BUSINESS, ETHICS, AND LEADERSHIP IN A POST ENRON ERA

Business, ethics, and leadership in a post Enron era

Business, ethics, and leadership in a post Enron era

Introduction

     Conventional wisdom paradoxically notifies us that even though change is unchanging, certain things not ever actually change. Or even when things emerge to change, they breeze up approaching back again. Not all of accepted wisdom is just a casual cliche, or a cosmetic bromide. Things manage and can replicate themselves. Similar types of positions and happenings frequently insinuate themselves into our collective time-space continuum. And as George Santayana has so very well alerted us: "Those who will not recall the past are accused to replicate it."

 

What exact alterations, if any, would you suggest to a principle manufacturer to boost the effectiveness of business governance in this post-Enron era?

Sadly, in the area of enterprise ethics, it doesn't need encyclopedic information or a gigantic leap of fantasy to arrive up with demonstrations that substantiate Santayana's thesis. In the 1920s there was Charles Ponzi's "postal coupon scam", which in the 1970s reappeared as Robert Vesco's "mutual capital scam", which emerged yet afresh in the 1980s with Charles Keating in his "securities deception scam" in the savings and lend industry. Then there's Ivan Boesky in the 1980s and the allegations of "insider trading" which has been lately leveled contrary to America's very well liked "doyenne of domesticity", Martha Stewart. (Although these exact allegations were fallen by the referee, Ms. Stewart was convicted on March 5, 2004 of lying, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice.) Also, let's not overlook the "junk bond" monarch Michael Milken and his impelling the restricts of economic risk-taking and the more up to designated day emblem of "cowboy capitalism" performed by several now non-existent dot-corn enterprises. And, smallest we overlook, there's the Ford blowing up "Pinto" gas container cover-up, and the not so distant headlines decrying the misfortune rates of "Ford Explorers and Firestone Tires."

Of course, the most well renowned demonstration of latest business perfidy and malfunction is Enron and the now obsolete "white shoed accounting firm", Arthur Andersen. (1) To its dismay, Enron has become an icon of an era. It has become the poster progeny for business misconduct, a metaphor for business corruption, and, shorthand for business greed. Its title has become a period of derision and disdain and has generated a new lexicon for enterprise chicanery and failure. You can now "Enron people", "be Enronish to others," "practice Enronomics", "see Enronish sights", or "experience a malfunction of Enronian proportions". And, eventually, the title Enron is now utilised as an sunshade period for the cadre of other business monsters who discovered themselves in the public limelight for lawful and ethical failures: Tyco, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Adelphia, ImClone, Boeing, Hollinger International, Health South, and the new worldwide scandal--Italy's Parmalat.

The conspicuous inquiry is, of course, how did Enron change itself from one of America's paragons to one of its head pariahs? How can it be that Enron could literally overnight affirm bankruptcy and disillusionment? How can it ...