The Governance Structure At Jackie’S Employer Should Have

By manipulating the financial statements, the company gave a false impression on its future prospects of the company, allowing them to more freely raise capital through the issuance of common stock, and inadvertently inflating stock prices.

ETHICAL ISSUE STATEMENT: Did Burlington allow one individual, Marvin Brown, to make an unethical business decision to retaliate against employee Sheila White?

In addition, associated with the misapplication of accounting methods, the financial industry has been plagued with one disaster after another involving numerous scandals from top leading American companies. Consequently, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in 2002 compromising eleven sections that are generated to insure the responsibilities of the company’s managers and executives. This act identifies criminal penalties for particular unethical practices and currently has new policies that a corporation must follow in their financial reporting. The following examples describe some of biggest accounting methods as a result of the greed and the outrage of the ethical and financial misconduct by the senior management of public corporations.

4.) Employee Compliance to the Code: The entire staff is expected to be compliant to the rules and regulations set forth by Company X. Reported accounts of non-compliance will lead to an internal investigation of both the accuser as well as the accused; disciplinary action will necessarily follow if company rules and regulations have not been adhered to or improperly dismissed. Granted that there are many different situations that could arise in which one would believe unethical behavior or misconduct transpired; therefore, it is suggested that first the issue in question is evaluated before presenting to one’s direct

Ethical leadership is vital for the success of any business; this case study illustrates that the lack of moral values and a healthy ethically incline corporate culture, can lead to scrupulous behavior from the CEO all the way down the company. Scrushy had a demanding and cunning personality, and it was easy for his to influence others in his business to go along with the fraud. Also, having Stanwick and Stanwick, (2013) an active board of directors does have a positive impact on the performance of the firm. Also, good corporate governance supports the ethical requirements established by the stakeholders. A moral leader must cultivate a real ethically driven organization, which has no tolerance for unethical behavior.

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,

This subject company in this case study is WoolEx Mills. The top management team at the Mills had to act fast to prevent the accusations charged upon them, so that they may venture deep into the United States market. In the process, they had to act in a way that will present the company’s financial statements; cash flows in a way that they did not show any suspicious fraudulent activities. The type of fraud in this case study is known as manipulation of accounts which involves the act of offering the accounts in the way they are not in reality.

In the early 1980 the consumer electronics industry was growing at an explosive pace. Between the 1981 and 1984 the total sales for the industry doubled. To support increasing sales massive amounts of inventory has to be procured, marked up and sold to consumers. Inventory becomes the biggest asset a retailer has. As part of the audit planning processes the inspection of the inventory system and verification of the actual inventory numbers should have been a priority. Crazy Eddie was able to inflate its financial results by fraudulently altering its inventory counts and was able to conceal these activities from the auditors for several years.

What happened: Millions of dollars in losses were split among the 129 stores and put as an expense on each stores balance sheet ->. In order to balance the expenses, management had to boost its assets by inflating inventory -> The auditor Coopers&Lybrant checked only 4 stores out of 129 in order to safe their money. In addition, they told senior management which stores they will check -> Phar-Mor prepared the inventory in accordance with its balance sheet -> The auditing firm was unable to uncover the fraud.

Jones over forecasts his inventory and has a low inventory turnover ratio. This drastically increases his accounts payable, as he isn’t able to pay due to low cash inflow. His account’s payable increased by nearly 9 percent in 2006. Nearly half of his current assets are in inventory. Also Jones isn’t able to take advantage of the cash discounts offered by his suppliers due to his slow cash collection process. In order to perform well, the company must improve its inventory system and its cash collection policies.

The executives are accountable to the board of directors. Instead of protecting the investors, the board enticed the culture of financial fraud in the company for selfish gains. It failed in its duties in keeping the executives in check.

With Enron, the responsibility and blame started with Enron’s executives, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andrew Fastow. Their goal was to make Enron into the world’s greatest company. To make this goal a reality, they created a company culture that encouraged “rule breaking” and went so far as to “discourage employees from reporting and investigating ethical lapses and questionable business dealings” (Knapp, 2010, p. 14). They insisted the employees use aggressive and illegal

As stated in Exhibit 3, Earnings management is the managerial use of discretion to influence reported earnings. Within the accrual accounting system, managers have significant discretion with their firms’ accounting choices. Management has the ability to make choices that can opportunistically lead to higher or lower reported earnings. Richard 's and Ira Zar’s (CFO) actions would not change if these results were the result of GAAP flexibility because he violated the rules of accounting, the conceptual framework principle of neutrality in numerous ways to report the financial results that CA did under false pretenses. It would be one thing if CA garnered these results through legitimate business decisions versus using accounting tactics like changes in accounting estimates or outright fraud as in the use of the 35 day Month. The purpose of which was solely to allow CA to meet or exceed analysts’ estimates.

The overwhelming facts point to a shady underworld of self-dealing and opportunistic exploitation of the poor and working class, which was until recently, well hidden from the commoner. The executives of WorldCom and Enron provide real world examples of unethical business practices, where the desire to make money for their shareholders transcended into an addiction to greed and self-dealing that were displayed by their, “excessive pay, perks, and golden parachutes”(Carson 392) at the expense of all stakeholders. All is not lost, there are corporations that pride themselves in their sound business model and commitment to ethical business practices. Such companies as Eaton Corporation, and Weyerhaeuser, who according to Ethisphere.com, a business ethics watchdog, are among the “2010 World`s most ethical companies.” (Ethisphere)

In the case “Rusty and Dusty Slow Movers,” Penny is the first Controller hired at a medium-sized farm machinery company. One of her initial goals as a controller is to determine how accurately the inventory on the books reflects its fair market value. The company acquired and repossessed equipment that is hard to sell, and she noticed that there were many dusty machines when she checked inventory pallets. Ron, the inventory control clerk, informed her that most are either from overruns or the recession. Moreover, when the inventory sells, it is sold at a significant discount. Penny discussed the matter with Art, the Company President. Art told her that he believed that many of these items are sellable given appropriate marketing and the right economic conditions. He does not want to write-down the inventory because he is concerned it will negatively impact the profit. Art has indicated that she should help falsify records if it looks like auditors could discover the slow moving inventory.