Enron Code Of Ethics Essay

More than a decade ago, one of the most commanding corporations in modern American history filed for bankruptcy. Enron, a seemingly invulnerable company would eventually provoke sweeping changes in regulation that controls the management and accounting of public companies even to this day. The Enron scandal has come to be known as one of the prime audit failures of all time and serves as a classic example of corporate greed and corruption. However, for the generation that watched in horror as corporations such as Enron fell along with the stock market, this scandal is slowly becoming just that: history. And for the newer generation of college students like me, it is almost ancient history. Despite the time that separates us from this scandal, it has never been more important to remember the lessons learned and best understand how the adoption of The Clarkson Principles can guide our careers in the business sector.

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,

The bad corporate culture at Enron deeply contributed to ethics digressions while pointing out how it led to its bankruptcy. A corporate code of ethics as well as an organizational culture are not only essential and vital to a company; they represent the core of a long term success. Notwithstanding the presence of “The Smartest Guys in the Room”, Enron’s corporate culture did not succeed in creating an ethical environment inside the company.

Enron, a once thriving Houston-based energy titan, is now reduced to a cautionary adage among Americans to what massive failure corporate greed could lead to. At its core however Enron’s ethical and moral behavior was sound and seemed to be aligned with industry competitors. In an opening statement to the Enron Code of Ethics issued in July 2000, Lay wrote: “As officers and employees of Enron Corp., its subsidiaries, and its affiliated companies, we are responsible

This paper explores the ethical dimension of the demise of Enron Corporation an reflection of author, placed in hypothetical situations. Accounting Fraud and Management philosophy will be the main discussion topics, along with the motivations of fraud. The fall of Enron can be directly attributed to a violation of ethical standards in business. This makes Enron unique in corporate history for the same actions that made Enron on of the fastest growing and most profitable corporations, at the turn of the 21st century, also bout about its destruction. This paper does not explore legal consequences, only the ethical dimension of Enron’s actions.

This only increased the habits that employees had of lying in order to survive. Major managers at Enron were also largely responsible for the demise of the good intentions and expectations that Ken Lay had for his employees. He himself became entangled in the lying and stealing, and cheating that was taking place instead of the expectation of a corporation filled with integrity, ethics, and morality. The value of shareholders sank in the eyes of officers and their greed grew. As a result, Enron employees got creative with what they considered to be assets and began to give the appearance of gaining profit while actually losing assets.

I would describe the organizing ethical values at Enron as unethical from the perspective of the employees and customers of electricity in California. Jeff Skilling knew exactly what he was doing when he left the company. Skilling didn't have any compassion for his employees knowing that Enron was on its downfall. In the Dalai Lama, it states that we, as humans, naturally are biased towards our family and friends when it comes to compassion. It says that there is danger if "we neglect our responsibilities toward those outside the circle." In every interview, Skilling had a political way of answering every question he was asked. According to Seeger, leaders play the central role in forming the "ethical climate." This made me think of the part in the movie where

From what I understand Andrew Fastow was hired for the sole purpose of developing an elaborate network of special purpose entities to cover up over $1 billion

Question 1 Summarize 1 one page how you would explain Enron’s ethical meltdown: Enron was an energy company founded by Kenneth Lay in 1985 through a merger of vast networks of natural gas lines. Enron specialized in wholesale, natural gas, and electricity, and made its money as a wholesaler between suppliers and customers rather than actually owning any. Enron in fact didn’t own any assets, which made their accounting procedures very unusual. The lack of accounting transparency at Enron allowed the company’s managers to make Enron’s financial performance better than it actually was. The organizational culture at Enron was to blame for it’s ethical meltdown. Enron’s accounting scheme slowly began to erode its ethical practices, which soon led the culture of Enron to become a more aggressive and misleading business practice. Enron reported profits from joint partnerships that were not yet attained in order to keep stock prices up (or make wall street happy). As this was happening employees began to notice the ethics in senior management (leadership) deteriorating, and soon after they to would follow in their footsteps. Senior management thought they were saving their company from financial ruin and though lying was ok if it meant saving the company. Investors would surely sell their stocks if they really knew the situation the

Respect, integrity, communication and excellence are the ethics code of Enron. These four aspects have a crucial impact on business ethics. “Ethics requires respect. One cannot exist without the other. Ethical success depends on understanding the profound impact that respect has on your ethics and character.” As Mark S. Putnam said in his article “Respect: The Starting Point for Good Ethics”(2003), we need to make respect our obligation and show everyone a certain degree of respect. All the top executives did not show respect to lower level employees. The only thing they did is to enrich themselves rather than caring about the interests of the employees. Integrity is to act consistently with your principles, values and beliefs.(Lennick and Kiel, 2007, p.80). In other words, we need to stay true to ourselves, our words and our actions. Being aware of what we have done and what we should do in the future. Most importantly, we need to stay true to our moral compass. However, the top executives of Enron have been challenging these codes of ethics. They were engaged in making up financial reports and making misleading statements. Fraud, conspiracy and money laundering are common phenomenon among all the top executives. Communication is supposed to be the exchange of different people’s perspectives throughout the company. While, in Enron, each division and business unit were separate from the others. Very few people actually knew what was going on inside the

In light of the recent scandals that rose around big multinationals such as Enron and WorldCom, it has become evident that reform in the traditional corporate operations and objectives was to be encompassed in the organisations corporate strategies. Indeed throughout the years, companies main objectives were defined primarily as being economic objectives, Multinationals developed with sight of profit maximisations regardless to the other incentives, Friedman considered that to be the foundation for a well-managed company, it was further considered that the financing of any other sort of social corporate activities rather unnecessary. The expenses were regarded as expenditures for the owners and investors; this was a time where shareholders rights were regarded as conflicting with other constituents namely the employees, creditors, customers or the community in general. However this interpretation is seen as rather inadequate due to the nature of the amalgamated relation between both constituents. Stakeholders in modern corporate doctrine are considered as a core apparatus for the well functioning of a business. It is however often argued that the only way for a corporation to achieve better results and maximise its profits is to include other people in the process, individuals or organisations with direct or indirect interest in the well performance of the company, that is the reason why modern regulations and codes include a number of stakeholders other than the

Respect, integrity, communication and excellence are the ethics code of Enron. These four aspects have a crucial impact on business ethics. “Ethics requires respect. One cannot exist without the other. Ethical success depends on understanding the profound impact that respect has on your ethics and character.” As Mark S. Putnam said in his article “Respect: The Starting Point for Good Ethics”(2003), we need to make respect our obligation and show everyone a certain degree of respect. All the top executives did not show respect to the low level employees. The only thing

In an ideal world there would be no corruption, no conflict, and no need for regulations. But this is not an ideal world and these problems happen every day. The business world is not exempt from this problem. Many businesses rely on ethics to help guide their company successfully. Our textbook Business Ethics: How to Design and Manage Ethical Organizations Denis Collins defines ethics as, “the set of principles a person uses to determine whether an action is good or bad” (5). All over the world there are businesses that take part in unethical behavior for many different reasons. Some countries even allow these unethical conducts, such as bribery, as a part of the norm. But for the United States, we have a stricter set of principles in place to try and stop unethical business practices from happening. That doesn’t mean that they don’t happen. Collins discusses a 2009 survey conducted by The Ethics Resource Center on 3,010 employees. Collins states that, “approximately half of the respondents observed at least one type of major ethical misconduct in the workplace during the past year, and nearly half of these violated the law” (6). If uncovered these corruptions are not tolerated and can lead to the fall of anything from a small mom and pop business to massive a Corporation. That is exactly what happened to the Enron Corporation back in 2001. In this essay I will discuss what exactly Enron is, the unethical business practices that occurred, and my opinion on the scandal and

Ethics in the business world can often times become a second priority behind the gaining of profits and success as a company. This is the controversial issue that led to the Enron scandal and ultimately the fall of this company. Enron Corporation was an energy company, and in the peaks of their success, they were the top supplier of natural gas and electricity throughout America. Enron Corporation came about from a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Houston Natural Gas was a gas providing company formed in Houston during the 1920’s. InterNorth was a company formed in Nebraska during the 1930’s and owned one of America’s largest pipeline networks. In 1985, Sam Segnar, the CEO of InterNorth bought out Houston Natural Gas for $2.4 billion. A year later in 1986, Segnar retired and was replaced by Kenneth Lay, who renamed the company and created Enron. Enron was the owner of the second largest pipeline in America that measured over 36,000 miles. The company was also the creator of the “Gas Bank”, which was a new way to trade and market natural gas and served as an intermediary between buyers and sellers. As the company continued to develop, it became more of a trader rather than a producer of gas. This trading extended into coal, steel, water and many other areas. One of Enron’s largest successes was their creation of a website called, “Enron Online” in 1999, which quickly became one of the top trading cites in the world. By the year 2000 Enron as a company was

Most of the world has heard of Enron, the American, mega-energy company that “cooked their books” ( ) and cost their investors billions of dollars in lost earnings and retirement funds. While much of the controversy surrounding the Enron scandal focused on the losses of investors, unethical practices of executives and questionable accounting tactics, there were many others within close proximity to the turmoil. It begs the question- who was really at fault and what has been done to prevent it from happening again?