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Nortel

Decent Essays

The Nortel case is an interesting one because its meteoric rise is as quick as its downfall. There are several important factors that have contributed to the sudden breakdown of the company and most of these are situated within the ethical perspective. First is the evident high compensation that Nortel’s executives received. Its CEO, John Roth, collected pay higher than his contemporaries from other companies and was also incredibly way above the industry average (Fogarty, Magnan, & Makarian, 2011). Executive compensation must be one of the significant issues to be given attention by a company to ensure its ethical performance, wherein there must be a salary cap no more than 19 times of the average employee salary (Collins, 2011). It should …show more content…

In short, the agency theory asserts the total cooperation between the managers (agents) and the shareholders/stockholders (principals) to ensure that their visions, goals, and interests in the organization are the same and well-aligned (Seven Pillars Institute, no date). However, reading the Nortel case, it is evident that this supposed alignment did not happen. One of the mechanisms to facilitate this kind of alignment is to respect the shareholders and the stakeholders. Both the agents and the principals must acknowledge that they both have the duty in the creation of wealth that is not only for the organization, but also for the value that their customers and the greater community, as well, receive. Both the agent and the principal must consider the principle of honesty, fairness for the organization’s customers, employees, suppliers, competitors, and the general community the organization is situated in (Collins, …show more content…

They instead chose benchmarks which they believed could increase the stock of the company without ever realizing that standard benchmarks had to be followed. Because of the freedom that the managers at Nortel had in terms of stock options, they were able to “increase” their earnings due to subsequent higher profit margin (Fogarty, Magnan, & Makarian, 2011). Inevitably, this led to the greed and pride of the people behind Nortel heading to the future downfall of the company. The immense power that the managers at Nortel held showed very little ethics and conscience on their part. Street value of the stocks of the company was prioritized more than the real and standard ones (Fogarty, Magnan, & Makarian,

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