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our companion Solutions Manual on CD-ROM here.
Read the Journal
of Business Ethics review.
(PDF)
Authored by:
Stephen V. Arbogast, Executive Professor of
Finance, Bauer College of Business,
University
of Houston, Texas
Audience:
- Professionals
specializing in audit or financial control
advisory work.
- Business executives
at all levels who want to learn about practical
business ethics.
- Students
preparing for a business career and law
students training for
careers advising
or regulating the private sector.
- Seminary
students studying for careers involving
pastoral work with
corporate
workers.
- Finally, the
book belongs on all library shelves.
Description:
As scandals at Enron, WorldCom, and elsewhere
became public, American business schools
came under attack for inadequate ethical
formation of the country’s up-and-coming
managers. A less obvious but related problem
has been the lack of realistic ethical training
material. The author, a 32 year senior
financial executive, has adapted the Enron
story to address this pressing need. Drawing
upon his own experience within a highly disciplined
corporate culture, the author has extracted
from the wreckage case studies that chart
Enron’s descent into fraud and asks readers and
students to consider how it could have been
different.
These 17 practical case studies
don’t
just retell the Enron story – they select
pivotal moments when key individuals faced
decisions that could carry the firm across
another threshold of ethical decomposition.
Readers will get the opportunity to stand
in the shoes of the young Ken Lay as he pondered
how to handle Enron’s first trading scandal.
They will have the opportunity to consider
how to oppose Jeff Skilling’s plans to
introduce Mark-to-Market accounting
and Andy Fastow’s ever-more aggressive
use of Special Purpose Entities.
Finally, they will have a chance to reconsider
the tactics adopted by those who did resist.
For example, was Sherron Watkins right to
take her concerns to Ken Lay, or should she
have made her case elsewhere?
These cases capture
the daunting financial complexity that masked
Enron’s problems
for years. They are also constructed with an
eye on the conflicting business, organizational
and personal objectives that complicate real
world ethics questions. As each case makes
clear, ethics in the business world comes wrapped
in practical matters that can make ‘going
along’ seem the smart move. These cases
will provide students with practice in maintaining
their ethical bearings
in the face of such complexities and in how
to chart a politically
viable path of effective resistance.
As a set,
the 17 cases studies seek to enable instructors
to accomplish four goals:
- To show what ethics
issues look like in an organization that is
uninterested in ethics.
The cases also show how ethics issues change
as a firm becomes more corrupt. Instructors
will then be able to explore the issue of:
how do executives summon the resolve to resist
when an organization is unsupportive.
- Second,
the cases allow instructors to ask ‘how
does one work an ethics issues’ within
a corporate environment? Students can then
be asked to take the tactical political skill
set that executives must develop and apply
it to the sustaining of ethical outcomes.
- Third, instructors will be able to challenge
students to reconcile their preferred ethical
course with achieving an acceptable business
outcome. This will require students not
only to master the business details surrounding
the ethical issue but to develop alternate
plans and strategies that management can accept.
-
Finally, the cases as a whole provide a course
on the role of financial control within
the corporation. Instructors will have
the opportunity to teach the essentials of
a financial
controls system; from there, instructors
can explain the connection between sound financial
control and a business environment where
individuals
can insist on ethical behavior.
The
17 case studies are augmented by 4 extensive Essays that outline an approach
to the cases and also discuss the connection
between financial control and a firm’s
ethical climate.
Pre-publication
Reviews:
"Extensive research was done in these case studies to reveal the subtleties of corporate opposition to the truth. Rarely will employees do wrong when asked to do so outright, but when an inappropriate course of action is masked properly, it is rare for employees to challenge it. Readers of Arbogast ’s book will benefit from the authenticity and accuracy of the cases, hopefully helping them in their careers to either avoid or prevent another Enron from happening".
Sherron S. Watkins, former Vice President of Enron, Time Person of the Year 2002, the Year of the Whistleblowers.
"Enron was both a terrible tragedy and an opportunity to learn. The
work of Steven Arbogast will be extremely helpful in bringing ethics and ethical
dilemma to life of all ages and nationalities".
J. Frank Brown, Dean on INSEAD Business
School, France
"Arbogast has created
a remarkable book by dedicating the study of
ethical decision process within the context of
Enron through a set of cases that address interconnected
issues. In doing so he has captured the
rich complexity of the problem of ethics that
is seldom communicated or appreciated".
Krishna Dhir, Dean of the Campbell School of
Business at Berry College, Georgia
About
the Author:
Stephen
V. Arbogast is Executive Professor of Finance,
Bauer College of Business, University of Houston,
Texas. From 1972 to 2004 he worked for Exxon
and ExxonMobil Corporation and his last position
there was Treasurer of the Global Chemical
Division. Arbogast received his B.A. in government
from Cornell University, Masters in public
affairs
from Princeton University, and his Advanced
Professional Certificate in Management of Financial
Institutions from New York University. He expects
to receive a Masters in Theological Studies
from the University of Houston in 2008.
Table
of Contents:
Preface
Essay
1: Overview of the Case Studies and How to Approach Them
Case Study 1: Enron
Oil Trading (A): Untimely Problems from Valhalla
Essay 2: How to Do an Ethics
Case Study
Case Study 2: Enron Oil Trading
(B): The Future of Enron Internal Audit
Case Study 3: Enron Oil Trading(C):
An Opening for Enron Audit?
Essay 3: Necessary Ammunition:
Financial Control’s
Economic Rationale
Case Study 4: Enter Mark to Market
(A): Exit Accounting Integrity?
Case Study 5: Enter Mark to Market
(B): Accounting & the
Aggressive Client
Case Study 6: Enter Mark to Market
(C): The Disease Spreads to Enron Clean Fuels
Case Study 7: Adjusting the
Forward Curve in the Back Room (A)
Case Study 8: Adjusting the Forward
Curve (B): Managing the Showdown Meeting
Case Study 9: Enron’s SPE’s:
A Vehicle too Far?
Case Study 10: Jeff Skilling and
LJM (A): The “Shoot
the Moon” Meeting
Case Study 11: Jeff Skilling and
LJM (B): Managing the Meeting’s Aftermath
Case Study 12: New Counsel
for Andy Fastow (A)
Case Study 13: New Counsel for
Andy Fastow (B): Attorney Responsibility to Report
Fraud
Case Study 14: Nowhere to Go with “the
Probability of Ruin”
Case Study 15: Lay
Back…and Say What?
Case Study 16: “Whistleblowing” before
Imploding in Accounting Scandals
Case Study
17: Investigating Accounting Improprieties at Jayen Corporation
Conclusion:
Ethical Lessons from the Enron File
A Note on Sources
Indices |
