Business Ethics

Business Ethics Paper
FIN/486
June 24, 2013
 
Business ethics within the workplace is very important. There have been some encounters where some businesses have lacked within this area and they have paid severely for this mishap. Two businesses that come to mind when speaking on business ethics are Enron and WorldCom. Both of these companies have proved to have had some issues with violating the ethics that are required when conducting business. This paper will briefly discuss the demise of these businesses and the accounting practices that included ethical violations that aided.
Business Ethics
“Business Ethics are the standards of conduct or moral judgment that apply to persons engaged in commerce” (Gitman, 2009). As with any finance department of any company, business ethics plays a very significant role within the business because it is known that when a business has a strong sense of ethics the results are an increase within their values. With accurate financial information at their fingertips, companies are able to make a suitable financial plan that best fits their current and future needs. There have been times when a business has altered their financial earnings to be more than what they are so that their business looks better than it really is which is a direct violation of business ethics. When businesses manipulate their financials they typically only show proof of their good business and tend to leave out the decline in performance, thus resulting in inaccurate financial information. Enron and WorldCom are prime examples of this kind of unethical business behavior that has led to their business demise.
Enron
Enron, a lead company within the electricity industry, met with what was known as one of the biggest scandals of 2001 and 2002, leading to the ultimate collapsing of the company. Ultimately the company’s accounting practices were called into question when it was noticed that they had been reporting inaccurate financial findings....