Enron was described as “House Of Cards” as it was built over a pool of gasoline. It all sort of became smoke and mirror. Louis Borget, former Enron's CEO was also exposed to be rerouting company’s money to offshore accounts. Once their schemes were discovered by the auditors, Kenneth Lay encourages them to "keep making us millions". However, the traders were fired once it was revealed that Enron's reserves were gambled away which nearly destroyed the company.
These dummy companies were financed by several banking institutions in order to make these deals, allowing Enron to hide billions in debt. By 2001 Enron had created hundreds of special purpose entities to prop up stock prices. The business maneuvers siphoning losses away from the corporation were perpetrated by upper management, who had easy access to the tools needed to cover up such questionable business practices. These special purpose entities were a product of Enron’s investment in many accounting consultants whose only goal was to find ways for Enron to skirt GAAP. The loophole employed by Enron has since been plugged by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, however, the external auditors’ failure to exercise professional judgment in relation to such dealings reflects poorly on the effectiveness of their audit practices.
Wal-Mart’s reputation issues have cost the corporation billions of dollars throughout all their business segments. Major Trends Wal-Mart succeeds in the United States simply by selling products at low cost. But that doesn’t explain it all. The following is a current situational
Over the course of the last thirty years, Wal-Mart, the retail giant, has seen rapid expansion and huge profit increases. With saturation in every geographically relevant area in the United States, Wal-Mart is a familiar face to nearly every American. As a result of its cost-driven strategy, its performance continues to triumph over the competition. In recent years, the public forum has shifted to debate the ethicality of Wal-Mart’s corporate strategy. Perhaps the most widely discussed criticism of Wal-Mart revolves around their high employee turnover rates and the causes of employee dissatisfaction.
Walmart administrative assistant Chalace Eply Lowry was hired by the company in January 2007 soon after she filed a complaint against a vice-president of corporate communications, Mona Williams for the possibility of an ethics issue. Lowry was asked by Williams to copy papers that she thought were related to stocks, and a few days later it was announced that Walmart was planning a $15 billion stock buyback, and she was concerned that Williams may have used insider information to exercise her stock options and make money off of the buyback. Walmart responded that Lowry was simply confused and that she mistook a deferred compensation form for an options exercise request and that there was no wrong-doing by Williams. Soon after she filed for the complaint, her identity was disclosed to Williams, something Walmart claimed Lowry agreed to. Lowry, however, stated that she was never given a choice, and subsequently requested a transfer to another department.
A company might have what it takes to do off-line retail, but without a superior technological infrastructure it will be hard to compete with the internet big dogs. Conversly to that, a successful off-line retailer has stratagies in place that supports the brick and mortor business model. In today’s highly competitive, highly global economy, new markets are a click away. Retail giant Wal-Mart has made it quite clear that they are getting into the e-commerce business with all the fury that they expend on their off-line retail. Wal-Mart is the number one retailer in the world with revenue that is ranked 26th in the world’s GDP.
Wal-Mart Domination Wal-Mart is the largest corporation in America and has stores throughout the country and world. Many people have different thoughts and viewpoints of Wal-Mart and the debate over whether it is good or bad for America is still in question. Wal-Mart is the second largest job supplier in the United States behind the government. However it pays their employees minimum wage which is nearly impossible to live off of especially if you have kids. Wal-Mart like to portray itself as a seller of American products however the main problem is that it outsources all of its work and is full of shelves with items mad in foreign countries, mainly China.
Walmart Worldwide and Misunderstood ETH/316 Walmart Worldwide and Misunderstood In this world, there are many companies that are global successes. From gas companies to retailers, each company wants to be as successful as possible. Walmart, according to CNN Money (2013), is the 3rd largest international company, falling from number one in 2006. So what happened to the global mega retailer? How did they lose the top spot?
He assists business leaders in developing ethical and profitable cultures. This misperception persists for several reasons, Mitchell said. First of all, the industry itself is quite large. It encompasses banks, securities firms, insurance companies, mutual fund organizations, investment banks, pensions funds, mortgage lenders—any company doing business in the financial arena. Because of its vast size, the industry tends to garner lots of headlines, many of which tout its ethical lapses.
Hewlett Packard serves more than 1 billion customers in more than 170 countries on six continents. HP is a very successful company with over 320,000 employees worldwide. HP’s 2010 Fortune 500 ranking was number 11. Although HP is a very successful company with a very impressive resume, in August of 2010 their CEO Mark Hurd made a tough decision to resign due to sexual harassment accusations that were brought against him by Jodie Fischer, an event coordinator that was hired by the company to assist Executives. Sexual Harassment is defined by the EEOC as unwelcome sexual advances in the work environment.