Executive Summary The issues that surround the Ramsey “Ramrod” Stockwell case involve issues with upper level management. Mr. Stockwell is the vice president of production, is clearly the source of many of the problems that have occurred in The Benson Metal Company. Problems and miscommunications have arisen because Mr. Stockwell, whether out of pride or actual misinterpretation of the facts, acts in a very unconventional manner with his subordinates and coworkers. This case involves concepts centering on conflict and politics in organizational settings. Mr. Stockwell, vice president for Production at Benson Metals, is becoming increasingly uncooperative and difficult in the workplace.
I think that a business leader needs to act and conduct themselves in the best interests of their employees, and clients. This paying of multi million dollars spent on bonus for the executives is a huge ethical dilemma. The tax payers didn’t even get their money back prior the disbursement of the bonuses. This is the type of leadership that is stewardship but with bad unethical decisons As a leader, you can put the needs interests, and goals of others above your own and use your personal gifts to help others achieve their potential. The questionnaire in Leader’s Self: Insight 6.2 enables you to evaluate your leadership approach along the dimensions of authoritarian leadership, participative leadership, stewardship, and servant leadership.
October 25, 2011 Case Study 1.1 Enron Corporation 1. I believe most of the responsible party’s for the Enron crisis would have to be the corporate executives, individual auditors, the leadership of the Anderson firm, and the many regulatory authorities that were involved with the Enron Corporation. I said the many regulatory authorities because they failed to take any proactive measures to limit the ability of rogue corporate executives, accounts, and auditors in their professional responsibilities. Corporate executives would be responsible because they insisted on using aggressive and illegal accounting and financial reporting plans. Individual auditors are responsible because they made unprofessional decisions that tainted the integrity of auditors.
Finally, the Board of Directors was not sufficiently independent or engaged to oversee WorldCom’s affairs. This meant that WorldCom’s leadership did not have checks on its power and there was no oversight to ensure that this privilege was not abused. Analysis Company Strategy When the Sprint merger was turned down in 2000, it resulted in the company losing its strategic direction since acquisitions were no longer a viable option for growth. Deteriorating industry conditions in 2000 meant WorldCom, along with the rest of the 1 telecommunications industry, was suffering. Since the company had lost its strategic direction and had no long-term vision, no re-evaluation of the WorldCom’s direction and performance targets was undertaken.
- Peterson does not have the right team in place; key positions are not equipped to handle all aspects of their charge (Curt Andrews, Chief Engineer). - A lack of clear definition of authority for Peterson vs. headquarters. - Lack of insight, experience or guidance on how to really approach and deal with problems. Peterson never created a team; he managed the people and the situations. Lena Inability of handling his job - No prior experience of constructing a cellular mobile telephone system - Hardy (immediate supervisor) also inexperienced in the industry - Relationship between Hardy and Peterson difficult to define - Difficult time managing the team - Did not delegate: attempted to tackle every problem by himself instead of looking to the employees for help with this - Morale is low GA Comments: 1.)
The OD group was not highly respected and this led to many employees feeling it was employee vs. them. In the beginning the OD group held meetings with John Zoltan into the information the group was collecting. The president spent less time with the group once he had to ravel out of the country on business trips. The group still had meetings but no one was truly in charge. By not appointing a leader to the group members went different directions leaving members unhappy.
Yes, he did not conduct himself with the responsibility of a CEO by being fully aware of what was happening in the company. I think that he did not know what was occurring. If he had known, he should have seen that revenues were overstated. This lack of proper governance was a big part of Enron’s undoing. 6.
Merrill Lynch replaced a research analyst after his coverage of Enron which displeased Enron’s executives. This coverage would have saved Enron from demise if Merrill Lynch would have prevailed upon Enron to implement it. Merrill Lynch gave in to threats by Enron that it would be excluded from a coming $750 million stock offering and instead, the replacement analyst is reported to have upgraded his report on Enron’s stock rating. The Auditors, Arthur Andersen LLP, were responsible for ensuring accuracy of Enron’s financial statements and internal bookkeeping. Potential investors used Andersen’s reports to judge Enron’s financial soundness and future potential before they decided whether to invest.
However, this placement resulted in on-going discussion between both district and corporate headquarter employees and consequently has Hanover-Bates’ best sales representative (Hank Carver) threatening to quit. Secondly, the Northeast district has very poor profit performance compared to other districts within the firm. They are not making their sales quota and are not utilizing the opportunity of potential future accounts. In addition, within the chemical industry, customers perceive minimal quality differences among products. With this being said, we believe competition is very high and it is important to have a sales force producing the best of their ability.
That the fraud continued as long as it did was due to a lack of courage to blow the whistle on the part of others in WorldCom’s financial and accounting departments; inadequate audits by Arthur Andersen; and a financial system whose controls were sorely deficient. The setting in which it occurred was marked by a serious corporate governance failure. The company's auditors held Sullivan responsible for the accounting mess and Sullivan was soon arrested on charges of fraud and misrepresentation. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that Arthur Anderson was WorldCom's auditor while the inappropriate accounting was taking place.2 However, Arthur Andersen tried to wash its hands off the crisis stating that it was not aware of the accounting discrepancies. They