Enron Ethics Essay

This article tries to show how the company’s culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employee? And particularly in this case: how did Enron lose both its economical and ethical status? This question makes the Enron case interesting to us as business ethicists. Enron ethics means that business ethics is a question of organizational â€Å"deep† culture rather than of cultural artifacts like ethics codes, ethics officers and the like. BackgroundAt the beginning Enron faced a number of financially difficulty years. In 1988, the deregulation of the electrical power market took effect and Enron redefined its business to energy broker and got a thriving company. The company became a â€Å"matchmaker† in the power industry, bringing buyers and sellers together. Enron embraced a culture that rewarded â€Å"cleverness†. Pushing the limits was considered a survival skill; the motto of the CEO Jeffry Skilling was â€Å"Do it right, do it now and do it better†. This culture admires innovation and unchecked ambition and publicly punishes poor performance can produce big return in the short term. However, in the long run, achieving additional value by constantly â€Å"upping the ante† becomes harder and harder. A lot of smoke and mirrorsWith Enron’s spectacular success, the business community rewarded Enron for its cleverness and Enron’s executives felt driven by this reputation to sustain the explosive growth of the late 1990s, even when they logically knew that it was not possible. In order to indicate that the company was not as successful as it appeared, Enron entered into a deceiving web of partnerships and employed increasingly questionable accounting methods to maintain its investment-grade status. PartnershipsTo push the value envelope, Enron created â€Å"special purpose vehicles† (SPV), pseudo-partnerships that allowed the company to sell assets and â€Å"create† earnings that artificially enhanced its bottom line. Enron exaggerated earnings by recognizing gains on the sale of assets to SPVs. An example is the partnership with Blockbuster which was intended to provide movies to homes directly over phones lines. In this case Enron recorded $ 110.9 million in profits prematurely, even if these profits were never realized as the partnership after only a 1,000-home pilot. Therefore booking  earnings before they are realized were rather â€Å"early† than wrong. The culture at Enron was quickly eroding the ethical boundaries of its employees. Keeping debt off the balance sheetTo avoid that a highly leveraged balance sheet would threaten its credit rating, Enron parked some of its debt on the balance sheet of its SPVs and kept hidden from analysts and investors. This can be read as another example of ethical erosion, but Enron’s decision makers saw the shuffling of debt rather as a timing issue and not as an ethical one. Partnerships at â€Å"arm’s length†Enron enlisted help from its outside accountants and its attorneys to guarantee that the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) did not consider its partnerships as Enron subsidiaries. Enron crafted relationships that looked (legally) like partnerships, although they were (in practice) subsidiaries. A closer look at the partnerships would have revealed that the outside investments came from companies that were owned by Enron. Conflicts of interestEnron officials obviously had close ties with its partnerships. For example, the CFO war partial owner of two of the most important partnerships. The culture of cleverness at Enron started as a pursuit of excellence that devolved into the appearance of excellence as executives worked to develop clever ways of preserving Enron’s infallible faà §ade of success; for the good of the company, Enron’s executives also began to bend the rules for personal again. Once a culture’s ethical boundaries are breached thresholds of more extreme ethical compromises become lower. The self-reinforcing decline of EnronThe sum of incremental ethical transgressions produced the business catastrophe. As partnerships began to fail with increasing regularity, Enron was liable for millions of dollars it had not anticipated losing. The financial implosionThe partnerships that once boosted earnings and allowed Enron to prosper became the misplaced card that caused the Enron  house to collapse. The very results Enron had sought to prevent – falling stock prices, lack of consumer and financial market confidence – came about as a direct result of decisions that had been driven by Enron’s culture. The Enron case of ethical failure consists of more than a series of questionable business dealings. Enron employees, who had been encouraged to invest heavily in the company, found themselves unable to remove and salvage their investments. The company culture of individualism, innovation, and aggressive cleverness left Enron without compassionate, responsible leadership. Leadership mechanisms and organizational culture at EnronLeadership is the critical component of the organization’s culture because leaders can create, reinforce or change the organization’s culture. According to Schein (1985) there are five primary mechanisms that a leader can use to influence an organization’s culture: attention, reaction to crises, role modelling, allocation of rewards, criteria of selection and dismissal. AttentionIf the leaders of the organizations focus on the bottom line, employees believe that financial success is the leading value to consider. Enron executives’ attention was clearly focused on profits, power, greed and influence; â€Å"Profits at all costs†. As Stern has suggested, if the organization’s leaders seem to care only about the short-term bottom line, employees quickly get the message too. Reaction to crisesSchein asserts, that a crisis tests what the leader values and brings these values to the surface. With each impending crisis, leaders have an opportunity to communicate throughout the organization what the company’s values are. Enron was facing a crisis of how to sustain a phenomenal growth rate. Leaders reacted by defending a culture that valued profitability, even when it was at the expense of everything else. The mantra at Enron seems to be that ethical wrongdoing is to be hidden at any cost; deny, play the dupe, claim ignorance, lie, quit. It appears that the truth and its consequences have been a part of the Enron culture. Role modeling (how leaders behave)Actions speak louder than words –  therefore- modeling behaviour is a very powerful tool that leaders have to develop and influence corporate culture. Employees observe the behaviour of leaders to find out what is valued in the organization. Perhaps, this was the most significant shortcoming of Enron executives. Enron’s leaders’ primary message about their values was sent through their own actions. They broke the law as they concentrated on financial measures and used of the creative partnerships. It also sent a message to employees that full and complete disclosure is not a requirement, or even recommended. If the company achieved short-term benefits by hiding information, it was acceptable. The leadership of Enron almost certainly dictated the company’s outcome through their own actions by providing perfect conditions for unethical behaviour. Just as the destiny of individuals is determined by personal character, the destiny of an organization is determined by the character of its leadership. Allocation of rewardsThe behaviour of people rewarded with pay increases or promotions signals to others what is necessary to succeed in an organization. To ensure that values are accepted, leaders should reward behaviour that is consistent with the values. Enron’s reward system established a â€Å"win-at-all-costs† focus. The company’s leadership promoted ant retained only those employees that produced consistently, with little regard to ethics. â€Å"The moral of this story is break the rule, you can cheat, you can lie, but as long as you make money, it’s all right†. The company’s compensation structure contributed to an unethical work culture, too – by promoting self-interest above any other interest. Enron’s reward system rewarded individuals who embraced Enron’s aggressive, individualistic culture and were based on short-term profits and financial measures. Criteria of selection and dismissal (how leaders hire end fire employees)The selection of newcomers to an organization is a powerful way of how a leader reinforces culture. Leaders often unconsciously look for individuals who are similar to current organizational members in terms of values and assumptions. This tends to perpetuate the culture because the new employees typically hold similar values. The CIO of Enron (Skilling) perpetuated a focus on short-term transactional endeavours from the very beginning by  hiring employees that embodied the beliefs that he was trying to instil: aggressiveness, greed, a will to win at all costs, and an appreciation for circumventing the rules. The way a company fires an employee and the rationale behind the firing also communicate the culture. Some company deal with poor performers by trying to find them a place within the organization where they can perform better and make a contribution. At Enron, fifteen to twenty percent of producers were let go or fired after a formal evaluation process each year. Final comments and suggestions for future work†Consequences of unethical or illegal actions are not usually realized until much later when the act is committed†. Enron’s culture is a good example of groupthink where individuals feel extreme pressure not to express any real strong arguments against any co-workers’ action. Employee were loyal in an ambiguous sense of the term, they wanted to be seen as part of the star team and to partake in the benefits that that honor entailed. Two of the most important lessons to learn from the Enron culture history is that bad top management morality can be a sufficient condition for creating a self-destructive ethical climate and that a well-filled CSR (corporate social responsibility) and business ethics toolbox can neither stop nor compensate for such processes. Enron is a case of deceiving corporate citizenship and of surface or faà §ade ethics. A typology with moral cultures can be draft with two dimensions: ethicalness of an organization culture and presence of business ethical tools of artifacts (ethics officers, codes of ethics, value statement). Enron looks at first sight like â€Å"type I†, like a classical business ethics case, with a typical mix of â€Å"amorality† and â€Å"immorality†. But the thesis of the authors is that Enron is an at least as good illustration of â€Å"type II†, of window-dressing ethics, with talking instead of walking, ethics as rhetoric. While â€Å"type II† looks modern, â€Å"type III† looks like the old-fashioned type of moral business ethics, CSR, marketing and public relations were invented with collective moral conscience as consistent label and content, perhaps additionally communicating moral humbleness, with a  touch of British understatement. â€Å"Type IV† refers to a moral role business culture in the age of marketing and public relations, with walking the talk, with showing and confessing openly its collective moral conscience. Bibliography: http://www.springerlink.com/content/p712j1555807774r/ Enron Ethics (Or: Culture Matters More than Codes) – Ronald R. Sims, Johannes Brinkmann

Black Poems Essay

In the past during apartheid being black meant you lost out in many privileges it also showed how black people where oppressed. In this poem we see that Mbongeni Khumalo uses the word black in connection to all the bad things. He highlights that there is this darkness associated with the colour black and that in the 1960’s when someone called you a black person it showed nothing good and that no one should be proud of being black. He also looks at all the words that start with â€Å"black† and if one looks deep into them then we see that there’s a deeper meaning to that particular word and that it has got something to do with wrong doing or bad happenings. The first line of the poem reads â€Å"you don’t need a BLACK-BELT to write blackpoems†, if one looks at this line and critique it then we see that he says that one doesn’t need a black belt to write black poem and the way it is written from the small letter at the beginning of the sentence to the to the black belt in a big font and black poems as one word this shows that as a black person no one really paid attention to the diction of the poem. â€Å"B/LACK† when one looks at this word and the way it has been written then you can interpret it as be lack, as if he’s trying to point out that when you are black you lack in something. He further one uses the word â€Å"prac-teasing† and instead of writing practising he uses the teasing showing that he was isolated for mocking black art but in his own right one can argue that he was not mocking it but just highlighting the points that were true and that there was a time when anything that was done by a black person was just done and not taken seriously, a black person could only go so far with their art. â€Å"Trampling my so(u)l/e/† the way he has chosen to break down the word soul in a way that one can say he is trampling the word himself and he also adds an â€Å"e† at the end which shows that he can do anything to this poem since it is a black poem. â€Å"Served sausages made from minced pork and call(ed) it BLACK PUDDING† one can say that it was called black pudding because in the black culture the only time that the families ever ate pudding which consisted of custard and fruit was during Christmas otherwise black people always feasted with meat he could also have been referring to himself as the black sheep because he did not eat meat and in that case being black and not eating meat meant that you were a different type of black person and therefore you were out casted and you were a black sheep. â€Å"I suffered a BLACK DEATH at the hands of a BLACK GUARD†, what the writer brings out in this line is how black people still killed each other regardless of the fact that they were all oppressed by the same people for the same reason. The guards were also said to be puppies for the oppressors so that the hit on them could be lighter and that they could spare them their lives. So it shows that black people were also turned against each other and killed each other just so that they can hold their own end. The language that he has chosen to use is simple but the was in which he has broken down his words and placed them in way that one could clearly see the point he is trying to make about black poems. As one carries on to read this poem you could say that this is not a black poem but a poem about black people. He uses a playful tone but at the same time the way he stresses some words to show his point and the double meanings behind them. He also used the words to show what was happening in that time to black people trying to pass on the torch of awareness so that people could stop being naive and actually know how things were done in that time. He attracts the reader by his title which is â€Å"BLAK POWEMS† which shows the way he wrote it as if he were a actually saying it in a Bantu accent, so he chose to write it the way he would say it because no one really paid close attention to the diction and the style of the way black poets wrote their poems because it always ended up being black people reading each others poems. The way this poem has been written it shows well that it is protest poem in such a sense as when one looks at the diction used in this poem and the style of writing that the poet has chosen to use. He plays with associations surrounding blackness to put his point across of how blackness is associated with bas things and in this case particularly back in the 1960’s during times of black oppression and apartheid. The tone of this poem is in a playful but honest manner, not harsh but it keeps one intrigued that there could be so many things associated with the colour black that represent a darker side of life and the poet does a good job of bringing them out and also highlighting them. This poem makes the reader see the problems that the past could add on to a simple phrase or word. The word black in this poem has been separated and put on a spectrum whereby we can all see the negatives that could and that are surrounding this one word in particular. The poet has also made us think of how history played out and he did this not by writing that in the 1960’s this is what happened but he used words that show or highlight the main events of the 60’s.

Auditing Chaper 2&3

Chapter 2 2-7 The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) is responsible for establishing auditing standards for audits of public companies. The ASB is responsible for establishing auditing standards for private companies. 2-10 The criticism of this statement according to the ten generally accepted auditing standards that the standards should provide useful guidelines for conducting an audit to improve practitioners’ quality of their performance.Based upon ten generally accepted auditing standards, the quality control system can provide only reasonable assurance, not a guarantee, that auditing standards followed with a professional judgment of their opinion. 2-16 a. The first general standard, which states in part, that a person must perform the audit or persons having adequate technical training, requires that an auditor have education and experience in the field of auditing. . The measures of the quality of the auditor’s performance are by accepting the gene ral standards of auditing. c. The general group of the generally accepted auditing standards includes a requirement of due professional care be exercised by the auditor. d. The criteria of audit plan and evidence gathering the general character of the three generally accepted auditing standards classified as standards of fieldwork. 2-20 a.The ethical implications of Rossi and Montgomery’s accepting the engagement is having adequate training and proficiency, due professional care, proper planning and supervision, sufficient understanding of the entity, its environment, and its internal control. Since Mobile Home Manufacturing Company decided to issue stock to the public and Rossi and Montgomery’s CPA firm never had a client to go public or might not had proper training of filling necessary paperwork for SEC should not accept the engagement. b.The auditor may face some problems when filing the SEC of the following: new securities registration statement submitted for appr oval, commission examines the statements for completeness before allowing their client to sell on the securities exchange, and require the financial statements along with the opinion of the independent firm to be part of the registration statement and subsequent reports. Let us not forget the auditor must file all of the proper paperwork from the S-1 form to register new security and any other special S-forms.The 8-K form includes the sale of subsidiary, change in officer, a new product line, or change of auditors. The 10-K form must file the annual report within 60 to 90 days after the close of each fiscal year according to the size of company. The 10-Q form must be file quarterly for all public held companies that contain valuable information within the financials to be review by the auditors before filing with the commission. Chapter 3 3-23 a.The report includes additional paragraphs for the definition and limitations of internal control of the combined report on the financial st atements and internal control over financial reporting is correct. b. The date of the CPA’s opinion on the financial statements of the client should be the date of the completion of all important audit procedures. c. If a principal auditor decides to refer in his or her report to the audit of another auditor, he or she is required to disclose the portion of the financial statements audited by the other auditor. -25 a. A CPA will issue an adverse auditor’s opinion if the exception to the fairness of presentation is so material that an â€Å"except for† opinion is not justified. b. An auditor will most likely disclaim an opinion because of a client-imposed scope limitation. c. The paragraph expresses an qualified opinion â€Å"In our opinion, except for the effects of not capitalizing certain lease obligations, as discussed in the preceding paragraph, the financial statements present fairly†, in all material respects,†¦ 3-26 a.It allows immaterial erro rs to be review if the financial statements show misinformation within the transactions and balances. b. Using the phrase â€Å"In conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America† rather than â€Å"are properly stated to represent the true economic conditions† indicate the auditor followed standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Because financial statements prepared in accordance with U. S. accounting principles and audited in accordance with U. S. uditing standards are available throughout the world on the Internet, the country of origin of the accounting principles used in preparing the financial statements and auditing standards followed by the auditor identified in the audit report. c. Using the phrase â€Å"In our opinion† indicates that maybe some information risk associated with the financial statements, even though the statements been audit. Also, the first and fourth generally accepted auditin g reporting standards that require auditors to state an opinion about the financial statements taken as whole, including a conclusion about whether the company followed U.S. generally accepted accounting principles or the IFRS issued by the IASB. d. The name identifies that CPA firm or practitioner who performed the audit to ensure the quality of the audit meets professional standards of legal and responsibility. e. Using material misstatement within the audit report conveys that the auditors are responsible only to search for significant misstatements, not the minor misstatements that do not affect users’ decisions.

Effective Sales Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Effective Sales Management - Essay Example The delegation of daily activities can be adjusted according to the human traffic or the manning hours in the region under consideration. A sales person in the field can estimate the right time and the right season to market a product. He can give a valuable feedback of the fast moving products and the slow moving. A regular analysis of the sales feedback, the existing competitors, the products volume in the market, reveals some interesting facts about the customers' tastes, customers requirements and customer expectations leading to a more refined innovations and valuable predictions to regulate the sales operations in the future. The volume of business achieved in different periods can create an idea on how we need to place our products in near future to sustain the market fluctuations. The customers are always hard to retain and new customers do creep into the list of clients as the value of the products spreads in the market. A sales person has to on look the existing customers' network and he needs to explore on the new possible clients acquisition by the able management of existing clients. The new clients' acquisition can not be achieved overnight but it requires a dedicated effort from the existing sales professionals and parallel promotional efforts to introduce the products to new customers at large. For example the booming aviation business in India due to the increase in the number of low cost airlines, for niche products like the airline products the turn around will be more than year. The pharmaceutical products and medical equipments products tests your ability to maintain a sustainable relationship with client. A customer lost is a loss of a life time in such industries. The best methods to attract new customers The best viable methods wood be the word of mouth promotion indirectly by the existing customers. A client has to be carefully monitored regarding his requirements and expectation now and then to make him fell comfortable with the existing products line. The second best customer enticing program would be organizing and participating in the conferences and activities of the client in order to make them feel more secure with your association. How do you add value to a product or service besides raising the price A quality product will never be denied by a customer. An organization has to consistently highlight the features of the product to make the clients differentiate between the competitors product. The promotional

Nursing Image Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Nursing Image Analysis - Essay Example In Strong Medicine there is the crew of the leading actors, from which only one character is a registered nurse. The other nurses that appear in this show are in supportive roles. Due to this fact, Peter Riggs is shown taking the active role in the proceedings, while the background actors playing nurses usually aren't the objects of the operator's attention. They are shown primarily to create the feeling of reality of the things that take place on the screen, as most of the audience knows that doctors don't spend most of their time with patients, and that there are other medical workers who satisfy minor patients' needs. In Strong Medicine the nurses on the background are usually shown engaged in their professional practice, while Peter Riggs, one of the leading characters is also depicted in various non-professional situations. In most cases it is a nurse, who provides the actual nursing care, but it sometimes happens that the doctors also do the nursing chores, such as providing physical, psychological and social comfort to the patients. In the episodes where both physicians and nurses act, the physicians seem to be in control of the situation, but it is also shown that the nurses understand the patients' need better than the physicians do.

Marginalized Masculinity in the Snatch Movie Review

Marginalized Masculinity in the Snatch - Movie Review Example The film comprises two plots, which interweave throughout the movie. For instance, there are scenes of boxing matches that interweave with scenes of retrieving the diamond. Apart from characters who have varied tastes and traits, the audience is also introduced to many communities with different cultures; something that further causes more confusion when watching this film. The characters in the Snatch movie uniquely anticipate their survival mechanisms in London. Within these criminal activities, they undisclosed their home of origin. They broadly exercise the picture of a fat gateway driver, a rather vicious dog and a man-eating pig in their illegal boxing activity. In this film, the accent is purely penetrable English for both British and non-British audience. Perhaps, the adoption of pure English and the friendly nature of the marginalized characters in London would be a move towards acceptability by the London communities. In the spirit of this movie’s fair play, Guy adds a wanderer dialect in this moving picture. Living in London is not a bed of roses for these characters who are always trying to falsify everything they do in order to fit in the communities around them. A better life is seemingly fourth coming through the pretense of dialect. Whether you are an American, Jewish or Pikies, speaking in one gypsy dialect was the order of the d ay. This is done in the Snatch movie to reduce the level of curiosity by both the white and Anglo-Saxon Protestants on marginalized groups.

Service value evaluation on the restaurant in London Dissertation

Service value evaluation on the restaurant in London - Dissertation Example Additionally, the researcher will also present a glimpse of the survey questionnaire which will be used to gather primary data. Lastly, limitations to the adopted methodology will also be presented for readers’ understanding. 2. AdoptedMethodology In order to plan and align activities with the research schedule, research methodology plays a vital role in outlining a roadmap. On the other hand, adopted research methodology clarifies the guidelines and principles that should be strictly followed by the researcher to successfully complete the study. Reliability of the primary data is also relied on the selection of appropriate research methodology in order to develop a valid conclusion and set of recommendations by the end of the research work (Kothari, 2004). Keeping this in view, two types of research methodologies are available to researchers. One is qualitative, and the other one is quantitative research methodology. Qualitative researchers are those, which tends on to explai n natural phenomenon pertaining to the area under study. In qualitative researches, researcher observes a natural phenomenon and interprets it according to his personal approach towards the area of study. Qualitative researchers are widely known as multi-method approach which includes interpretive and naturalistic view on the area which is being examined by the researchers (Gillham, 2000). It is important for the researchers that they conduct qualitative researches in natural settings and build logic with the help of theories around the answers presented against the research questions. The data retrieved for completing a qualitative research study is retrieved from sources that provide detailed answers to the research questions. These sources of information can be interviews, focus group discussion, personal observation and etc. Another important aspect that needs to be noticed here is that, qualitative researches are based on inductive approach usually as it requires researchers to explore phenomenon and implicate the findings to the general environment (Crowther & Lancaster, 2012; Gordon & Marian, 2006). Then there is quantitative approach to research work which requires researchers to support the findings of the study with the help of statistical data. Research works based on quantitative approach are considered as more authentic than qualitative approach as it supports the findings of the study scientifically. On the other hand, quantitative research works are based on deductive approach as they rule out the findings which are not reliable and focus only on those findings, which are scientifically proven by statistical figures and justified by the previous work conducted on the same subject. Researches that are based on quantitative approach are generally more reliable as they look for cause and effect to build up a suitable conclusion and recommendation part. Keeping the discussion pertaining to quantitative researches, it can be asserted that quantitativ e researchers are more reliable and authentic as compared to qualitative research methods (Jackson, 2010). Keeping in view the context and aim of the present study, the researcher has adopted quantitative approach to research work, i.e. the researcher will use both quantitative research methodology to ensure the authenticity of the primary research with the help of statistical testing. By doing this, the researcher wi