Enron

Enron’s Failures Leadership Failures Management Failure The management failure for Enron had occurred when everyone began pointing the blame to a different person, as a game of hot potatoes. Instead of each person taking the blame for the wrongdoing one had done. For instance, the auditor David Duncan pointed his finger to the management team for covering up loses of the company. Then the management blamed Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow for the unspeakable subsidiaries. From there the blame went to Kenneth Lay. (Plotz, 2002) The employees were also involved with the scandal. The employees were compensated for them hiding the corporate dept so that the company could boost profits. Enron’s Impact on Corporate Structures The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) made structures, which govern the conduct of corporations, such as Enron a substance of federal law. The intentions of SOX are to restore stakeholder’s confidence following the outbreak of scandals and bankruptcies such as Enron (OSU, n.d.). By tradition, corporate govern structure have been an undisclosed subject between the management and shareholder with some state law limitation. SOX provide a system for balancing the control between the board members and upper level management of corporations. SOX is recognized as a preventative source, even though it cannot stop management deception (Tipgos & Keefe, 2004). In order for Enron to further prevent or stop management deceptions, everyone who is involved shall follow the vision. Under the law, “top management has to certify the accuracy of the financial reports and make certain disclosures about the controls and procedures in place to avoid fraudulent financial reporting. Even a code of ethics for senior corporate financial officers is now a requirement of the law (Tipgos & Keefe, 2004, p. 2). Enron’s New Structure Conclusion In conclusion, the failure of Enron was the result of unethical activities by the upper level management. The failure was also the result of contributors both outside and inside of Enron. The company could have been a very successful company of all time, but one became greedy. At the end greed ruined many lives of innocent by standers. Gudinkunst, A. (2002). Enron- A study of failures, who, how, and why' The Faculty Network. Retrieved July 12, 2009 from http://web.bryant.edu/~facdev/Web%20Sites/newsletter/fall02/agudikunst.htm http://ocdc.osu.edu/pdf/sarbanes.pdf Plotz. D. (2002). Play the Enron Blame Game. Retrieved July 13, 2009 from http://www.slate.com/'id=2061470 Thomas, CB. (2002). Called to account. Time Magazine. Retrieved July 11, 2009 from http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,263006,00.html. Tipgos, MA., Keefe, TJ. (2004). A comprehensive structure of corporate governance in post-Enron corporate America. The CPA Journal. Retrieved July 14, 2009 from http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2004/1204/essentials/p46.htm.