the same year (1938) that Merton summed up the theory of anomie that would define Bernie Madoff’s

Were there any early warning signs that may have predicted this type of behavior in Mr. Scrushy? “Perhaps what we need is a scale for measuring the moral development or character of the officers to whom the financial status and reports of the company are entrusted” (Jennings, 2005, p. 44-45).

In chapter 1, Levitt and Dubner describe how many people in different cultures and walks of life, which are otherwise inclined to be honest, find subtle ways of cheating to advance their position or increase monetary awards when incentives are strong enough. The authors define an incentive as “a means of urging people to do more of a good thing or less of a bad thing,” and identify three varieties of incentives. Economic incentives are those, which a person responds to in the marketplace. Social incentives motivate people to respond in a certain way because they care or are worried about how they will be viewed by others. Moral incentives appeal to a person’s sense of right versus wrong. Three case studies of the

This scenario is difficult to understand. The utilitarian debate argues that the status of bringing helpful financial consequences is something that is worth obtaining (Mill, 2007). Bill Gates thereby must be permitted to attain the corporation and manage it as he deems it appropriate. Nonetheless, ethical leadership grows into all factors of management. For instance, it’s

When the organization’s leadership acts ethically, employees respect their power. Leaders automatically have power based on their position within an organization. Having power over others leaders must act ethical and model good behavior. These are key concepts of leadership that establish a good leader in an organization. This is something that I feel my organization has taken into consideration when they chose their leaders to lead Cricket Wireless. Cricket Wireless is a pre-paid cell phone carrier that is always evolving, changing with customer demand, and meeting yearly sales goals. In my organization leadership plays a key role in leading followers and establishing a vision with a strategy. Much like technology, wireless is also

As with much of Enron, their outward appearance did not match what was really going on inside the company. Enron ended up cultivating their own demise for bankruptcy by how they ran their company. This corrupt corporate culture was a place whose employees threw ethical responsibility to the wind if it meant financial gain. At Enron, the employees were motivated by a very “cut-throat” culture. If an employee didn’t perform well enough, they would simply be replaced by someone who could. “The company’s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees” (Sims, pg.243). Like a parent to their children, when the executives of a company pursue unethical financial means, it sets a certain tone for their employees and even the market of the company. As mentioned before, Enron had a very “cut-throat” attitude in regards to their employees. This also became one Enron’s main ethical falling points. According to the class text, “employees were rated every six months, with those ranked in the bottom 20 percent forced to leave” (Ferrell, 2017, pg. 287). This system which pits employees against each other rather than having them work together will create a workplace of dishonesty and a recipe of disaster for the company. This coupled with the objective of financial growth, creates a very dim opportunity for any ethical culture. “The entire cultural framework of Enron not only allowed unethical behavior to flourish,

Bill Gates was the former CEO of the computer software giant Microsoft. It was not purely on inherited merit or luck that he was able to lead and maintain Microsoft, one substantial attribution to the success of Microsoft was due to the leadership style of Bill Gates. The main philosophy that Bill Gates used was autocratic leadership. Autocratic leadership can be defined as: a person who maintains most of the decision making process for themselves (DuBrin A.J., 2013). An advantage of the autocratic leadership style was that corporate decisions were made more efficiently, if Bill were a democratic or consultative leader, it might have taken longer for Microsoft to seize primary markets of interests. Gates was also competent in delegating tasks to the right people, such as allowing the engineering teams to work at full capacity to meet their production goals. Microsoft’s success can be linked to the proper delegation of duties to the correct personnel, and a focus on goal-based decision making.

Ely Callaway was an iconic CEO in his own right. He understood focused strategy and could find the blue oceans among the miles of red. His fame and strong reputations

According to Johnson (2012) leaders are powerful role models, and policies will have a little effect if leaders do not follow the rules they set. In Enron case, corruption and ethical misconduct were deeply embedded in their business culture where profitability was more important than ethics. In this paper, I will address the factors that had led to the development of the culture of profit before principle at Enron. Also, I will create my personal code of ethics that will guide me in my professional and personal decision making and doing the right thing when faced with ethical challenges.

I have to say that I did not know much about Steve Jobs before I read the article; however, I do know that when he had an idea he took it and he developed it to its full potential. He 's been hailed as a genius and the greatest CEO of his generation. I have heard that he was a high-maintenance supervisor who demanded excellence from his staff and was known for his blunt delivery of criticism. He was a very talented individual, a skilled motivator, a decisive judge, and a gifted strategist. Steve Jobs created a company that became known worldwide. He made digital devices more elegant and easier to use. He made a lot of money for Apple Inc. after people told

In this ever growing, rapid developing world as we can see today, there are many different successful leaders. As we know it, leaders are humans just like everyone else. How did they manage to stand out from the crowd? What did they do to achieve great success for an organization? As of all the successful leaders in the world, Steve Jobs is one of the successful leaders that managed to achieve great success for an organization. Therefore, Steve Jobs is the leader that I personally admire and would like to emulate.

There are stories around the world about corruption and unethical leadership; these stories often make headlines in newspapers, magazines, and televised news programming. There is an abundance of immorality in the workplace; at the scale is at, it should be considered a plague. It runs rampant in all forms of business, in white collar crime and blue collar crime. White collar crime itself is the practice and history of unethical and inauthentic leadership in the professional world. Thus, while the direct and superficial focus is authentic leadership and behavioral integrity, the

A key factor to Enron’s fall from grace, was due to the foibles of its corporate leadership, in particular, how certain executives were willing to overlook unethical behavior in lieu of profits. For example, Ken Lay, Enron’s Chairman, espoused the ideals that Enron had higher level of morals than the average company (Gibney, 2005). However, on several instances, he failed to enforce or show that level of commitment. In the Vahalla case, he allowed traders that were involved in manipulating and gambling the company’s earnings to continue their operations, despite being warned of their fraudulent behavior (Gibney, 2005). His justification, at the time, was that Vahalla was the only part of the company that was making any money (Gibney, 2005).