Enron Ethics

Enron Ethics

On October 21, 2001, one of the largest energy companies in the world filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after restating their earnings report for the past two calendar years. Enron, the energy conglomerate had to restate its earnings because of severely inaccurate book keeping of nine billion dollars. Clearly, the U.S economy had heroic success during the mid to late 90's. More specifically, the economy had grown because of the influx of the modern technology, extremely low unemployment, and consumers spreading their wealth into long-term investments via the stock market. Many of those investors enjoyed rapid returns on investments; meanwhile Enron had been deceitfully taken their investors money and lining their personal bank accounts and increasing personal wealth to enormous heights. During this research, it was very clear that the corporate CEO's and CFO's had in fact reported fictitious earning reports.

Enron Downfall

Corporation Street, Birmingham - Midland Metro wor...

Corporation Street, Birmingham - Exhibition Bus

Let us delve into the meaning of ethics and look at what expert in business ethics, Linda Trevino has to say about corporate ethics.

In her book, Managing Business Ethics, Linda K. Trevino discusses the issue of ethics and her definition states, "It is the role of every CEO to ensure sound ethical practices are enforced from the top down. Ethics are behaviors and guidelines for employee's actions. It is a moral guide for conducting and engaging in day-to-day business. In a sense, it is doing what is right. The leaders must demonstrate to all employees what ethics is all about in the business environment" (p.189). This statement has lasting implications and is the foundation upon which many businesses operate. However, in the aftermath of the recent economic boom, many analysts have suspected unethical practices at some of the world's largest companies.

According to Barbara Ehrenreich, author of, Nickel...