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An analysis of corporate governance
Essays on corporate governance
Essays on corporate governance
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KOÇ UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
WELLS FARGO'S FAKE ACCOUNTS SCANDAL
2017 MAY
EBRU UZUNDERE
0053002
WELLS FARGO'S FAKE ACCOUNTS SCANDAL
Wells Fargo & Company is an American international banking and financial services holding company
headquartered in San Francisco, California, with "hub-quarters" throughout the country. [1] It is one of
the biggest bank not just in USA but also in the world.
The business world has been shocked by Wells Fargo’s fake account scandal in September 2016. It was
scandalous because unethical behavior was widespread within the company and thousands of
employees were secretly creating
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Wells Fargo case should be analyzed very carefully because instead of having a few individual’s
misbehaviors, we have a companywide unethical behavior. We can even say that this unethical
behavior became a culture within the company.
5300 employees were fired due to the fake account scandal, former CEO John Stumpf lost his job as
well. According to the recent news, created fake accounts were around 3.5 million for the last 15 years.
The most damage for Wells Fargo was on losing its reputation. Furthermore, Well Fargo had to return
$2.6 million in ill-gotten fees and pay $186 million in fines to the government.
When we analyze what went wrong the very first and crucial item is the pressure that employees felt
over their shoulders. Wells Fargo’s scandal revealed that employees had unacceptable, unrealistic and
overly defined goals and performance criteria. Employees become morally disengaged and less
concerned about ethics in order to fulfill the requirements. At the end employees started to perceive
these unethical behaviors as normal daily routine.
Secondly, employees’ mentality was focusing on business which causes values, ethics, morals to
So just how did Scott Welch fit the profile of the average perpetrator? Based off the information reported by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners’ (ACFE) 2010 Report to the Nation, Welch fit directly into the median for a perpetrator – he was male, between the ages of 46 – 50, had a tenure of at least 6 – 10 years, an executive position as a Vice President. According to the ACFE’s report a perpetrator’s position within the company, age, tenure, gender and education level all have a have consideration in a fraud. In the 2010 report, it is noted that 66.7% of all frauds are perpetrated by men, more than likely due to the fact that more men hold a position of authority. Of the cases studied, 74% of all managers and 88% of all owners/executives were men (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 2010). The combination of Welch’s tenure and authoritative position may have exacerbated the losses suffered by Wachovia and may also have helped him hide the fraud from detection for an extended period of time of eight years (“Former Wachovia,” 2011). This period is well above and beyond the 24 months reported by the ACFE as the median time frame in which frauds perpetrated by executives/owners were detected (ACFE, 2010). Taking into consideration all the kn...
Wells Fargo account fraud scandal One of the most recent white-collar crimes involved Wells Fargo, a banking and financial services provider. In 2016, San Francisco-based bank Wells Fargo (WFC) employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts without permission of their customers. Opening about 1.5 million fraudulent deposit accounts and submitting 565,443 credit card applications allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales targets and receive bonuses. Consequently, customers were wrongly charged fees for accounts they did not know existed. In this business crime scenario, Wells Fargo is involved in paying $185 million in fines and refunding $5 million to affected customers.
As Wells Fargo convicted all the requirements of fraud they are involved to the business crime called fraud, they are liable to their fraud crime. There was a false statement which respectively conducted to the injury to the alleged victim as a result. Wells Fargo has been ordered to pay $185 million in fines, but that's a pittance compared with the $5.6 billion the bank earned in just the second quarter of this year. Meanwhile, the bank's victims weren't just nickel-and-dimed with overdraft and maintenance fees. Many of them took "significant hits" to their credit scores for not staying current on accounts they did not even know about. They will likely have difficulty securing home and car loans at reasonable rates for years to come, simply because their bank decided to defraud
One year ago, on September 8, 2016 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau(CFPB), the Los Angeles City Attorney and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fined Wells Fargo Bank $185 million, alleging that more than 2 million bank accounts or credit cards were opened or applied for without customers' knowledge or permission between May 2011 and July 2015. This essay will discuss the Wells Fargo scandal by explaining how the event happened and describing how the organization approached handling a response to the crisis. This will be seen, firstly by describing the how the scandal happened, and what were the causes, secondly by discussing the reaction of the company in front of the situation, how they dealt with the crisis and then
on September 8, 2016 Wells Fargo’s unethical behavior was reveal when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency fined Wells Fargo $185 million because over 2 million credit card and bank accounts were fraudulently open or applied for in customer names without their knowledge (Blake, 2016).
Their organizational initiatives are often self-serving; however, the emerging workforce isn’t motivated by selfish managers. This selfish behavior often turns into unethical conduct. Unethical dealings in the workplace are always wrong. It is crucial to promote ethical behavior. Everyone must understand that once caught, unethical behavior is not just a problem for those directly involved, it is everyone’s problem.
The company has a culture of unquestioning when something wrong surfaced in the company. Take for example the Lockheed documents incident, where the 25000 documents were seen in the company for nearly 3 years before someone voiced his concerns regarding it. This unhealthy culture not only allows unethical practices to prevail, it also hinders company’s growth.
An integrative model for understanding and managing ethical behavior in business organizations. Journal of Business Ethics, 9(3), 233-242. Doi: 10.1007/BF00382649
Ethics in business is a highly important concept, as it can affect a company’s profits, salaries paid to employees and CEOs, and public opinion, among many other aspects of a business. Ethics can be enforced by company policies and guidelines, set a precedent when a company is faced with an important decision, and are also evolving thanks to new technology and situations that arise due to technology usage. Businesses have a duty to maintain their ethical responsibilities and also to help their employees enforce these responsibilities in and out of the workplace. However, ethics and the foundation for them are not always black and white. There are many different ethical theories, however Utilitarianism, Kant’s Deontological ethics, and Virtue ethics are three of the most well known theories in existence. Each theory is distinct in that it has a different quality used to determine ethicality and allows for a person to choose which system of ethics works best with both the situation and his or her personal ethical preferences.
In this paper I will identify and analyze the Wells Fargo scandal as it pertains to the breakdown of leadership and ethics. I will first identify and analyze the event and discuss the challenges and conflicts the scandal presented. Then I will evaluate the issue by explaining why the issue has interest and concern to stakeholders followed by discussing the challenges presented to individuals and/or organizations around this case. Lastly, I will recommend action steps that should be taken to those involved as well as discuss what I have learned from exploring this topic.
During the past year Wells Fargo, a well-recognized bank of the United States, has been trying to clean its name and the mess it got itself into, when it was brought to the public that the bank was involved in generating fraudulent checking and savings accounts for its clients without their knowledge or their authorization. “The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent”
Some of the common causes of unethical behavior in the workplace are: 1) extreme emphasis on profits, 2) loss of corporate loyalty, 3) fixation on personal advancement, 4) probability of not getting caught, 5) immoral quality set by top management, 6) indecision about whether act is wrong, and 7) reluctance to stand up for what is right
Ethical behaviour is what all career people should aim to have. Not just the ethical attribute but exceptional behaviour with this regard.this is because in order to build a career, one must be governed by the rules of ethics to safeguard oneself and others. Ethics are essential in the workplace because a tough ethical code provides a non-threatening environment with high employee morale. The corporate social responsibility is important to everyone,therefore it should not be neglected by the employees and the organization. Ethics purely center on personal conduct. It involves personal choices that can make or break a person in the workplace or business. The major importance of having good conduct is to maintain a high level of respect not just for people but for the proffession. Most people who begin their working career have aspirations of excelling at their jobs and reaching the pinnacle of their profession while maintaining a sense of values; however employees often become blind with ambition and put aside their sense of ethics in order to obtain financial security and recognition for their efforts. There are many things that one can gain from having good behavioural ethics in the workplace. It will develop a discipline which will propel the work practices to a higher level and will help set a high standard. It will promote teamwork among the workersand will also buil...
Focusing on what is best for the organization as a whole and not self greed, not focusing on short-term profits but the long-term profit goals for the shareholders, investors, and employees would help keep employees ethical (Ferrell, et al, 2009).When an employee is fearful of losing his or her job, unethical conduct can be the result of trying to keep that job (Ferrell, et al, 2009).When pressures are placed on employees to make money quick, fast, and in a hurry, the results could be unethical behavior (Ferrell, et al,
Ethics is the responsibility of each individual person, but starts with the CEO and the Board of Directors, setting the right tone at the top and moves down through the organization, including setting the tone in the middle. A company’s culture and ethic standards start at the top, not from the bottom. Employees will almost always behave in the manner that they think management expects them, and it is foolish for management to pretend otherwise (Scudder). One of the CEO’s most important jobs is to create, foster, and communicate the culture of the organization. Wrongdoings or improper behavior rarely occurs in a void, leaders typically know when someone is compromising the company