Enron's corporate culture is a cautionary tale for today's tech-savvy companies

In the case of Enron, we saw the weakness of human beings. The executives of Enron were very and highly qualified people, but they destroyed the fortune they built in 16 years and also hurt many investors. The fundamental cause of this disaster is that they lack the idea of the business ethic and whenever the executives of Enron encountered ethical dilemmas, they chose the wrong way.
The example of Enron is perhaps one of the best examples of greed and corruption in the corporate world and why having a good moral conscience aswell as a good understanding of business ethics is necessary to succeed if one is to succeed in the business world.

Enron’s corporate culture contributed significantly to the ethical scandal. Enron emphasized a culture of competition and getting financial goals at all costs, even if that meant cutting corners. They created a competitive environment by instituting a rating system which required that 20 percent of all the employees had to be rated as below requirements every year and then were encouraged to leave Enron. Although this rating system was created so employees would be encouraged employees to work harder it ended up in-turn creating a culture of deception.

Since employees were nervous about losing their jobs, they only focused on how to make their performances look good. They ignored the ethical standards, and only focused on the achievement of their financial goal. After a few employees began cheating on their works and covering up their errors and mistakes. This caused others to do the same as this was the only way to get ahead. Gradually, no one felt shame about cheating because they had no other choices and all their co-workers surrounding them were cheating.

Additionally, the culture of Enron emphasized too much on the financial goals. The person who can achieve the budget numbers would be the hero of the company. Both executives and most of employees focused on making profits for themselves through making good financial numbers instead of a real increase of the company’s economic value. Enron also was concerned less about the needs, values, desires and also the well-being of the employees. From the ethical aspect, employers should respond to their employees and keep the goal of benefiting them. In such a company, ethical standards were just for show. No one followed them.

Employees in Enron were pressured to work blindly, keep silent, protect their own short-term interests, and try to achieve their goals even if it was an obvious cheat.