Greatest historical philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill said,  “Resolution of ethical dilemmas requires a balancing effort in which we minimize the harms that result from a decision even as we maximize the benefits.” Companies are responsible to impress its investors who provide capitals into the company to run profit-maximizing operations. This string between investors and corporation managements leads to pressures and incentives to make unethical decisions to make profits. What used to be the 7th largest corporation, Enron, in the United States as of 2001 went to nonexistence within 24 days as a result of unethical marketing performance to attract more employees and investors.

Founded as a power supplier to utilities in 1985, Enron corporation’s famous slogan was “ask why?” and its core values were placed on, ironically, respect, integrity, communication and excellent. However, it went through substantial losses in 1999 and, with Arthur and Andersen(A&A)’s help decided to provide fraudulent financial statements to its information users in three consecutive years, ’98, ’99’, and 2000. Employees who felt guilty and tried to do the right things, such as telling any potential investors the truth, were encouraged to leave the company or be quiet. A sense of morality and ethics was discouraged and fired some right people (John Olson, Margaret Ceconi, and Clayton Verdon.)

Of course, the fraudulent and unethical actions were discovered and both companies went bankrupt and destroyed many innocent people’s lives. As a result of Enron Scandal, the US initiated Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) and public company accounting oversight board (PCAOB), which requires all public companies to be subject to much more restrictive regulatory compliance and disclosures as well as a sound code of ethics from both employees and managements that will prevent another Enron Scandal.