BE Research Paper

Running Head: ENRON'S COLLAPSE Enron's Collapse: Ethical Considerations [Name of the Student] [Name of the instructor] [Date] Table of Contents  TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466743"1. Introduction  PAGEREF _Toc358466743 \h
3 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466744"2. Background and Ethical Issues  PAGEREF _Toc358466744 \h
4 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466745"2.1 Background and Events Leading to the Scandal  PAGEREF _Toc358466745 \h
4 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466746"2.2 Arthur Andersen and Enron  PAGEREF _Toc358466746 \h
7 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466747"2.3 The Important people in the Enron Scandal  PAGEREF _Toc358466747 \h
9 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466748"3. Ethical Dilemmas  PAGEREF _Toc358466748 \h
10 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466749"3.1 Factors contributed to unethical behaviors  PAGEREF _Toc358466749 \h
10 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466750"3.2 What should we do in this scenario?  PAGEREF _Toc358466750 \h
11 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466751"4. Conclusion  PAGEREF _Toc358466751 \h
12 HYPERLINK \l "_Toc358466752"References  PAGEREF _Toc358466752 \h
13  Enron's Collapse: Ethical considerations Introduction Enron has become synonymous with corporate fraud and unethical practices by top level executives in a corporation and is taught as a case study for business ethics the world over. Although, the company went bankrupt over eleven years ago the, the impact it had on ethical and unethical practices have not diminished. The company went from one of the most flourishing and successful companies to one of the most hated companies at the time of its demise. The company was the seventh largest company in Fortune 500 and Fortune also named the company as America’s most innovative company six years in a row (Asthana, Balsam, & Kim, 2009). The Enron scandal is one of the most notorious cases of corporate fraud and unethical practices where the company’s share prices which were once at a highest level of $90 went down to less than $1. The bankruptcy filed by the company in late 2001 resulted in billions of dollars lost by investors while thousands of employees not only lost their jobs but also had no pensions left (Cernusca, 2011). The company was continuously reporting huge profits, had a very high credit rating and was attractive not only to investors but also to employees as it was included in the 2000 list of 100 best companies to work for by Fortune. By 2001, the company’s actual position which was being creatively window dressed by top executives was exposed and it became apparent that the financial state of the company was not so stable and that the executives had very creatively, cunningly and systematically reported strong financial figures by using loopholes in the accounting framework and this has since been referred to as the notorious Enron Scandal (Catanach, Anthony, & Ketz, 2012). Much to the surprise of the general public and the regulators, Enron was just a start in a series of f...