Case Study Enron Connelly Brian

Therefore, the inability of the senior leadership to ensure that there are not only written practices as to how equines should be done, but actually following them (practice what you preach) is ‘ITIL to ensuring that a company’s ethical center maintains. As our text (Weiss, 2009) showed us in the code of ethics that Enron issued in July 2000, Lay wrote that officers and employees should conduct the company’s business affairs “in accordance with all applicable laws and in a moral and honest manner. Respect, Integrity, Communication, and Excellence were the basis/foundation of what the company’s ethics code.

They wrote specifically “An employee shall not conduct himself or herself in a manner which directly or indirectly would be detrimental to the best interests of the Company or in a manner which would bring to the employee financial gain separately derived as a direct consequence of his or her employment with the Company. While if the leadership atop an organization can at any time change course, violate laws, and conduct illegal activities if they do not waiver, from an ethical standpoint, the company typically will not either. Q. How did the top leadership at Enron undermine the foundation values of the Enron Code of Ethics? . As discussed above the foundation of the Enron Code of Ethics were Respect, Integrity, Communication, and Excellence; of these, the senior leadership – Ken Lay, leaf Killing, and Andrew Fast – collectively managed to find a way to undermine all of these.

There was a practice within Enron of ensuring many individuals were unable to see the “big picture” due to a vast decentralization nature of the company.

This led to communication barriers, which helped to let the valuation of the company, remain high (as very few individuals would know differently). A commitment to excellence was not truly obtainable within company as they implemented a “rank and Hank” system or one that arbitrarily has departments fire the lowest ranking one-fifth of its employees. ” Q. How did Enron’s corporate culture promote unethical decisions and actions?

AAA. The corporate culture of Enron was more about “making he numbers” and “enriching executives rather than generating profits for shareholders” (Weiss, 2009), rather than ensuring that their own code of ethics were followed. With this underlying culture throughout the company, and emanating Ninth the senior leadership it only helped to intensify the ability of lower level employees to make an easier transition from ethical behavior to unethical behavior or business practices/tendencies.

References Gneiss,J. W. (2009). Business Ethics. Mason: South-Western Coinage Learning.