What are the ethical problems raised in the WorldCom case?
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Step 1) What are the ethical problems raised in the WorldCom case?
Step 2) Using Steps 1-4 in the following decision-making model, critically evaluate WorldCom's ethical problems using the deontological framework.
http://www.ethics.org/resource/plus-decision-making-process
Step 3) Assess WorldCom's ethics from Immanuel Kant's point of view - specifically, using Kant's Categorical Imperative.
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Solution Summary
The solution looks at the ethics of the WorldCom case by first giving some background, then identifying the problem, the available solutions, evaluating those solutions and making a decision. Then it performs an ethics assessment of the case using Kant's point of view. 1512 words with 4 references.
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Ethical Problems Raised In WorldCom Case:
Ethical behavior and legal issues have been on the rise in corporations due to the global era that has led to an increase in complexity of the business environment. Ethics in the business environment is very paramount so that all the operations are inline with the set government policies as well as the needs of the clients in the target environment. The WorldCom Corporation is known as the world's second largest telecommunication company. The growth strategy that was utilized by the corporation was acquisitions and mergers. These employed techniques did not hold long term benefits to WorldCom since it would be difficult for the organization to uncover the external market positioning of the acquired corporations, their operations and the financial data (Thornburgh, 2004).
In the year 2002, the organization filled for bankruptcy after a discovery was made on some financial irregularities. This occurrence has been pinned to the lack of ethical business conduct in the organization by the management body as well as the personnel. The failure of corporate governance that was experienced in the company was one of the major causes for the financial issues experienced by WorldCom (Thornburgh, 2004).
The top management of the corporation had unethical business relations with some of the personnel in the corporation that fostered the unethical behavior in WorldCom. This was evidenced by the practices of authorizing wealthy loans that were attached to low rates earnings. Company funds were also used for luxurious expenses draining the company finances. Maintaining the image of the shareholder wealth was a priority of the company reducing the performance levels so that the interests of the shareholders would be met. The organizational culture did not match up with excellent policies that would direct the operations that occurred in the company. It is through this that WorldCom faced the enormous magnitude claims of being bankrupt. The dishonest measures that were used by the organization to boost their financial position were not ethical. This was undertaken by the classifying of the operating expenses to be long-term investments capitals. Such financial unethical conducts in WorldCom are want lead to the alterations of the losses held by the ...
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