Business Failure of Worldcom in the Light of Organizational Behavior Theories

As with Enron, the more that it was investigated the worse it became. There was fraudulent reporting on the balance sheet and income statement some that was found after the fact during the post-bankruptcy audit ( (Romar & Calkins, 2006). The total of the fraudulently report amounts was approximately $73.7 billion in overstated revenues and $5.8 billion in overstated assets for a total of $79.5 billion in overstatements in less than a two year period (Romar & Calkins, 2006). The biggest difference with WorldCom is that it restructured and was bought by

During the year 2000, Enron was exceeding all expectations, its stock was through the roof, and the company seemed to be on top of the world. The next year Enron declared bankruptcy. So how did a company rise and fall so quickly? The key in analysing this question lies in Enron’s organizational culture, which is defined as “a shared meaning held by members distinguishing an organization” (Robbins and Judge, Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 269). During its prime, Enron appeared to be a successful and innovative company, but in reality was a company rooted in an organizational culture of corruption and greed. The five culture dimensions of stability, risk taking and innovation, attention to detail, outcome orientation, and aggressiveness are key to understanding how unethical behavior became such a problem at Enron.

Enron Corporation’s failure in the year of 2001 has become a depiction of unethical corporate behavior for years to come. After having watched Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; I found many organizational communications course concepts could be brought to our attention within the documentary. To further our understanding, I will offer my insight as to how class-related concepts connect with the documentary by discussing how Enron developed strong organizational values by identifying certain heroes and their stories that developed their sense of strong risk taking as well as discussing Enron’s “rank and yank” system that can be asserted with F.W. Taylor’s work within

This case analysis is based on the events that occurred on March 13, 2001 and the days that followed at Cerner Corporation. On that day the Chief Executive Officer of Cerner Corporation, Neal Patterson, sent a memo to the company’s managers via e-mail. In the message he advised the managers of his disgust with their disregard of punctuality and work ethic which he felt was as a result of the managers’ lack of leadership skills. The e-mail message was later obtainable for viewing on the Yahoo website to the public, including existing and potential investors and stock market analysts.

Ethical leadership is vital for the success of any business; this case study illustrates that the lack of moral values and a healthy ethically incline corporate culture, can lead to scrupulous behavior from the CEO all the way down the company. Scrushy had a demanding and cunning personality, and it was easy for his to influence others in his business to go along with the fraud. Also, having Stanwick and Stanwick, (2013) an active board of directors does have a positive impact on the performance of the firm. Also, good corporate governance supports the ethical requirements established by the stakeholders. A moral leader must cultivate a real ethically driven organization, which has no tolerance for unethical behavior.

The stakeholders in this fraudulent case of WorldCom consist of Bernie Ebbers, Scott Sullivan, Buford Yates, David Myers, Cynthia Cooper, and Betty Vinson belong to the company. While the other stakeholders would consist of the creditors, Andersen (accounting firm), investors, and the public. This fraudulent act committed within WorldCom impacted every single stakeholder in a way. Either in a negative or positive way, most of the impact was caused with harm to everyone. The main individuals such as Ebbers, Sullivan, and Vinson all had major consequences as resulting with the fraud. Criminal trials were a major result with their fraudulent acts within WorldCom. Cooper was a lifesaver by most of the community. Aside from these individuals, the rest also got affected by the fraud. Investments conducted by the investors were all lost within the fraud process. The impact towards much of the image for Andersen was ruined. Many of the public lost their trust on the honesty and professionalism of Andersen and other certified public accounting firms. The entire employees from the top management to the smaller group of workers stayed unemployed and some with criminal punishment.

Training can provide unique opportunities for organizations to prevent fraud and improve ethical practices among employees. Training can help to educate, raise awareness, and increase short and long-term company profits. WorldCom was a classic example of failed corporate governance, accounting abuses, and plain greed that could have been prevented through appropriate management and employee training. This paper will provide an example of a training plan that could have helped prevent the demise of WorldCom.

On the superficial level, the attitudes and motives behind the events and decisions causing eventual downfall seem simple enough: collective and individual greed created in the atmosphere of corporate arrogance. As Enron's reputation in the global environment grew, the internal culture of the organization began to worsen significantly. Skilling, Enron Chief Executive, founded the Performance Review Committee, PRC, which gained the reputation of the harshest employee-ranking system in the whole country. Theoretically, this review system was based on the values of Enron - respect, integrity, communication and excellence (RICE). But at the end of the

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.

Due to these criminal activities, many top executives were convicted fraud and sentenced to spend time in prison. WorldCom activities did not align with the company's overall mission and goals. The actions taken by management were not in the best interest of the customer instead they were consumed with acquisitions and increasing the value of WorldCom Shares. The management also should have considered general accounting practices during their strategic planning. Furthermore, create procedures that protect all stakeholders within the firm.

The first section of this essay focuses on the possible causes of corporate failures including dominant CEO, poor strategy decision and the failure of internal control. Secondly, it discusses how the third edition of corporate governance principles and recommendations could be applied to prevent the causes of the failure. The 1st, 2nd, and 7th principles along with specific recommendations will be mentioned in this section. However, the context is concerned solely with the causes stemming from Dick Smith itself.

On March 15, 2005 former CEO of WorldCom, Bernard Ebbers sat in a federal courtroom waiting for the verdict. As the former CEO of WorldCom, Ebbers was accused of being personally responsible for the financial destruction of the communications giant. An internal investigation had uncovered $11 billion dollars in fraudulent accounting practices. Later a second report in 2003 found that during Ebber’s 2001 tenure as CEO, the company had over-reported earnings and understated expenses by an astonishing $74.5 billion dollars (Martin, 2005, para 3). This report included the mismanagement of funds, unethical lending practices among its top executives, and false bookkeeping which led to loss of tens of thousands of its employees.

WorldCom was the ultimate success story among telecommunications companies. Bernard Ebbers took the reigns as CEO in 1985 and turned the company into a highly profitable one, at least on the outside. In 2002, Ebbers resigned, WorldCom admitted fraud and the company declared bankruptcy (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, &Wright 2007). The company was at the heart of one of the biggest accounting frauds seen in the United States. The demise of this telecommunications monster can be accredited to many factors including their aggressive-defensive organizational culture based on power and the bullying tactics that they employed. However, this fiasco could have been prevented if WorldCom had designed a system of checks and balances that would have

P., & Coulter, M. K., 2012, p. 152), although it seems none of WorldCom’s executive management team seemed to feel this way. Many steps could have been taken to prevent the collapse of the WorldCom empire, but only a few key managers held the power and none were willing to take action. One control that did not exist in WorldCom’s culture was allowing both internal and external auditors access to all necessary documents and statements. Without full disclosure of these items no one could see how many risks the company was taking by making fraudulent entries against their books. Also the external audit team, Arthur Anderson, held WorldCom as one of its best customers which was a major conflict of interest. This relationship lead to many fundamental mistakes from Anderson not keeping pressure on WorldCom and getting all vital information that would prove how poorly the company was being run. Had they been operating transparently, auditors and employees would have seen the accounting deception and could potentially have stopped it prior to the company’s collapse. In addition, by employing multiple auditing firms many of the mistakes being made may have been caught and discontinued from the beginning.

This paper will discuss the corporation WorldCom, a telecommunications company that was based in Mississippi. In 2002 WorldCom was involved in one of the largest accounting scandals in the United States. WorldCom inflated its assets by nearly $11 billion dollars, which eventually lead to about 30,000 employees losing their jobs, as well as, 180-billion dollars in losses for its investors. The CEO at the time of this accounting fraud was Bernard Ebbers and led to him receiving a 25-year prison sentence. This paper will go into the details of how WorldCom was able to manipulate its accounting records to deceive its internal auditors, as well as, investors.