After news of the scandal of Enron, one of the hottest items on e-Bay was a 64-page copy of Enron’s corporate code of ethics. One seller/former employee proclaimed it had “never been opened.” In the forward Kenneth L. Lay, CEO of Enron stated, “We want to be proud of Enron and to know that it enjoys a reputation for fairness and honesty and that it is respected (Enron 2).” For a company with such an extensive code of ethics and a CEO who seemed to want the company to be respected for that, there are still so many unanswered questions of what exactly went wrong. I believe that simply having a solid and thorough code of ethics alone does not prevent a company from acting unethically when given the right opportunity.
Investors and the media once considered Enron to be the company of the future. The company had detailed code of ethics and powerful front men like Kenneth Lay, who is the son of a Baptist minister and whose own son was studying to enter the ministry (Flynt 1). Unfortunately the Enron board waived the company’s own ethic code requirements to allow the company’s Chief Financial Officer to serve as a general partner for the partnership that Enron was using as a conduit for much of its business. They also allowed discrepancies of millions of dollars. It was not until whistleblower Sherron S. Watkins stepped forward that the deceit began to unravel. Enron finally declared bankruptcy on December 2, 2001, leaving employees with out jobs or money.
For a company to be successful ethically, it must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture. A corporate code of ethics can be a very valuable and integral part of a company’s culture but I believe that it is not strong enough to stand alone. Thought and care must go into constructing the code of ethics and the implementation of it. Companies need to infuse ethics and integrity throughout their corporate culture as well as into their definition of success. To be successfully ethical, companies must go beyond the notion of simple legal compliance and adopt a values-based organizational culture.
Creating a Solid Code of Ethics
What a Code of Ethics Should Entail
The importance of having a code of ethics is to define acceptable behaviors and promote higher standards of practice within a company. The code should provide a benchmark for...
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...y’s code but to our own code. We must make the choice of what is right and wrong and if put in a situation that is against our code we must stand up for what is right. A corporate code of ethics is a necessity in today’s society, but the company cannot simply rely on just a code. For the code to be successful, the company must prove to their employees that they have the desire and drive to back the words of their code.
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The ethical code of an organization illustrates the importance of being honest, acting with integrity, and showing fairness in decision making (Bethel, 2015). Ultimately, “laws regulating business conduct are passed because some stakeholders believe they cannot be trusted to do what is right” (Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2015, p. 95). In the last couple of years, culture has become the initiator for compliance, which means from the top down there has to be a commitment to act in a way that represents the company’s core values (Verschoor, 2015).
Ethics policies are implemented in almost all businesses. Companies search for candidates that will be moral in their actions so they can ensure long-term financial success. Throughout history we have seen businesses fall due to unethical behavior. In recent years the business Enron Corporation is best known for the scandal that led to the bankruptcy of a company with more than 60 billion dollars in assets. We will examine the circumstances that led to the downfall of Enron, how the scandal was realized, as well as the outcome of one of the largest bankruptcies in American history; a case that exemplifies unethical professional behavior.
Verschoor, CMA, Curtis C. "Ethics: Do The Right Thing." Strategic Finance (2006). Retrieved on 18 September 2006 .
Trevino, L., & Nelson, K. (2011). Managing business ethics - straight talk about how to
Seawell, Buie 2010, ‘The Content and Practice of Business Ethics’, Good Business, pp. 2-18, viewed 22 October 2013, .
An organization needs to adhere to ethics in order to effectively implement its mission, vision, and objectives in a way in which offers a solid foundation to management and their subordinates to properly develop and implement its strategies. By doing so, the organization as a whole is essentially subscribing to one commonality that directs all of the actions of the employees of the organization. Additionally, it assists in preventing such employees from divergence in regard to the proposed strategic guideline. Ethics additionally ensures that a strategic plan is developed in accordance to the interests of the appropriate stakeholders of the organization, both internal and external (Jin & Drozdenko, 2010). Likewise, corporate governance that stems from various regulatory parties makes it necessary for organizations to maintain a high degree of ethical standards; this is done by incorporating ethics within the organization’s strategic plan so as to foster a positive corporate image for the stakeholders and general public (Min-Dong Paul, 2009).
To provide an example of a breach of ethical conduct in the workplace, we may remember the case of a financial manager in a corporation that decided not to pay overtime to some employees. After a deep outside investigation, the company was summoned with thousands of dollars to remedy the payment that was supposed to be paid to all employees who worked more than forty hours per week. Again, it is needed more than just a booklet stating that the company adheres to the code of business ethics. It is needed serious managers that can run the company with the most seriousness as possible. Consequently, any written codes of business ethics, regardless of how well it has been crafted, need people that adhere to its internal content with a serious desire to do the right thing.
If true, what does that say about Enron’s ethical culture? “Signals that mold a company’s organizational culture include characteristics values, traditions, and behaviors a company’s employees share.” (Dessler. Pg. 466) Enron was once known for having very high ethical standards in which it prided itself on and displayed to the world. However, with irresponsible executives and personal greed the environment rapidly transformed like an infectious disease. For example, “bad barrels” correlation, companies that promote an “everyone for himself” atmosphere are more likely to suffer unethical decisions.” (Dessler, pg.464) Enron Company values became full of corruption, deceit, and inattentive financial transactions. Once Enron was exposed for the accounting fraud scandal of their financial statements. There no longer preserved any ethical conduct or values within the organizational culture. All of this could be a combination of self-greed from top leadership, and company pressure to make Enron look like a sustainable
Nowadays, society is governed by the implications of rules and legal restrictions. All of these rules were created to uphold and maintain the idea of ethical and moral values. Even children growing up were taught by some very important codes of ethics at school. These lessons learned as a youth growing up carry over into adulthood, as an employee or manager. Managers and workers both follow a similar code of ethics within the work place. Today, as a management consultant, I am going to prepare a code of ethics for my clients as they have recently started a restaurant called Knox, it is important to have a code of ethics in every company for their employees and also a circular by explaining the purpose and benefits of a good ethics. And finally, a brief report on the steps of strategic formulation and implementation.
“When a company called Enron… ascends to the number seven spot on the Fortune 500 and then collapses in weeks into a smoking ruin, its stock worth pennies, its CEO, a confidante of presidents, more or less evaporated, there must be lessons in there somewhere.” - Daniel Henninger.
The main ethical issue with the Enron scandal is that Enron allowed legal loopholes to supersede ethical principles (Bowen & Heath, 2005). Enron used legal principles to justify what they were doing instead of acknowledging that the accounting processes they were using were unethical. Another one of the ethical issues is that Enron faced was that
Kidder, R, M., (2010), Center for corporate Ethics, Institute for Global Ethics, retrieved on August 08,2010 from www.globalethics.org/ reserve reading from ethics news line
The Enron Corporation was an American energy company that provided natural gas, electricity, and communications to its customers both wholesale and retail globally and in the northwestern United States (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Top executives, prestigious law firms, trusted accounting firms, the largest banks in the finance industry, the board of directors, and other high powered people, all played a part in the biggest most popular scandal that shook the faith of the American people in big business and the stock market with the demise of one of the top Fortune 500 companies that made billions of dollars through illegal and unethical gains (Ferrell, et al, 2013). Many shareholders, employees, and investors lost their entire life savings, investments,
A company's code of ethics is very important to establishing the expectations and quality of its brand. The code of ethics are concrete expectations for employee behavior, accountability and communicates the ethical policy of a company to its partners and clients. A good business practice is to have sound ethics. Having good ethical practice is knowing the difference between right and wrong and choosing what the right thing is. Though good ethical behavior is something that should be done automatically, a company needs to have a set of rules in place that holds everyone accountable. Over the last twenty years, the country has been bombarded with company scandals and unethical behavior; though morally wrong, the punishment does not fit the crime. The punishments have been overkill. A murderer, rapist, or child molester commits violent crimes and potentially is out of jail in 10 - 20 years. The CEO’s that commit white collar crime receive 25 years to life; this paper will discuss how this punishment for committing nonviolent crimes, such as breaching a company’s code of ethics, are disproportionate to violent crimes that plague the country today.
When an ethical dilemma arises within an organization, it is difficult to separate right and wrong from what is best for the majority. Sometimes the answer is not a simple “yes” or “no.” In 2002, Enron Corporation showed us just that. By 2002, the sixth-largest corporation in America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The case of the Enron scandal is one of the best examples of corporate greed and fraud in America.