What is ethics? When do we cross the line between right and wrong, and who decides when that line is crossed? Ethics can be defined as moral philosophy. Basically, “the discipline is concerned with moral good and bad, right and wrong.” The term is also applied to any system or theory of moral values or principles” (Ethics, Encyclopedia Britannica Online, 2000). we apply the concept of ethics to business, expands the scope. ” (Business Ethics, The Columbia Encyclopedia, 2007). In this paper we will discuss business ethics, three common unknowns, one major taboo to discuss corporate social responsibility, and I will give examples of two major corporate scandals, Enron and WorldCom.
When you think of the words business and ethics, the two are not usually related. This, however, pertains to three beliefs. The first is that honesty and profit just don’t mix. Therefore, if you make money, you will be considered lucky, but you will be corrupted in order to have money. The second fallacy is that all ethical problems can be solved in a simple way and problems are always right or wrong. There is nothing to be followed from. When we assume this concept to be true, we tend to ignore the gray area in between and consequently, to ignore that the soul of inquiry is necessary for me to make a decision about an ethical question. The third error is that ethics establishes rules or regulations. When we think about it, don’t legal issues refer to a moral issue or vice versa. (Lamberton & Minor-Evans, 2007).
When we think of corporations today, we think of them as responsible, patronizing the CEO and portraying the business as such. This concept of believing in corporate goodness is simple. The relevant cases of Enron and WorldCom prove this. This leads us to taboos in the discourse of corporate social responsibility. These taboos are rarely discussed, but it is an important topic. Why should we discuss taboos? According to Berger and Luckmann, “from the perspective of social construction, social reality is structured and understood through discourse. However, some discourses have a greater “truth” value than others. Hence, they are generally easily accepted, sometimes even considered, as absolute truths that are not easily questioned” (1966 ).
It is important to follow the course of the prevailing discourse. It is not regrettable “for the CEO to publicly question a solid social responsibility, which highlights the ethical principles that guide corporate actions”, as Crook (2005) stated. This case can be related to Enron. Sims and Brinkman argue, “One can only wonder how a firm that was previously glorified as such a shining example of a company with high CSR standards can suddenly turn out to be rotting inside” (2003). Enron is the beginning. WorldCom is supposed to be corrupt. It is an excerpt from the Enron scandal, which was told by BBC News.
It was discovered that executives at Enron had offered gifts to tax officials. No tax income was paid between 1996 and 1999 and the ethics of the tax officials is a question. The report that revealed this information is more like reading a step-by-step analysis of tax abuse. The collapse of Enron shocked many, especially those with retirement savings. Enron seemed to be successful at the time of failure. Lawyers are trying to amend the laws so that this situation cannot happen again in the future.
A strange thing
The IRS didn’t know what was going on because of the complexities involved.
The investigation provides the first complete story about Enron’s efforts to tax and regulate (BBC News, 2003).
In the world of scandal there are two major groups that were accused and punished. Here are two relevant excerpts from what Schmidt reported on CBS MarketWatch.
The $11 billion accounting scandal finally came to an end on March 15, 2005. The jury took eight hundred days to reach a decision to find Ebber, the co-founder of WorldCom, guilty of seven counts of false information and one count of securities fraud. bad trick
It is possible that Ebbers will spend the rest of his life behind bars and pay millions. Jurors were told at trial that Ebberos took out more than $400 million in company loans. Scott Sullivan, a former WorldCom economist, claimed that Ebbers was involved in a fraud to cover up any disclosure of the company’s declining financial condition. Ebbers claimed that he did not know about technical finance and that Sullivan was the expert. He denied that Sullivan was doing anything to cover it up.
A strange thing
WorldCom was plunged into bankruptcy due to a computer scandal. The market value once topped $180 billion.
Sullivan helped the prosecutors so that he could receive a lighter sentence but the defense questioned the case because he did so after pleading guilty to the fraud charge (Schmidt, 2005). “Former WorldCom Chief Financial Officer Scott Sullivan, who prosecutors called the architect of the company’s massive fraud, was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for his role in the scandal” (Schmidt, 2005, para.1).
“Sullivan, who had been in prison for 165 years but whose cooperation with investigators was widely expected to moderate his sentence, was convicted of three counts of fraud, conspiracy and false financial statements” (Schmidt, 2005, para.2).
“Sullivan’s cooperation became pivotal in the indictment of former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers. He was sentenced in July to 25 years in prison after being convicted of nine counts of fraud and crimes in connection with WorldCom’s attempt to hide billions in expenses as a tool for inflation” (Schmitt, 2005, para.3).
A strange thing
“Their actions in the middle of an $11 billion account fraud” (Schmidt, 2005, para.4).
“To settle the civil suit proposed by the investors, Ebbers has already agreed to release most of his personal assets, in part to compensate the shareholders for the losses. His personal assets are estimated at $25 million to $40 million” (Schmidt, 2005, para.10). .
There is rarely any religious document, their existence is just accepted. The religion I am talking about is the religion of the amoral. This means that “it is considered neither moral nor moral, but “outside” moral conceptions as such” (Kallio, 2006, p. 167). This concept is usually associated with the Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman. It states that “the one and only social responsibility business- to use its resources and organize in activities to increase its results as long as within he abides by the rules of the game, that is, he engages in open and free competition, without fraud and deceit” (Kallio, 2006, p. 167).
Amoralization is quite common in business today. In corporate weed, there are four different strategies that are used to achieve moral neutrality. They are “depersonalization – the avoidance of personal moral responsibility for the environment: moral limits – the construction of barriers limiting the moral state of the environment; the appropriation of discourse – the use and power attached to certain discourses in the communication of the greenness of the body; the summoning of narratives – the application of different narratives to make sense of corporate greenness” (Crane, 2000, p. 680). According to Crane, the result is that “the results of a more or less structured amoral environment, from which the directors of the universities could focus on the “real” scientific facts, and thus make rational decisions based on reason rather than reason. passions” (Kallio, 2006, p. 168).
In most cases, the taboo on immoral business is treated abstractly and some say trivial. Tabo has often spoken about amoral businesses, often in conjunction with other ideas (Kallio, 2006). “Although there are some signs indicating that in the post-Enron era the discourse of CSR may be turning to a critical approach, the religion of amorality still awaits a more serious debate” (Kallio, 2006, p. 169).
Many believe that business and ethics do not go hand in hand because money cannot be done if proper ethics are practiced. It is believed that a corporation that follows ethical ways will not fear any interests and will not be able to take advantage of opportunities that arise. Only a few corporations want to practice unfairly and illegally. They tend to give everyone else a bad name (Kallio, 2006). In this paper I have discussed business ethics, including three common beliefs, one is a major religious discourse on corporate social responsibility, and two examples are the scandals of a major college, Enron and WorldCom. There will always be ethical issues that come up in bodies as long as they exist. It is up to the people who are in charge whether they want to follow their own ways or deviate in another way to make someone Extra money .
References
BBC News. (2003, February 14). Enron’s ‘tax authorities’ Retrieved July 11, 2007, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2756345.stm
Berger, P.L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The Social Construction of Matter: A Treatise on the Sociology of Science. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Business ethics. (2007). The Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth ed. [Online]. Retrieved August 2, 2007 from http://www.encyclopedia.com/printable.aspx?id=1E1
Crane, A. (2000). Corporate greenness as amoralisation. Organizational Studies, 21(4), 673-696.
Crook, C. (2005, August 22). Good company. Economist, p. 3-4.
Nicomachean ethics. (1994-2000). Encyclopedia Britannica Online. [Online]. Retrieved April 5, 2000, from http://search.eb.com/bol/topic?eu=108566&sctn;=1±=1
Kallio, T. (2006). Discourse on taboos in the body of social responsibility. Acta Ethicorum Aristotelis, 74(2), 165-175. Retrieved 2 August 2007 from the EBSCOhost Search database (Article No. DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9227-x; (AN 25916948).
Lamberton, L., & Minor-Evans, L. (2007). Human Relations Strategies for Success. (Third Edition). New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Schmidt, R. (2005, August 14). Orbis ex-CFO Sullivan gets 5 years in prison. Retrieved May 22, 2007, from http://www.stockbreakthroughs.com/articles/worldcoms-magic-trick.htm
Schmidt, R. (2005, August 9). Ex-WorldCom CEO Ebbers convicted. Retrieved May 22, 2007, from http://www.stockbreakthroughs.com/articles/worldcom-ex-ceo-found-guilty.htm
Sims, R.R., & Brinkman, J. (2003). Enron Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 45(3), 243-256.
