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Accountants are trained to handle facts and figures, and they know when something is incorrect.
In the Arthur Andersen/Enron case it was believed that Temple and others knew that the figures were wrong but wanted to show the profits for the company so that the stock prices would continue to grow (Thomas, 2002). What was making investors rich was slowly killing a large accounting firm and a company that was previously good to work for -- a company on which many people depended. Pensions and other perks of working for Enron vanished seemingly overnight, making it very difficult for many of the employees (a large number of them older) to be hired anywhere else. These were people who were very close to retirement, and who saw their jobs and their pensions disappear without a trace. They had no idea that something was wrong, and that Arthur Andersen was overinflating the income and "cooking the books" to make it appear as though Enron was much more successful than was actually the case. The guilty verdict for Arthur Andersen and the resulting fallout for Enron did not bring back the jobs of the people (Thomas, 2002).
Most often, it is the "littlest" of the people who work in and for a company who are hurt by unethical behavior. Stakeholders of all types are damaged in some way -- generally financially -- when a company decides that ethics is not important. There are ways to reduce the chances of unethical behavior, but there is no guarantee of completely stopping that behavior from taking place within a company. By encouraging transparency within an organization and encouraging all...
By creating end-of-year checklists and plans for the following year that clearly incorporate ethics, the company will continue to send a strong ethical message to all of its employees (Schulman, 2006).
A strategic plan should always be part of the growth and development of the company, and ethics need to be included in that plan. It is not enough to assume that employees all have the same ethical standards and opinions, or that they know what is ethical and what is not when it comes to the way a business will be operated. Spelling out ethical rules and regulations will stop an employee from saying that he or she did not know that something was not acceptable. Stakeholders can feel confident in a business that not only displays its ethical code but that follows that code, as well. Companies have a responsibility to the society in which they exist, and the creation and integration of an ethical code is a large part of that responsibility. A failure to follow high standards of ethical behavior can cripple and ultimately destroy a business.
References
Schulman, M. (2006). Incorporating ethics into the organization's strategic plan. Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. Santa Clara University. Retrieved from http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/focusareas/business/strategic-plan.html
Thomas, C.B. (2002). Called to Account. Time Business. Retrieved from http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,263006,00.html
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