What I Learned from Studying the Rise and Fall of Enron

In an ideal world there would be no corruption, no conflict, and no need for regulations. But this is not an ideal world and these problems happen every day. The business world is not exempt from this problem. Many businesses rely on ethics to help guide their company successfully. Our textbook Business Ethics: How to Design and Manage Ethical Organizations Denis Collins defines ethics as, â€Å"the set of principles a person uses to determine whether an action is good or bad† (5). All over the world there are businesses that take part in unethical behavior for many different reasons. Some countries even allow these unethical conducts, such as bribery, as a part of the norm. But for the United States, we have a stricter set of principles in place to try and stop unethical business practices from happening. That doesn’t mean that they don’t happen. Collins discusses a 2009 survey conducted by The Ethics Resource Center on 3,010 employees. Collins states that, â₠¬Å"approximately half of the respondents observed at least one type of major ethical misconduct in the workplace during the past year, and nearly half of these violated the law† (6). If uncovered these corruptions are not tolerated and can lead to the fall of anything from a small mom and pop business to massive a Corporation. That is exactly what happened to the Enron Corporation back in 2001. In this essay I will discuss what exactly Enron is, the unethical business practices that occurred, and my opinion on the scandal andShow MoreRelatedBernard Madoff Scandal3036 Words   |  13 Pagesthe Financial Markets were riddled with corruption and fraud. At the beginning of the decade we saw the likes of Enron and WorldCom become insolvent due to accounting frauds of epic proportions. 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