Hr Crisis Management: an Enron Case Study Essay

Communication plays a key role in organizations as it allows organizations to be able to work effectively. Employees in an organization also benefits by communicating with other members and feeling being a part of the organization. It is not possible for an organization to operate without any communication between various levels, departments and employees.

Enron was an energy trading and communications company located in Houston, Texas. During 1996-2001 Enron was given the name of America’s Most Innovative Company by Fortune magazine as it was the seventh-largest corporation in the US. The problem that led this company to bankruptcy was due to the fact that fraudulent accounting practices took place allowing Enron to overstate their earnings and tuck away their high debt liabilities in order to have a more appealing balance sheet (Forbes.com, 2002). Enron’s accounting team “cooked” the books to every meaning of the word so that their investors would not see anything wrong with the failing organization. This poorly structured company led people to jail time, unemployment, and caused retirement stocks to be dried up. Enron had a social responsibility to its stockholders and rather than being up front and honest about the failing company they hid every financial flaw in order to keep receiving money from its investors. By Enron not keeping a social

Enron had the largest bankruptcy in America’s history and it happened in less than a year because of scandals and manipulation Enron displayed with California’s energy supply. A few years ago, Enron was the world’s 7th largest corporation, valued at 70 billion dollars. At that time, Enron’s business model was full of energy and power. Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling had raised Enron to stand on a culture of greed, lies, and fraud, coupled with an unregulated accounting system, which caused Enron to go down. Lies were being told by top management to the government, its employees and investors. There was a rise in Enron 's share price because of pyramid scheme; their strategy consisted of claiming so much money to easily get away with their tricky ways. They deceived their investors so they could keep investing their money in the company.

Communication is a process by which two or more people exchange ideas, facts, feelings, or impressions in ways that gains common understanding of messages. Communication can be used to bring out changes in attitudes and used to motivate people and establish and maintain relationships, it is also vital for seeking and providing information.

The story of Enron is truly remarkable. As a company it merely controlled the electricity, natural gas and communications sectors of the world. It reported (key word, reported) revenues over one hundred billion US dollars and was presented America’s Most Innovative Company by Fortune magazine for six sequential years. But, with power comes greed and Enron from its inception employed people who set their eyes upon money, prestige, power or a combination of the three. The gluttony took over sectors which the company could not operate proficiently nor successfully.

Companies such as Enron from approximately 1996 to 2001 were thriving and the stock price rising constantly. Such a move on the company’s stock was attracted millions of investors who wanted to invest in a stable company they could trust. Little did they know that the company with over 60 Billion dollars in market capitalization at one point, was about to collapse. The company’s stock reached a high of approximately 90 dollars per share in 2000, and the following year shares plummeted to less than one dollar. As one can imagine, investors were terrified, millions lost the entire retirement savings, and other were just afraid to trust the financial markets. Enron, and others were taking advantage of the loose accounting regulations to recognize revenue improperly, make use of special purpose entities to create “fake” revenue, and weak corporate governance.

The collapse of Enron left thousands of employees without jobs and demolished the retirement accounts of employees and investors alike. Enron, a company much like General Electric (GE) was ranked as one of the top ten on the Fortune 500 list in 2001 (according to Fortune 500 archive list) right before Enron filed for bankruptcy in October of that year. According to an article by (http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-01-27/news/0201270343_1_enron-stock-market-cautious-investors) Flynn McRobertshe, “At one time the seventh-largest company in the country, Enron was a popular pick for many investors--both individuals and large institutions such as pension and mutual funds.” No one expected a company of that size to be able collapse and conduct business like Enron did. To many it was hard to believe

Communication is the conveyance and flow of ideas from one person to another. The exchange of information takes place through letters, words, symbols and nonverbal behaviors. It involves the transmission of ideas from the sender to the receiver. Communication is effective only if the receiver fully understands the transmitted information. Many problems and failures occur in organizations due to poor communication. Objective and goals fail due to misunderstandings in the organization. Effective communication provides a chain of understanding to all participants in the organizational framework. It promotes the flow of information both vertically and horizontally.

The fall of the colossal entity called Enron has forever changed the level of trust that the American public holds for large corporations. The wake of devastation caused by this and other recent corporate financial scandals has brought about a web of new reforms and regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was signed into law on July 30th, 2002. We are forced to ask ourselves if it will happen again. This essay will examine the collapse of Enron and detail the main causes behind this embarrassing stain of American history.

Over the past decade, senior executives from large corporations such as Enron were found to use unethical practices and standards in the workplace for personal gain. Incidences such as Enron have affected society as a whole, whether directly or indirectly. The behaviors of these corporate officials has resulted in the loss of employee pension plans and contributed to the economic downturn of the world.

Heavily influenced by the culture to compete rather co-operate, employees at Enron were motivated and driven by huge bonuses and they became scared of the ranking criteria. They were also scared by being asked to leave the company of they did not perform well. All this resulted in unhealthy business activities, which drove colleagues to push each other backwards rather than to help each other to finalize the deal or execute the sale

In 1985, two companies, Houston Natural Gas, and InterNorth merged to form Enron. Kenneth Lay wanted to create a company that can supply electricity and natural gas at a much lower price. As time went on, Enron ranked as the nation’s sixth largest energy company with global internet trading commodities in plastics, steel, petrochemicals and waste water to name a few (Fusaro, 2000, p. 157). From the time they merged to form Enron up to the point of their collapse, Enron’s executive committee had squandered many of the company’s assets through bad strategies, hiding money, and creating an illusion of a stable financial company.

Other significant stakeholders that deserve priority are Enron’s employees. The employees present threats to Enron in two ways: they can form coalitions to exercise their legal rights, and they can also leave the company. They will most likely sue the company as they have lost vast amounts of their retirement savings (Moscoco and Deans, 2002). The urgency in this situation matters a lot as some employees are reaching their retirement age. When it comes to employees leaving the company, it is important to note that these employees have the necessary skills and are essential for the business to succeed. Here is where we see the opportunity. How is Enron going to recover without them? That being said, Enron has to do something to retain its employees.

All of the prior represents the business side of the downfall of Enron. That being said, businesses fail all of the time. The reason why Enron Corporation and its executives will always live in infamy is not because the company failed, but how and why the company failed. How, exactly, does a company worth about $70 million collapse in less than a month? It became clear that the company not only had financial problems, but ethical problems that started from the top of the company and trickled down. A key player in these problems was Jeffrey Skilling. He was a man brought to the company by Ken Lay himself. Skilling brought his own accounting concept to the company. It was called mark-to-market accounting. This concept allowed Enron to record potential profits the day a deal was signed. This meant that the company could report whatever they “thought” profits from the deal were going to be and count the number towards actual profits, even if no money actually came in. Mark-to-market accounting granted Enron the power to report major profits to the public, even if they were little or even negative. It became a major way

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?