Ethical Violations
WorldCom was a pre-eminent telecommunications company that dealt with the same ethical issues that many companies deal with today. Ethics is something that comes into play in every businesses day to day operations. A decision is it ethical or not, is something that every employee makes in today’s business environment. Ethics is a topic that needs to be talked about and reinforced on a reoccurring basis so that unethical events like what happened in WorldCom, do not happen. There were many unethical events that took place during the WorldCom era but failed corporate guidance, accounting abuse, and leadership greed are three that cause WorldCom to fall. These unethical events are what started the down fall of WorldCom in early 2000.
There were many unethical events that contributed to the fall of WorldCom but lack of corporate guidance was a key factor. When the company got started in 1983 it was a small company called LDDS. It only had a handful of employees, trying to provide discounted long distance service. Ethical issues and corporate guidance were not at the top of Murray Waldron and William Rector’s minds at that point in time. This was the first mistake LDDS later to be called WorldCom made when creating their company. In 1985, Bernard Ebbers, who was one of the first investors, was made CEO and he took the company public in 1989 (Norwani, Mohamad, and Chek, 2011). At this point is where the company should have focused on creating an ethical program and made sure all their employees knew about it. Bernard should have learned that as a leader he needed to lead by example and guide his employees to do the ethical thing. It is hard to do that when you as a leader is doing unethical things. That right there tells you a lot about the culture within WorldCom. Throughout 1999 and 2000, there were a number of attempts made by people by such as Steve Brabbs, the Vice President of International Finance and Control in the London office, to bring up allegations,
There were many unethical events that contributed to the fall of WorldCom but lack of corporate guidance was a key factor. When the company got started in 1983 it was a small company called LDDS. It only had a handful of employees, trying to provide discounted long distance service. Ethical issues and corporate guidance were not at the top of Murray Waldron and William Rector’s minds at that point in time. This was the first mistake LDDS later to be called WorldCom made when creating their company. In 1985, Bernard Ebbers, who was one of the first investors, was made CEO and he took the company public in 1989 (Norwani, Mohamad, and Chek, 2011). At this point is where the company should have focused on creating an ethical program and made sure all their employees knew about it. Bernard should have learned that as a leader he needed to lead by example and guide his employees to do the ethical thing. It is hard to do that when you as a leader is doing unethical things. That right there tells you a lot about the culture within WorldCom. Throughout 1999 and 2000, there were a number of attempts made by people by such as Steve Brabbs, the Vice President of International Finance and Control in the London office, to bring up allegations,