Enron Unethical Case Study

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Enron Unethical Approach Introduction One cannot talk about or try to explain what took place with the downfall of Enron with out a brief history of the company. In 2001 they were considered one of the most innovated company and was ranked the fifth largest company on the Fortune 500, leading the market in energy production, distribution and trade (Culpan &Trussel, 2005). The company went from handling energy distribution to becoming a diversify company that dealt with many commodities. According to Healy & Palepu, (2003) from 1999 to 2000 Enron stock increased from 56 percent to 87 percent, by December 2000 it was valued at $83.13, the market value exceeding $60 billions, which was 70 times the the earning and six times the book value. This did not last long because just a quickly as they rose so did they fall. Within a year their stocks were down to little of nothing, and their name was not one someone wanted to be associated with. The downward spiral can be contributed to the organization culture and improper checks and balances. The downward cycle started when Jeff Skilling resigned August 14, 2001, although it may not have been …show more content…

A good organization cannot run solely on legality, but it must embrace the ethical values as well. Enron façade of being a good organization, hid numerous corruptions, which came out in the long run (Bowen & Heath 2005). The organization has a moral to remain loyal to it stakeholders and stockholders since they are the one that keep the organization afloat by investing their time and money. Ethnical behavior is assimilated form the top to the bottom and vice versa. This should never be a one-way street. For instant with Enron, according to (Bowen & Heath, 2005), Full disclosure was made only at the top management level, on a need to know basis, making difficult or near impossible to figure out ethical issues that

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