Ethical Behavior Analysis of Bernie Madoff & Enron Ethics, ethical values, and social responsibility should all work in unison in a corporate business structure. These key traits are better defined as maintaining overall good business morals, obtaining employees who possess personal ethical values, and finally to behave ethically and with sensitivity toward social, cultural, economic and environmental issues. For a business to better ensure these quality business traits a code of ethics should be adopted by the business. In the cases of Bernie Madoff and Enron, the most well-known financial scandals in history, I feel, gave a major hand in pushing business all across America to have and enforce the code of ethics.
Bernie Madoff …show more content…

These consequences that the company and employees faced were do due a lack of code of ethics and social responsibility.
The Enron scandal opened the eyes to other companies that accounting practices needed to have a solid process stocked full of checks and balances, segregation of duties, and ethics. I think these traits would be a great start for an accounting department’s code of ethics. Having people delegated to certain tasks will allow for questions to be asked thus avoiding fraudulent activity in the long run. Setting ethical accounting practices like enforcing the laws of GAAP will also be a major contribution to a company’s code of ethics.
All in all, the financial scandals of Enron and Bernie Madoff were both completely avoidable, unnecessary, and an example of business practices at their worst. Each scandal exemplified what a lack of business ethics, ethical values, and social responsibility can result in. In both cases, the individuals that decided they would blatantly lie to their investors did so for the sole reason of extorting more money out of the investors. While their plans worked in the short term, they definitely ruined their organization and ultimately their lives in the long run.

References
Forbes.com, S. (2002, April 02). Enron's endgame. Retrieved from