Enron ethical practices

Enron ethical practices Ethical practices are a code of conduct that govern how things are done or should be done in a particular place, for example in a business. They can also be described as a system of moral principle that state how people or organizations should act or behave (Brooks Dunn 2009, p. 23).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Enron ethical practices specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More A business organization is expected to follow certain ethical principles in its operations in order to ensure that they are working efficiently and that all stakeholders are benefiting from its operations. Many businesses have been driven by a need to make extra money, and hence they have become greedy and, therefore, engage in unethical practices just to get the extra money. According to W. Stead, Worrell J. Stead, the question of ethics in business conduct has become one of the most challenging issues confronting corporate America in this era (19 90, p. 233). Thesis statement This paper will examine ethical practices that the management of Enron neglected and that led to its collapse. The paper will explore the requirements of these ethical principles and how the management of Enron acted against them which led to its bankruptcy and, finally, collapse. Enron is an example of a business which has been engaged in unethical practices just for the sake of satisfying the interests of a few people in the organization at the expense of others. Enron was one of the largest energy companies in the world, and it has been the most innovative company in America until its bankruptcy (Rapoport Dharan 2004, p. 124). It has, however, been affected by several unethical and illegal practices such as defrauding its financial statements. The Enron scandal led to a massive loss of jobs and shareholders who lost their capital when the company went bankrupt (Goldman, 2010, p. 75). The management practices at Enron, which led to its fall, did not adhere to the ethical principles of the global business standards codex. There were also concerns about pervasiveness of unethical practices and about the systemic nature of practices which distorted the market (McBarnet 2006, p. 1093). These ethical principles usually govern the way businesses and organizations should operate or carry how managers and employees should carry out their duties.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More One of the principles of the global business standard codex is the transparency principle. This principle states that everyone in an organization should be transparent and truthful in whatever they do (Morland 2011, p. 121). This means that managers should provide clear and true financial statements regarding the company, and also provide true records and reports on all the activities of the business. The managers at Enron did not adhere to this ethical principle. Enron, with the help of its accounting firm Arthur Anderson, constantly defrauded its financial statements and issued the ones that were not true and were not clear (Goldman 2010, p. 98). This shows that they were not transparent and truthful. Its accounting practices were also not clear, for example, they included costs of ghost projects that had been cancelled and were not in their financial statements in reality, and this is why, they could retain the money to the cancelled project. They, however, argued that they included the costs because there was no official letter stating that projects were cancelled (Sims, 2003, p. 156). Individuals and investors who had invested either their money or time in the company lost a lot of money because they were misled by the fraudulent financial statements and financial performance of the company that had been altered by the executives, for example, the executives paid people to pretend that they were working hard when comp any analysts were around so that they would give an impression that the company was performing well, and that it was lucrative, while in reality the company was performing poorly. The employees were also deceived by the financial condition of the firm, and therefore, they did not diversify their retirement portfolios in time hence losing out on their salaries and pensions when the company went bankrupt. The company also engaged in fraudulent activities like avoiding taxes by creating offshore entities which would not be liable to taxation so that the profits of the company could be increased (Sims and Johannes, 2003, p.23). Another ethical principle of the global business standards codex is the fiduciary principle. This principle requires people in the business to act diligently with loyalty and integrity to the owners of the business and for the betterment of the business (Seeger and Ulmer, 2010, p. 76). The management of Enron was not acting with integrity and diligence. This was the major cause of Enron’s legal and financial problems. Some practices are usually legally acceptable but morally questionable. A business that adheres to the principles of ethics should not engage in such practices because ethics does not allow them. This principle expects managers to be aware of the dimensions of the moral antecedents of engaging in illegal activity and acting without any integrity.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Enron ethical practices specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In Enron, Andrew Fastow who was then the chief financial officer of the company was acting without integrity and diligence, and hence he engaged in certain illegal and unethical activities (Petrick and Schrerer 2009, p. 213). He was behind the creation of the off books companies which were not liable to taxation. These companies were beneficial for him and his friends because they were able to make millions from the off boo k companies, but at the expense of the stakeholders who would lose their investments if these unethical activities were discovered. The managers also took advantage of the stock of the company when it was selling at its highest and sold their shares because they were sure that the company would fall in the future because of the fraudulent activities that they were engaged in (Petrick Schrerer 2009, p. 213). These activities also did not adhere to the property principle which expects the managers of a company to protect and not steal the property of the shareholders of the business. The managers, instead of protecting the property of the shareholders, engaged in activities of theft of such property which later led to bankruptcy and hence collapse of the company. Conclusion Ethical conduct and behavior should be stressed and practiced in every organization. If Enron had stressed an ethical culture in its business, all the unethical behavior would have been limited and the company wou ld not have collapsed. All businesses should therefore have an ethical culture and practice it. All businesses should therefore avoid the Enron case by stressing more on what is ethically acceptable rather than what is legally acceptable. Businesses should train their employees, managers and all the other stakeholders regarding the importance of acting ethically in a business while carrying out the activities of the business. This will reduce any likely occurrences of the Enron scandal. References Brooks, L Dunn, P 2009, Business and professional ethics for directors, executives and accountants, Cengage Learning, California.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Goldman, A 2010, Business Law: Principles and practices, Cengage Learning, California. Johannes, B Sims, R 2003, Journal of Business Ethics, Pg. 243. McBarnet, D 2006, After Enron will ‘Whiter than White Collar Crime’ Still Wash? Br J Criminol, vol. 46, no. 6, pp. 1091-1109. Morland, M 2011, Business Ethics and Continental Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Petrick, K Scherer, D 2009, Ethics in Business, John Wiley and Sons, Chicago. Rapoport, N Dharan, B 2004, Enron: corporate fiascos and their implications, Foundation Press, New York. Seeger, M Ulmer, R 2010, Management communication quarterly. Sage Publications, Boston. Sims, R 2003, Ethics and corporate social responsibility: why giants fall, Greenwood publishing, Boston. Stead, W E, Worrell, D L Stead J G, 1090, An integrative model for understanding and managing ethical behavior in business organizations, Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 233-242.

List of US Presidents With Beards

List of US Presidents With Beards Five  U.S. presidents wore beards, but its been more than a century since anyone with facial hair served  in the White House. The last president to wear a full beard  in office was  Benjamin Harrison, who served from March 1889 to March 1893. Facial hair has all but disappeared from American politics. There are very few bearded politicians in Congress. Being clean-shaven wasnt always the norm, though. There are plenty of presidents with facial hair  in U.S. political history. Where did they all go? What happened to the beard? List of Presidents With Beards At least 11  presidents had facial hair, but only five had beards. 1. Abraham Lincoln was the first bearded president of the United States. But he might have entered office  clean-shaven  in March 1861 were it not from a letter from 11-year-old Grace Bedell of New York, who didnt like the way he looked on the  1860 campaign trail  without facial hair. Bedell wrote to Lincoln before the election: I have yet got four brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President. Lincoln started growing a beard, and by the time he was elected and began his journey from Illinois to Washington in 1861 he had  grown the beard for which he is so remembered. One note, however: Lincolns beard was not actually a full beard. It was a chinstrap, meaning he shaved his upper lip. 2. Ulysses Grant was the second bearded president. Before he was elected, Grant was known to wear his beard in a manner that was described as both wild and shaggy during the Civil War. The style did not suit his wife, however, so he trimmed it back. Purists point out the Grant was the first  president  to wear a full beard compared to Lincolns chinstrap. In 1868, author James Sanks Brisbin described Grants facial hair this way: The whole of the lower part of the face is covered with a closely cropped reddish beard, and on the upper lip he wears a mustache, cut to match the beard. 3. Rutherford B. Hayes was the third bearded president. He reportedly wore the longest beard of the five bearded presidents, what some described as  Walt Whitman-ish. Hayes served as president from March 4, 1877 to March 4, 1881. 4. James Garfield was the fourth bearded president. His beard has been described as being similar to that of Rasputins, black with streaks of gray in it. 5. Benjamin Harrison was the fifth bearded president. He wore a beard the entire four years he was in the White House, from March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1893. He was the last president to wear a beard, one of the more notable elements of a relatively unremarkable tenure in office. Author OBrien Cormac wrote this of the president in his 2004 book  Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: What Your Teachers Never Told You About the Men of the White House: Harrison may not be the most memorable chief executive in American history, but he did, in fact, embody the end of an era: He was the last president to have a beard. Several other presidents wore facial hair but not beards. They are: John Quincy Adams, who wore mutton chops.Chester Arthur, who wore a mustache and mutton chops.Martin Van Buren, who wore mutton chops.Grover Cleveland, who wore a mustache.Theodore Roosevelt, who wore a mustache.William Taft, who wore a mustache. Why Modern Day Presidents Don't Wear Facial Hair The last  major-party candidate with a beard to even  run for president  was Republican Charles Evans Hughes in 1916. He lost. The beard, like every fad, fades and re-emerges in popularity. Lincoln, perhaps Americas most famous bearded politician, was the first president to wear a beard in office. But he began his candidacy clean-shaven and only grew his facial hair at the request of an 11-year-old schoolgirl, Grace Bedell. Times have changed, though. Very few people beg political candidates, presidents or members of Congress to grow facial hair since the 1800s. The New Statesman summed up the state of facial hair since then: Bearded men enjoyed all of the privileges of bearded women. Beards, Hippies, and Communists In 1930, three decades after the invention of the safety razor made shaving safe and easy, the author Edwin Valentine Mitchell wrote, In this regimented age the simple possession of a beard is enough to mark as curious any young man who has the courage to grow one. After the 1960s, when beards were popular among hippies, facial hair grew even more unpopular among politicians, many of whom wanted to distance themselves from the counterculture. There were very few bearded politicians in politics because candidates and elected officials did not want to be portrayed as either Communists or hippies, according to Slate.coms Justin Peters. For many years, wearing a full beard marked you as the sort of fellow who had Das Kapital stashed somewhere on his person, Peters wrote in 2012. In the 1960s, the more-or-less concurrent rise of Fidel Castro in Cuba and student radicals at home reinforced the stereotype of beard-wearers as America-hating no-goodniks. The stigma persists to this day: No candidate wants to risk alienating elderly voters with a gratuitous resemblance to Wavy Gravy. Author A.D. Perkins, writing in his 2001 book One Thousand Beards: a Cultural History of Facial Hair, notes that modern-day politicians are routinely instructed by their advisers and other handlers to remove all traces of facial hair before launching a campaign for fear of resembling Lenin and Stalin (or Marx for that matter).  Perkins concludes: The beard has been the kiss of death for Western politicians ...   Bearded Politicians in Modern Day The absence of bearded politicians has not gone unnoticed. In 2013 a group called the Bearded Entrepreneurs for the Advancement of a Responsible Democracy launched a political action committee whose aim is to support political candidates with both a full beard, and a savvy mind full of growth-oriented policy positions that will move our great nation towards a more lush and magnificent future. The BEARD PAC claimed that individuals with the dedication to grow and maintain a quality beard are the kinds of individuals that would show dedication to the job of public service. Said BEARD PAC founder Jonathan Sessions: With the resurgence of beards in popular culture and among today’s younger generation, we believe the time is now to bring facial hair back into politics. The BEARD PAC determines whether to offer financial support to a political campaign only after submitting the candidate to its review committee, which investigates the quality and longevity of their beards.