“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; We know now that it is also bad economics”
(Franklin Delano Roosevelt as cited in Godwin, 2008; Good Money & Quotes, 2010)
1. Introduction Business Industry has witnessed the outcomes of bad moral decisions taken by business leaders. Enron’s story is only one example of corporate scandals and cases of bad moral decisions, which has not only shaken the public trust in corporations, but also affected the bank accounts of investors and employees. Before the bankruptcy of Enron; it was included in one of the fortune 500 companies after its fraudulent accounting case the share went down to $1 (Enron scandal, 2010; PBS, 2002; Godwin, 2006; Godwin, 2008).
The “bad apples”
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This only happens because of their leaders who make such decisions which leads towards increasing the profit margin and creating social mutually benefit (Godwin, 2006; Godwin, 2008; CBS, 2002; PBS, 2002).
Some business leaders are taking good moral decisions and the reason behind that idea is that the core part of their business strategy is to create mutual benefit for both wider society and business as well. The growing desire of top management is to find out ways to create mutual benefit for both the organizations and the stake holders but the public still believes that companies are greedy entities which make decisions only in their self-interest, even at the cost of greater public welfare. It is the utmost obligation of the companies to discern the social issues while making the decisions (Yashiro, Yoshida and Suzuki, no date; Godwin, 2006; Schwab, 1996; Godwin, 2008; Werhane, 1998; Werhane, 2002; Heath, 2008; Mehalik and Gorman, 2006).
Morality is basically the individual’s perception of what is “good'' or “right.'' The human behaviors are determined by the environment. What so ever human is behaving is just because of its environmental factors (Rest, 1994; Godwin, 2008).Moral Imagination is the mental ability to create or use ideas, images, discern moral aspects implanted within a situation and develop a range of possible solutions of the situation from a moral point of view (Godwin, 2008; Werhane, 1998; Werhane, 2002; Heath, 2008; Mehalik and
Ethics can have a big influence on decision-making in the workplace. Ethical behavior in the workplace is behavior that is accepted as morally "right," rather than "wrong." (Organizational Behavior). Unethical behavior can be considered illegal, or merely against the norms of society. Employees encounter ethical decisions every day in the workplace, whether they realize it or not. The stock boy must make a decision on whether it is right to steal merchandise. The auto mechanic must make a decision on what is a fair price to charge a gullible customer. The CEO must decide how to use all the power he or she possesses. There are many different thinking about ethical behavior, and different people
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
Enron’s ride is quite a phenomenon: from a regional gas pipeline trader to the largest energy trader in the world, and then back down the hill into bankruptcy and disgrace. As a matter of fact, it took Enron 16 years to go from about $10 billion of assets to $65 billion of assets, and 24 days to go bankruptcy. Enron is also one of the most celebrated business ethics cases in the century. There are so many things that went wrong within the organization, from all personal (prescriptive and psychological approaches), managerial (group norms, reward system, etc.), and organizational (world-class culture) perspectives. This paper will focus on the business ethics issues at Enron that were raised from the documentation Enron: The Smartest Guys
The entire downfall of the giant Enron was brought about due to various ethical lapses that, in the end, would muddy the reputation of anyone who had a connection with the company. Even according to Gibney (2005), it was widely known that Enron’s CFO Andy Fastow would tend to implement and use less than ethical financial practices. The unethical behavior, though, does not usually just occur with one person or one position. Gibney (2005), throughout the entire documentary, hints at the idea that all Enron management/leadership knew of and were complicit in the unethical practices. In the end, Enron had betrayed the trust of thousands of employees and investors. Both of these betrayed parties would try to seek some level of justice in what had become one of America’s worst economic blunders (Gibney, 2005).
In synopsis, the case involves Ruby, a therapist that is counseling Henry, who expresses extremely hostile feelings toward homosexuals and toward people who have contracted AIDS. Henry is not coming to counseling to work on his feelings about gay people; his primary goal is to work out his feelings of resentment over his wife, who left him. He thinks homosexual people are deviant and that it serves them right if they do get AIDS. Ruby’s son is gay and Henry’s prejudice affects her emotionally. She is taken aback by her client’s comments and she finds that his vies are getting in the way as she attempts to work with him. The development of a dynamic set of ethical standards for psychologists’ work related conduct requires a
Enron was a U.S. based energy-trading company. At its height of operation in the early part of 2001, it was booking revenues of about $140 billion (Enron Ethics). At the end of 2001 it declared bankruptcy. The Enron bankruptcy was the largest corporate economic failure at that time, and still remains an example of how corrupt practices magnify in the long run. What led to Enron’s failure was primarily a lack of ethics, and poor accounting practices. This scandal was one of the reasons that new regulations were passed for financial reporting standards, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in 2002 as a means of stopping such a collapse in the future.
Ethical leadership and ethical decision making are a challenge for any organization or institution. Within your professional area/industry, analyze how and why ethical practices and behaviors are critical to your discipline and to the success of organizations. Justify your response in detail with three examples of current ethical practices and discuss the key theoretical concepts and industry guidelines involved. These examples can be from your own professional experience or through research of the literature of case studies. Support your statements and analyses with citations and other support from the academic literature.
In today's business and personal world, ethical decisions are made on a daily basis. Most of these decisions are based on company ground rules. The others are based on personal ground rules. All decisions can have a number of ground rules that help us determine whether our decision is ethical or unethical. Each decision whether it is based on company or personal ground rules will have its own set of implications. In the following paragraphs I will discuss the impacts of ethics on decision-making, discuss the elements of an ethically defensible decision, define what the ground rules are; what they could be and what they should be, discuss
In today’s global society, a Code of Ethics policy is used to label established, acceptable behaviors among that industry’s business associates, potential investors, and the corporation’s executive officers and employees, and most important, the consumer (Ethics Resource Center, 2003). In an attempt to promote an increased efficiency and productivity potential level, among employees and prospective clients, a corporation’s standard Code of Ethics should guide its members toward a more in-depth examination of their personal moral activity, and how these actions affect the people or acquaintances they encounter. A company should utilize this strategy as a model for the professional behaviors and responsibilities of its constituents,
Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility in the corporate world are very important. By understanding business ethics and socially responsibility, companies can develop and implement a socially responsible plan. Organizations are no doubt an assembly line of different networks that are both complex and dynamic in nature which face various conflicts. With this, a qualitative paradigm needs to be used in order to ensure in-depth knowledge and understanding of the issues and challenges among business practices and how they can be handled. The influence of leadership and management decision making in an
How to behave toward oneself and toward other individuals is a matter of making choices: whether to be friendly or unfriendly; whether to tell the truth or lie; whether to be generous or greedy; whether to study in order to pass an exam or to spend valuable study time watching television and cheat to pass it. These, and all other questions about how people act toward themselves and one another are dealt with in a field of study called ethics. Another name for ethics is morality. Because both words suggest customary ways of behavior, they are somewhat misleading. It had to do with what should or should not be done. Divide practical wisdom into two parts: moral philosophy and political philosophy. They're defined together as a "true reasoned
Every organization has a set of ethical standards that they abide by. The organization ethical standards purposes: it build the organization confidence in the community , keep the employees uniformed in what the organization strive to have as organizational behaviors and help the employees have guidelines to make ethical decisions that protects the organization.
Unfortunately, scandals like Enron are not isolated incidents and the last decade has offered Americans a disheartening perspective with comparable scandals like that of WorldCom and Tyco, Sunbeam, Global Crossing and many more. Companies have a concrete responsibility not just to their investors but to society as a whole to have practices which deter corporate greed and looting and which actively and effectively work to prevent such things from happening. This
at the peak, Cramer's firm had paper profits of more than $2 million on the
Ethic is the standard of conduct related to our decision, action and behavior (buying record book). Managers in Camellia State l level of management and all function, face situation wherein ethical consideration play a major role (Jamnik, 2011). Since supplying managers are dealing daily with suppliers and buyers where they have to confront daily with ethical progeny s and have to distinguish between them. These government issues lead to a crucial legal take could affect the governance itself and the stakeholder. In supply direction exercise the ethics are considered the telephone number one issue veneer supply managers today (Eltantawy et. al. 2009).