The Culture At Lehman Effective Or Ineffective?

A decade ago the Lehman Brothers were the fourth largest investment bank in America. Dealing with Investment banking and investment management, the Lehman Brothers was one of the largest global financial service providers. Consequently, the subprime mortgage crisis left the company filing for the declaration of the chapter 11 bankruptcy protections, due to the unnecessary undertaken risk and obnoxious negligence accusations directed towards the group. Companies should utilize observational and analytical pundit functions in identifying the presence of crisis situations to avoid an economic downturn in the business (Pontell, 2014). The fraud would have prevented through stronger and better internal controls, which

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

Patrick Lencioni is an American writer, who focuses on writing books particularly in relation to business and team management. He is best known for ‘The Five Dysfunctions of a Team’, an allegory following the journey of DecisionTech’s new CEO, Katheryn Peterson. In this tale, Lencioni revels the basics of teamwork by creating a fictional business, in which is struggling to grow as a company, due to lack of commitment by its employees. The company fails to accept responsibilities and to come to any agreements, ultimately, resulting a plummeting disposition. Furthermore, throughout the fable, the five dysfunctions of a team become more evident, in which are, absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment avoidance of accountability and

A Colossal Failure of Common Sense was one of many books to be published in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis of 2007. After seeing the global economy stall in the face of massive losses in word financial markets, many Americans sought to better understand the crisis and its causes. This book, written from the perspective of a financial market insider, provides a glimpse into the world of global finance and also seeks to explain how the players in this world were involved in the crisis. In the words of the author Lawrence McDonald, “My objective in writing A Colossal Failure of Common Sense was twofold. First, to provide … a close-up, inside view of how markets really work…..And, second, to give… as crystal clear an explanation as possible about the real reasons why the legendary Lehman Brothers met with such a swift end”1. By writing about his personal experience at Lehman Brothers and recounting stories from within the famous investment banking firm, Mr. McDonald largely succeeds at his first goal. However, the elements of personal biography and the chronological order of the book make it difficult for the reader to fully appreciate all of the varied causes of the financial crash. I believe that the main value of reading this book is in understanding these causes, with Lehman Brothers acting as a microcosm of the greater financial universe. As such, in this review I have isolated elements from Mr. McDonald’s book which highlight how the crisis

Also contributing to the outcome of the power struggle were structural features that existed across the financial industry. The whole industry is governed and motivated by profits generated through individual contribution irrespective of the firm’s net performance. This particular industry structure results in the classic inter departmental tensions to maximize the individual department’s profits. To a certain extent, Lehman had to comply with rest of the companies by creating the isolated departmental structure to maintain its top performers. As a result, when a department creates 60-80% of the firm’s profit, the power shifts to the department making the most money. Lehman could have created an alternate compensation strategy to reduce the potential for power struggle between the departments. For example, rather

At the same time, I don’t full agree that this type of culture was absolutely right for an investment firm. To compete in the investment industry, long-term performance is very important. Yet, this industry is very fast-paced. If a firm only pays attention to long-term returns, it won’t attract many clients. Loss of clients will hurt the reputation of the firm. The reputational capital in the investment industry is one of the most important intangible assets. To address this type of difficulties, Haldeman should also have considered the economic value when he rebuilt the culture of Putnam. A combination of both Theory O and Theory E approaches would be a more successful strategy to rebuild the culture of Putnam. According to Cracking the Code of Change by Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria, companies that effectively combine Theory O and Theory E approaches to change can reap big payoffs in profitability and productivity. It is because a combination of these two theories can explicitly embrace the paradox between economic value and organizational capability. The leadership is to set direction from the top and engage the people below. It will allow the firm to focus simultaneously on the structures and the corporate culture. In the Putnam case, Haldeman could apply Theory E incentives in a Theory O way. For example, he could have designed a performance evaluation combining measure of economic value

Viewing this article through the lens of the platonic framework is significant because it allows one to judge the acts of the Obama administration versus the acts of Wall Street executives in the aftermath of the previous recession. While the executives that are committing the injustice would be the most evil here for not only committing the unjust acts but for also not seeking their punishment and blaming it on low-level management, the administration is worse than the low-level management for the fact that they are not bringing justice either. This makes clear then why Lynch and Yates are attempting to correct this injustice that’s occurring

In The Divide, author Matt Taibbi portrays the effects of the Recession on the employees of the large bank firms that committed fraud. Taibbi discusses the life of Linda Almonte, a former executive for JPMorgan Chase. Originally, Linda worked for Washington Mutual, but a large amount of fraudulent activity happened at the bank firm and caused the bank to fail. They were giving loans to “anything that moved” (357) without looking at the consequences. However, the massive amounts of loan were not what “killed the company” (358), it was destroyed because of their inability to rid of their “defective product” (358). After Linda discovered that JPMorgan Chase was committing suspicious acts, she decided to investigate. Not only did she find

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results." This quote was from Andrew Carnegie. I wondered why an American industrialists quote could add onto my story. But once I finished expanding this paper I realized that this paper has everything to do with those very words.

Another ethnography of Wall Street was carried out by the anthropologist Karen Ho, who, like Gillian Tett, gives us a true perspective about the nature of the financial industry and helps suggest important factors about a liberal democracy in contemporary times. In her book, Ho raises certain issues with regards to the culture of finance. The banks high employee liquidity created a culture of job insecurity, often using practices and assumptions in effort to create and increase shareholder value. However, the attempt to appreciate the value was through the means of the derivative market, which became an obvious indicator that their assumptions would lead to an economic crisis. Capitalism is run by Wall Street personalities who have strong,

“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” shows us how basic human nature does not change, whether it is firing as a means to resolve disputes, or in the

In the wake of the recent financial crisis, many commentators attempted to analyze the roots of the conflict from a political or economic perspective. Anthropologist Karen Ho, a veteran of Wall Street as well as an academic, attempted to understand the reason that Wall Street behaves the way it does in her 2009 anthropological study of American finance entitled Liquidated: An ethnography of Wall Street from a cultural perspective. The central paradox with which Ho begins her book is: " the economy experienced not only record corporate profits and the longest rising stock market ever, but also record downsizings," further concentrating the wealth in America (Ho 2009: 1-2). But how can corporations grow richer as the American public as a whole grows poorer? Corporations no longer view themselves as responsible for taking care of their employees, creating good products, or serving their original mission. Instead, the focus is on generating shareholder wealth (Ho 2009:3). Shareholders, not the larger public, have become the symbolic and real focus of firm strategy. The shareholder "symbolized and 'stood in' for the whole of the corporation and became the sole locus of concern and analysis" during the time Ho conducted her study in the late 1990s and continues to this day (Ho 2009:175)

     Cultures are varying among different parts of the globe. People with different cultures have different characteristics and viewpoints on the subjects due to diverse understanding and method of learning. During the past few decades, the international trade grows in a very rapid rate due to the advantages that it provides; “increased sales, operational efficiencies, exposure to new technologies and broader consumer choices” (Heslin). Therefore, when considering the culture aspect to current business world, it is crucial for business to understand the culture aspect because of the tremendous growth of international business as well as utilize the international market to its maximum

Many questions are still being raised concerning the collapse of Enron. The aftermath of Enron’s fall has brought review of the actions that took place prior to the collapse. Many of these questions may be left unanswered. The company’s executive management, board of directors, and auditors hold the responsibility for the ultimate collapse of a once dominant force in the energy industry. Team A developed several options in a plan that could have possibly helped Enron avoid their demise. The plan is designed to discuss the benefits and challenges of communication, collaboration and conflict management. It will provide an opportunity to the management team of Enron the benefits of developing strong communication between all employees

This work will examine the case 'Banking Industry Meltdown: The Ethical Financial Risk Derivatives" and determine which moral philosophy is most applicable to an understanding of the banking industry meltdown and explain the rationale. The case study will be analyzed and white-collar crimes considered as to whether they are different in any substantive manner from other more blue-collar crimes. This study will determine and discuss the role that corporate culture played in banking industry scenario and the response will be supported with specific examples. This work will postulate how leaders within the banking industry could have used their influence to avert the industry meltdown.