Please Post Your Original Topic Listing By Wednesday Night

Topic Listed Please Post Your Original Post By Wednesday Night To All

Part 1: By Wednesday Night: Answer the following questions: Please read the following article: Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling And watch the following video: Answer the following questions: How did the top leadership at Enron undermine the foundational values of the Enron Code of Ethics? How might this be different (or the same) for a non-profit?

How did Enron’s corporate culture promote unethical decisions and actions? Why did so many people go along with what was happening? Does the Social Influence video in this week's lecture notes explain any of this? Could another Enron occur now? Why or why not? Explain.

Part 2: By Sunday Night: Provide feedback to peers: Post at least two responses to peers’ discussion posts. Your feedback should be a -word analysis, extension, critique, or proposed solution to your peers' discussion posts.

Paper For Above instruction

The Enron scandal remains one of the most infamous cases of corporate fraud and ethical collapse in modern history. The leadership at Enron fundamentally undermined the core values outlined in their Code of Ethics, exposing a profound disconnect between corporate rhetoric and actual behavior. Understanding how top executives compromised these ethical standards provides vital insights into the mechanisms of corporate deception and highlights the importance of ethical leadership, especially in different organizational contexts such as non-profits.

Enron’s top leadership, especially figures like Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, engaged in manipulative financial practices, including accounting fraud and misrepresentation of company earnings. These actions directly contravened the principles of transparency, honesty, and integrity embedded within Enron’s Code of Ethics. Typically, ethical codes serve as moral compasses—guiding principles to foster trust and accountability; however, at Enron, these were systematically ignored. The leadership prioritized personal gain and corporate success over ethical standards, engaging in elaborate schemes such as off-balance-sheet entities and mark-to-market accounting that inflated profits and concealed liabilities (Sims & Brinkmann, 2003).

This divergence from ethical conduct was driven by a corporate culture that celebrated risk-taking, competitiveness, and aggressive financial performance. The culture rewarded short-term gains and external success metrics, often at the expense of ethical considerations. An environment of intense pressure to perform and succeed created a milieu where unethical choices became normalized. Many employees and even some stakeholders went along with the deception, either out of loyalty, fear of reprisal, or belief in the company’s narrative of success. The social influence theory, as discussed in this week’s lecture, could explain how conformity, peer pressure, and authority influence employees to acquiesce to unethical practices, especially when such behavior is endemic within the organizational culture (Cialdini, 2001).

Furthermore, the phenomenon of groupthink played a role, where dissenting voices were silenced, and conformity was enforced to maintain harmony and protect hierarchical relationships. This collective rationalization facilitated the perpetuation of unethical practices. Today, while regulatory environments and oversight mechanisms have improved, the potential for another Enron-like scandal remains, particularly with emerging financial technologies and complex schemes that can enable similar deception. Organizational greed, insufficient transparency, and inadequate regulatory enforcement may still allow such misconduct to occur (Healy & Palepu, 2003).

Providing critical feedback to peers’ posts involves extending insights into ethical leadership, proposing solutions such as stronger internal controls and ethics training, and critiquing the influence of organizational culture. An effective approach might include advocating for more robust whistleblower protections and fostering open dialogue within corporations to prevent the occurrence of future ethical lapses.

References

• Cialdini, R. B. (2001). Influence: Science and practice (4th ed.). Pearson Education.
• Healy, P. M., & Palepu, K. G. (2003). The fall of Enron. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(2), 3-26.
• Sims, R. R., & Brinkmann, J. (2003). Enron ethics (or: Culture matter more than codes). Journal of Business Ethics, 45(3), 243-256.
• Bazerman, M. H., & Tenbrunsel, A. E. (2011). Blind spots: Why we fail to do what's right and what to do about it. Princeton University Press.
• Vitell, S. J., & Festervand, T. A. (1987). Ethical issues in the management of service firms. Journal of Business Ethics, 6(2), 139-152.
• Kidwell, R. E., & Krenz, M. (2010). Ethical climates and organizational performance. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(3), 363-377.
• Fox, T. (2011). The social influence of unethical behavior in organizations. Organizational Psychology Review, 1(2), 177-193.
• Foote, N., & Mahon, J. (2019). Ethical leadership in organizations: A review. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 26(2), 247-264.
• Arthaud, L., et al. (2018). The repercussions of corporate scandals: A systematic review. Journal of Business Ethics, 152, 119-133.
• Schwepker, C. H. (2001). Ethical climate’s relationship to salespeople’s ethical perceptions and ethical intent. Journal of Business Research, 54(2), 109-121.