Ethics in business

¶ … Betty Vinson was horribly unjust, especially considering that she cooperated completely with federal prosecutors. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine how their case against WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers could have proceeded as well as it did without the cooperation of Ms. Vinson. Certainly, if the federal government is to be expected to attract the small "fish" to give up the big "fish," then this certainly is counterproductive.

Certainly, Ms. Vinson made the decisions that she made due to the fact that she was fearful about losing her job if she did not engage in the activity that she did. After all, did the accounting agency pick up on the fraud? The above conviction is especially unbelievable since she took the stand not just against Ebbers multiple times, but also Troy Normand was only given three years' probation and did not impose a fine on him. This was especially the case since she had been told by Ebbers to make the improper accounting entries because he did not want to disappoint Wall Street and the stock holders. Truly, as she mentioned, she was in genuine fear for her job if she did not make the entries. Considering that she did not go through with her planned resignation from the company, she was afraid of not being able to get a job elsewhere if word got out about her actions at WorldCom. Certainly, she had hoped to avoid prison time by testifying, so the five months of prison time and five months of probation with house arrest was a big disappointment and certainly must have had a chilling effect on bringing anyone else out of the WorldCom closet to testify (McClam, 2005).

In the past, intimate issues of corporate governance and incumbent responsibility have dominated politics and the news. The focus has largely been in the area of preventing future abuses, and devising laws and institutions that will deter corporate executives from becoming involved in taking part in the same types of scandals that have since rocked the foundations of the business world over the past few years. When recent attempts to improve legal compliance and to avoid future problems are critical, one remains doubtful that any such system could serve in the function of a fool-proof mechanism to prevent the happening of future frauds. These reforms have largely ignored protecting the whistle blower. After all, besides not addressing the base issues that bring the frauds about, there is also no protection of those whose testimonies like Ms Vinson who brought the mighty down low and offered them up to federal prosecutors. While there are laws to protect whistle blowers, the reality of what would happen to her gave Ms Vinson pause about doing the right thing, that is the fear that she would never work as an accountant again.

Conclusion