Category: Portfolio theintern

Research – theintern

Business “Definition” of Ethics

The business world is a battleground between good and evil, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral behavior. While some businesses have found it easy to increase profits by using unethical practices, many have lost everything by doing so and getting caught. Business ethics are not the same as the moral principles or habits that we learn from birth that help us determine what is right or wrong. They’re more practical and local; they’re rules of conduct recognized as appropriate to a particular class of human actions or a particular group or culture; they’re what “society thinks is right to do.” As such, they differ from company to company.

For example Enron was once a successful company but down the roads they suffered a horrible loss that later on became one of the biggest scandals of Wall Street history. Inside Enron, what was determined “appropriate” was very different from moral behavior. This natural gas company named Enron who was first founded in Houston, Texas in 1985 by Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay was a fast growing American energy, commodities, and services company. Enron was a great business and everything they did was perfectly fine and when everyone was listening to their moral ethics. Before Enron’s scandal the company was worth a decent amount of 13.3 billion dollars in 1996 but the revenue lies didn’t start until 1998 when Fastow was promoted. Enron was also part of the stock market which was used by the new CFO to his advantage which would change the company forever.

The new CFO of Enron was Andrew Fastow he thought that Enron could be making more profit/revenue so he decided to “cook the books” which meant lie on the books about how much money Enron was making annually. He thought if he lied on the books Enron would increase value which also meant in shares in the stock market.  This all came from what is known as business ethics; the stock market is a place where people buy stocks/shares of businesses in which case they are considered part ownership of any shares they bought from a particular company, they own only a small percentage of the business as well as gain a bit of income on the side. So what Andrew Fastow do was drive Enron high in revenue to let more income come his way with the help of Arthur Andersen one of the big 5 accounting firms.

Arthur Andersen was also another case that fell into the arms of unethical decisions who helped Enron commit fraud. Both of these companies worked to together so Enron would not be noticed by the S.E.C (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) and be in a lawsuit for falsely writing high profits on their books. At the same time Arthur Andersen was not following their morals which they knew this was a wrong decision and that they should have declined the offer but because of greed and money, every decision was made without thinking. In reality Enron was in debt and losing money even though they were worth like a few billion. The only way that Enron was ever getting away with this scandal was paying auditors from Arthur Anderson to make Enron look better to the public; as a growing and upcoming business to consider working for. Arthur Andersen not only helped Enron with a better image to the business world but financially they wrongfully reported their books falsely to cover Enron of getting caught by the SEC.

Eventually the SEC caught up with Enron and their unrightfully acts of stock shares increasing from $20 to $90 in just 3 years which is a valuation of $70 billion dollars with the unethical help of Andrew Fastow. The SEC had to do an investigation on Enron and found out that they were committing one of the biggest frauds in the United States. Enron could easily have done fine without lying about their profits and asking for help to improve their company. They decided to take the risky route and achieve greater money in the least amount of time by committing fraud, disobeying the rules, and not sticking to their business ethics of following the rules to success without cheating. Cause of cheating Enron shut down in 2001 after being 16 years in service, and the CEO’s whose income were like millions of dollars each year, were fined a killer amount of money that each one of them went broke. Jeffrey Skilling was one of the principal CEO’s who was sentenced to 24 years in prison but recently was reduced to only 14 years in prison. Sources say he will be released in 2017.

Not only did the SEC investigate Enron they also investigated Arthur Andersen because the auditor’s job is to find any fraud or errors in books. Once the SEC found dirt on Enron, Enron called the auditors, “The fired partner, David B. Duncan, called a meeting of auditors at the firm’s Houston office and ordered ”an expedited effort to destroy documents” on Oct. 23, the day after Enron disclosed that the S.E.C. had begun its inquiry, the firm said. The destruction apparently did not end until Mr. Duncan’s assistant sent an e-mail message to other secretaries on Nov. 9 that said ”stop the shredding,” the firm said. Andersen had received a subpoena from the S.E.C. the day before.” Now why couldn’t Andersen just give in to the SEC and surrender that they helped Enron instead of trying to shred all the evidence. Andersen could have been given a less painful punishment but since they messed up they paid the consequences. Andersen was one of the big 5 auditing firms in the world next to Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst and Young, and KPMG. Now 2017 Andersen is no longer in existence because after this great big scandal no other companies wanted to associate with a firm who were disloyal.

“Every business lies about its ethics” there are many explainations why companies do so. Enron was founded in 1985 but then in 2001 they were finally caught by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for knowingly manipulating accounting rules and masking the enormous losses and liabilities of the company. When a company does not establish rules of ethics that company like Enron will no more be in business. If Enron were to play by the rules their company would have still been in business and so would have Arthur Andersen. Enron lied about being ethical we could tell by the profits that Enron was making within a small span of time. Once the company Enron knew that they had made committed too much fraud they tried to cover it up with bringing Arthur Andersen, one of the big five accounting firms in the world. Enron convinced Arthur Andersen to money launder their money but since their profit margins were too high the SEC became very suspicious of this amount of money Enron was profiting. In the business world no one is forced into committing these crimes; Arthur Andersen had the choice to decline the offer from Enron to help them with money laundering but because they had no ethics they joined alliances with Enron. Once Enron fell apart they brought Arthur Andersen down too. Enron went bankrupt because of all the dues and imprisonment of the CEOs and Arthur Andersen was destroyed with the bad reputation that no company wanted them to do check their books.

Why the readers might ask is Enron so important, well it is important to know that businesses lie about ethics especially a well-known company that was located on Wall Street and was one of a few companies that Forbes magazine could brag to the United States. Sure there are other companies that have committed a unrightfully act of ethics for instance we have Wells Fargo & company which is an American International banking and financial services holding company located around the whole United States. Recently about one year ago Wells Fargo had a big scandal for phony accounts. As a well trusted bank that many people thought had ethical employees was not true. CNN covered the story saying that 5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts. These employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts under many of their customers to meet their sales target and receive bonuses. Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan knew that these phony accounts were being made but because of his business ethics he did not stop his employees. I understand that Wells Fargo needs to make profits and meet their margins but having an unethical way of making money it’s just heartbreaking that people don’t care about others and just themselves. Tim Sloan is the one to blame for all this commotion; he even got rich off of these 3.5 million phony accounts that would charge fees to clients for having another open but unknown account. Elizabeth Warren suggested he’d be fired but instead congress let him remain where he is but gave him a big fine of $185 million dollars along with $5 million refund to customers.

Corporations find ethics to be a drain on profits; but every corporation claims to promote strong business ethics. Many businesses have rules of Corporate Social Responsibility that states we must be committed employers, be an outstanding partner to customers, be an environmentally friendly player and service civil society. These are the four pillars every business must stand by but for the most part corporations have the rules to promote but will never follow through because profits don’t come as fluidity like being unethical. Businesses promote that they are truly ethical but how can we believe and trust big time companies when their fraud crime scandals were announced to the business world. Forbes releases a list of most ethical businesses every year which does help a customer if we want the best service without any surprise fees. Most companies that are usually more trustworthy are those that are small businesses because what they want is to make their customers satisfied with the little they have to offer. If we were to trust a company I’d say it would have to be a small one because all the big companies get away with almost anything just like Enron did for 12 years. My point proven, the bigger the companies are, the more unethical they become. Big companies have so many clients that if they lose one they still have others to attend and more so other companies will keep coming to make business relations with other big and superior companies.

If we take a look inside small businesses we tend to see exactly what they provide and have to offer unlike other big businesses that have many hidden fees and tactics. According to a journal by Heledd Jenkins she illustrated and discovered that given the significant scale of small business in nearly every economy, their aggregate achievements have a major effect worldwide. Researchers are now also recognizing the importance of business ethics and social responsibility as they apply to small firms. Take a look at Hasbro Inc, it’s a small manufacturing toy business that ensures great quality products for younger children and takes ethics very serious because they would rather be worried about the child’s safety than the gross income they are receiving and that’s why Hasbro Inc is one of the companies to be selected in Forbes article “Most Ethical Companies 2017”.

People say that business ethics and moral ethics are the same but they aren’t. Moral ethics are what you learn from your parents. While business ethics is more of a one way streak there we must follow it one way however the rules are of that certain company. There is no other way to follow it because of how your parents taught you differently that does not fall into place within the business world. If an employee does not want to follow the firm’s rules the outcome is usually to be fired. This is when employees start to realize how the world really works.

People don’t realize but their so-called “ethics” change once they get exposure to the business world. Morals ethics are different from business ethics. Moral ethics are the principles or habits taught by our parents/guardians to understand and state what is the right and wrong choice to make or do. While business ethics falls under different standards; it is mostly the rules of conduct that a company gives to their employees which usually affect their morals because sometimes we are unwilling to do the tasks of what the company we work for ask us to do. We ask ourselves why do we follow these unethical rules the reason is why we want to keep our jobs and keep supporting our families. The effects of telling the company we work for that we will not follow these unethical rules will end in either getting fired or told that there will be changes but most likely lose the job.

In the business world we won’t hear too much about business ethics, though another term we do hear is corporate social responsibility which is somewhat like ethics just a more narrowly concern about the company’s obligations. CSR plays an important role in every firm or company in the United States. CSR and business ethics go hand in hand if either of them are tampered with or in other terms, people change the rules and make it their own so their business would prosper. Word gets out when businesses do not perform well and lack in any of the four axes such as being a committed employer, build relationships with our customers, serve civil society, being an environmentally friendly player. I believe that the CSR is like an insurance for business ethics, CSR is there to provide people with guidance on how to act within the firm with everybody. However if CSR starts to lack no customer will seek guidance from that firm/company again because of how their service lacked. This affects the business tremendously for example if customers stop recommending others to come to our firm we can not make profit and worse run of our business. That is why having the right kind of ethics is important and should always be looked upon and checked every now and then.

According to a study made my Peter Arlow a journalist who found out which group of people would be more likely to cheat and be negative orientated towards social responsibility. He made tests with the following information: first off he included the major whether they were business majors or non business majors, second he included the sex male or female, third their age either under the age of 24 or equal/over the age of 24. Arlow decided to conduct this test with surveys and then using t tests and correlations to figure out which group was more reliant to follow the rules. Overall the nonbusiness majors scored higher on all five ethical dimensions. Each ethical dimension were based on (Aldag and Jackson, 1977): (1) Traditional Orientation – sees efficient production as the key social responsibility and profit maximization as the corporate goal. (2) Negative Orientation Toward Alleged Social Responsibility – sees social responsibility as a gimmick and a cover for mismanagement. (3) Demander Orientation – calls for diversion of shareholder resources to society in general. (4) Constrainer Orientation – favors tightened control of government over business. (5) Negative Orientation Toward Adequacy of Corporate Social Efforts – sees current corporate social effort in a negative light and sees negative consequences of a lack of social effort. This data was determined under all five of these dimensions of social responsibility and then followed through to which was one would be the most adequate to choose from depending on the score. These were the measurements to access business ethics based on the work of Miesing and Preble (1985): (1) Machiavellianism – moral actions are justified to serve some purpose, (2) Objectivism – the focus is on rational self-interest and avoiding ethical judgements based on feelings, (3) Social Darwinism – accepts percepts of “survival of the fittest, and the strong are morally superior, (4) Ethical relativism – ethical judgements are based on social convention and that which is sanctioned by group norms at a given time and place, (5) Universalism – rules of behavior are absolutes, and apply equally to all places and times. Within the process there were two measurements to be measured it was the business ethics and social responsibility.

As for the results Arlow figured out that business students may not be as self-centered, selfish and opportunistic as the stereotypical view of individuals. Within the business ethics of Meising and Preble the two were Machiavellianism and Darwinism. Which meant that these business students are willing to do business but with a purpose however they would do anything to get to the top, survival of the fittest. When the business and nonbusiness students were compared using the social responsibility measure of Aldag and Jackson there was a significant difference found on the dimensions of Negative Orientation Toward Social Responsibility and the Demander Orientation. These results suggest that non business students are more negative toward current efforts at social responsibility, seeing it as a cover for mismanagement, and the lack of upholding and keeping any company they work well-connected.

Sex wise the data showed that females were less likely to do commit fraud or do anything that would be considered as unethical. The results say that females would want to keep the company from falling and keep it balanced but the males seemed like they didn’t care if the company would collapse as long as they would make profit and have something to live from. That’s why females are considered more passionate and considerate other than males.

While the age group of higher than the age 24 were considered to show a greater negative orientation because of their lives being more ahead of the other people. Older people are considered the most target audience to commit any type of business crime because of them considered to have a family to take care of without a great income it would totally be impossible to maintain a family.

The people who were surveyed mostly students are determined to be influenced by peers from the exposure of the larger sociocultural norms than by education in specific disciplines.

Works Cited

That’s exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide. “5,300 Wells Fargo Employees Fired over 2 Million Phony Accounts.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network.

“The Rise and Fall of Enron.” Journal of Accountancy, 1 Apr. 2002,

Investopedia. “5 Most Publicized Ethics Violations By CEOs.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 5 Feb. 2013.

Arlow, Peter. “Personal Characteristics in College Students’ Evaluations of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.” Journal of Business Ethics 10.1 (1991): 63. ProQuest.

Ackman, Dan. “Enron The Incredible.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 06 June 2013.

“How Corporate Social Responsibility Pays Off.” Long Range Planning, Pergamon, 26 Feb. 1999.

“Ethics vs Morals.” Ethics vs Morals – Difference and Comparison 

Jenkins, Heledd. “Small Business Champions for Corporate Social Responsibility.“SpringerLink. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 02 Sept. 2006. Web. 03

PBS. Public Broadcasting Service,Web. 02.

Tribune, Chicago. “Ties to Enron Blinded Andersen.” Chicagotribune.com, 12 July 2008.

Rebuttal Rewrite – theintern

“Every business lies about its ethics” there are many reasons reasons why companies do so. For example Enron was once a successful company but down the roads they suffered a horrible loss that later on became one of the biggest scandals of wall street history. Enron was at their peak of success but what really got them from a little of $20 to over $90 of stock share was their lack of ethics. Enron was a fast growing American energy, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. Before this scandal was beginning the company was worth a decent amount of 13.3 billon dollars in 1996 but the ethic lies didn’t start until 1998 when Fastow was promoted. In 2000, the company skyrocketed to $100.8 billion dollars which is highly impossible for a company to be making in just around 4 years.

Enron was founded in 1985 but then in 2001 they were finally caught by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for knowingly manipulating accounting rules and masking the enormous losses and liabilities of the company. When a company does not establish rules of ethics that company like Enron will no more be in business. If Enron were to play by the rules their company would have still been in business and so would have Arthur Andersen. Enron lied about being ethical we could tell by the profits that Enron was making within a small span of time. Once the company Enron knew that they had made committed too much fraud they tried to cover it up with bringing Arthur Andersen, one of the big five accounting firms in the world. Enron convinced Arthur Andersen to money launder their money but since their profit margins were too high the SEC became very suspicious of this amount of money Enron was profiting. In the business world no one is forced into committing these crimes; Arthur Andersen had the choice to decline the offer from Enron to help them with money laundering but because they had no ethics they joined alliances with Enron. Once Enron fell apart they brought Arthur Andersen down too. Enron went bankrupt because of all the dues and imprisonment of the CEOs and Arthur Andersen was destroyed with the bad reputation that no company wanted them to do check their books.

Why the readers might ask is Enron so important, well it is important to know that businesses lie about ethics especially a well known company that was located on Wall Street and was one of a few companies that Forbes magazine could brag to the United States. Sure there are other companies that have committed an unrightfully act of ethics for instance we have Wells Fargo & company which is an American International banking and financial services holding company located around the whole United States. Recently about one year ago Wells Fargo had a big scandal for phony accounts. As a well trusted bank that many people thought had ethical employees was not true. CNN covered the story saying that 5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts. These employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts under many of their customers to meet their sales target and receive bonuses. Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan knew that these phony accounts were being made but because of his business ethics he did not stop his employees. I understand that Wells Fargo needs to make profits and meet their margins but having an unethical way of making money its just heartbreaking that people don’t care about others and just themselves. Tim Sloan is the one to blame for all this commotion; he even got rich off of these 3.5 million phony accounts that would charge fees to clients for having another open but unknown account. Elizabeth Warren suggested he’d be fired but instead congress let him remain where he is but gave him a big fine of $185 million dollars along with $5 million refund to customers.

Corporations find ethics to be a drain on profits; but every corporation claims to promote strong business ethics. Many businesses have rules of Corporate Social Responsibility that states we must be committed employers, be an outstanding partner to customers, be an environmentally friendly player and service civil society. These are the four pillars every business must stand by but for the most part corporations have the rules to promote but will never follow through because profits don’t come as fluidity like being unethical. Businesses promote that they are truly ethical but how can we believe and trust big time companies when their fraud crime scandals were announced to the business world. Forbes releases a list of most ethical businesses every year which does help a customer if we want the best service without any surprise fees. Most companies that are usually more trustworthy are those that are small businesses because what they want is to make their customers satisfied with the little they have to offer. If we were to trust a company I’d say it would have to be a small one because all the big companies get away with almost anything just like Enron did for 12 years. My point proven, the bigger the companies are the the more unethical they become. Big companies have so many clients that if they lose one they still have others to attend and more so other companies will keep coming to make business relations with other big and superior companies.

If we take a look inside small businesses we tend to see exactly what they provide and have to offer unlike other big businesses that have many hidden fees and tactics. According to a journal by Heledd Jenkins she illustrated and discovered that given the significant scale of small business in nearly every economy, their aggregate achievements have a major effect worldwide. Researchers are now also recognizing the importance of business ethics and social responsibility as they apply to small firms. Take a look at Hasbro Inc, its a small manufacturing toy business that ensures great quality products for younger children and takes ethics very serious because they would rather be worried about the child’s safety than the gross income they are receiving and thats why Hasbro Inc is one of the companies to be selected in Forbes article “Most Ethical Companies 2017”

Works Cited

That’s exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide. “5,300 Wells Fargo Employees Fired over 2 Million Phony Accounts.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network.

Kauflin, Jeff. “The World’s Most Ethical Companies 2017.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Mar. 2017.

Ackman, Dan. “Enron The Incredible.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 06 June 2013.

Jenkins, Heledd. “Small Business Champions for Corporate Social Responsibility.“SpringerLink. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 02 Sept. 2006. Web. 03

 

Definition Rewrite – theintern

The business world is a battleground between good and evil, ethical and unethical, moral and immoral behavior. While some businesses have found it easy to increase profits by using unethical practices, many have lost everything by doing so and getting caught. Business ethics are not the same as the moral principles or habits that we learn from birth that help us determine what is right or wrong. They’re more practical and local; they’re rules of conduct recognized as appropriate to a particular class of human actions or a particular group or culture; they’re what “society thinks is right to do.” As such, they differ from company to company. Inside Enron, for example, what was determined “appropriate” was very different from moral behavior. For instance there is this natural gas company named Enron who were big and first founded in Houston, Texas in 1985. Enron was a great business and everything they did was perfectly fine and everyone were listening to their moral ethics. Once Enron promoted Andrew Fastov to CFO in 1998 every business aspect in the company changed. Since Enron was part of the stock market Andrew Fastow thought that Enron could be making more profit/revenue so he decided to “cook the books” which meant lie on the books about how much money Enron was making annually. He thought if he lied on the books Enron would increase value which also meant in shares in the stock market. This all came from what is known as business ethics; the stock market is a place where people buy stocks/shares of businesses in which case they are considered part ownership of any shares they bought from a particular company, they own only a small percentage of the business as well as gain a bit of income on the side. So Andrew Fastov drove Enron high in revenue and committed fraud to let more income come his way with the help of Arthur Andersen one of the big 5 accounting firms. Arthur Andersen was also another case that fell into the arms of unethical decisions and Enron helped take them down as well. Both of these companies worked to together so Enron would not be noticed by the S.E.C (U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission) and be in a lawsuit for falsely writing high profits on their books. At the same time Arthur Andersen was not following their morals which they knew this was a wrong decision and they should have declined but because of greed and money every decision was made without thinking. In reality Enron was in debt and losing money even though they were worth like a few billion. The only way that Enron was ever getting away with this scandal was paying auditors from Arthur Anderson to make Enron look better to the public; as a growing and upcoming business to consider working for. Arthur Anderson not only helped Enron with a better image to the business world but financially they wrongfully reported their books falsely to cover Enron of getting caught by the SEC. Eventually the SEC caught up with Enron an their unrightfully acts of stock shares increasing from $20 to $90.56 in just 3 years which is a valuation of $70 billion dollars. The SEC had to do an investigation on Enron and found out that they were committing one of the biggest frauds in the United States. Enron could easily have done fine without lying about their profits and asking for help to improve their company. Though they decided to take the risky route and achieve greater money in the least amount of time by committing fraud, disobeying the rules, and not sticking to their business ethics of following the rules to success without cheating. Cause of cheating Enron shut down in 2001 after being 16 years in service, and the CEO’s whose income were like millions of dollars each year, were fined a killer amount of money that each one of them went broke. Jeffery Skilling was one of the principal CEO’s who was sentenced to 24 years in prison but recently was reduced to only 14 years in prison. Sources say he will be released in 2017.

Not only did the SEC investigate Enron they also investigated Arthur Andersen because the auditors job is to find any fraud or errors in books. Once the SEC found dirt on Enron, Enron called the auditors. “The fired partner, David B. Duncan, called a meeting of auditors at the firm’s Houston office and ordered ”an expedited effort to destroy documents” on Oct. 23, the day after Enron disclosed that the S.E.C. had begun its inquiry, the firm said. The destruction apparently did not end until Mr. Duncan’s assistant sent an e-mail message to other secretaries on Nov. 9 that said ”stop the shredding,” the firm said. Andersen had received a subpoena from the S.E.C. the day before.” Now why couldn’t Andersen just give in to the SEC and surrender that they helped Enron instead of trying to shred all the evidence. Andersen could have been given a less painful punishment but since they messed up they paid the consequences. Andersen was one of the big 5 auditing firms in the world next to Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst and Young, and KPMG. Now 2017 Andersen is no longer in existence because after this great big scandal no other companies wanted to associate with a firm who were disloyal.

People say that business ethics and moral ethics are the same but they aren’t. Moral ethics are what you learn from your parents. While business ethics is more of a one way streak there we must follow it one way however the rules are of that certain company. There is no other way to follow it because of how your parents taught you differently that does not fall into place within the business world. If an employee does not want to follow the firm’s rules the outcome is usually to be fired. That is when employees start realizing how the world really works and whatever moral ethics they had are gone because of the business world.

Works Cited

Investopedia. “Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling.” Investopedia, 23 Oct. 2017.

“Ethics vs Morals.” Ethics vs Morals – Difference and Comparison 

Berenson, Alex. “S.E.C. Opens Investigation Into Enron.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2001.

Tribune, Chicago. “Ties to Enron Blinded Andersen.” Chicagotribune.com, 12 July 2008.

Reflective – theintern

Core Value I. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

Writing is a place to explore, discover, conceptualize, and develop. It involves an multistage (evolution), and recursive (repeating). Writing does not come so easy to everyone and if someone says that they are great, I say nobody is great because they must practice and keep practicing to be great at something, it requires repetition and peer review to understand what you did wrong. Once you know your flaws and correct them you still will never be great because you never stop learning, and you will always be stuck practicing to be better than before. This semester I haven’t taken feedback to hear as much and try to improve as I did last semester. My work has demonstrated a few flaws here and there but it also have proven what it is worth. For example my stone money assignment wasn’t the best but with some advice the stone money rewrite was one of my great improvements of revising and improving.

Core Value II. My work demonstrates that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

How I demonstrate this work is by picturing myself in which ever topic that I am writing about and try to put my perspective on this topic but at the same time implement texts from different sources that I gather information from. For example in class we got this visual rhetoric assignment and as a class we went through a 30 second video trying to understand what is happening in the video with no audio and at the same time have detailed descriptions what we think is happening within the first 0 secs Prof Hodges helped me identify more details within the video for my rewrite. The video assignment was to watch every few seconds of it with no sound and then make assumptions of what the people are saying, feeling, or doing and then create a scene in the scene they are in.

Core Value III. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

Understanding audience, purpose, and context is a multiple step process. The audience represents the people you are displaying your information to. The audience are the critiques of your paper, movie or review. The purpose is about why you are writing what you are writing, what is the point of your essay, movie or article. The final step is the context which is the outside detail you mix into your writing and cite it. For me to adjust my writing I must know the audience I am presenting to like what age group they are in. For example the assignment that best fits this core value is my white paper this was where I analyzed the purpose of essay especially have two working hypothesis.

Core Value IV: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

I have met the expectations of academic writing through writing my proposal5+. The proposal 5+ was an assignment preparing ourselves for a big research essay. We were asked in class to be prepared for a big research essay and to have at least 5 sources with description of what the source is about and what does it prove or will prove. I learned a lot from the proposal because it helped me brainstorm and understand what the articles are about and try to piece them together to form a well written essay. Through writing this proposal5 I have interpreted my own ideas and have connected it to the supported statements within each source especially the biggest 5 corporate scandals helped me see more drama that I did not know. Incorporating these illustrations have really helped me arrange my ideas and not overthink to much and overwhelm myself.

Core Value V. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation. 

My work is my own work and I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly. Before ever submitting a completed essay or research paper it must have a work cited because I know that it is not fair to steal ideas from other writers who put their time in writing terrific sources and then to not get credited. I believe in appropriate citation but at times it gets difficult citing sources where some of the following information is missing. Easy bib has helped me with any kind of format I wanted and/or needed. Before writing anything I respected the rules of academic honesty by citing any source I used or quote from any article. I can making the annotated bibliography has helped me write the 1000 words for each argument especially finding statistical data by Peter Arlow who writes about students and adults who are more likely to be unethical.

Bibliography – theintern

1.  That’s exactly what happened to Wells Fargo customers nationwide. “5,300 Wells Fargo Employees Fired over 2 Million Phony Accounts.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network.

Background: This article discusses the millions of phony accounts that Wells Fargo employees made. Each employee at Wells Fargo are required to meet a certain amount of new accounts being opened. So each of them took customer’s information and opened up multiple accounts under the customer’s name without telling them. Wells Fargo soon found out what the employees were secretly doing and fired around 5,300 people. These employees showed their true unethical behavior.

How I used it: How I used this article in my essay was to make sure the audience knows that working for a company and trying to meet certain standards changes a human being and their ethics. These employees had to choose the route of unethical behavior to meet their margin in order to keep their jobs.

2. Kauflin, Jeff. “The World’s Most Ethical Companies 2017.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 14 Mar. 2017.

Background: This article contains a list of companies who have been the most ethical companies of 2017. Now the companies that aren’t on this list are not most ethical probably because of something that may have happened in the past or is happening now.

How I used it: How I used this article was to demonstrate how smaller companies are more ethical than bigger companies because of the less customers they have to satisfy and the less employees that must be paid. While bigger companies tell us that they are ethical but in reality they mostly aren’t.

3. “The Rise and Fall of Enron.” Journal of Accountancy, 1 Apr. 2002,

Background: This article summarizes the rise and fall of Enron, a once so successful energy company that rose to the top so quickly in just a couple of months. Enron was a great company but the CEOs were very greedy with the profits that they wanted to have more. So as Enron kept on rising they skyrocketed at one point because of the fraud the CEOs decided to commit, they lied on their books.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain another situation of how big companies always have unethical problems that they want to keep hidden. Enron was a great example to explain because it really changed everyone working for that company the minute you walked in.

4. Tribune, Chicago. “Ties to Enron Blinded Andersen.” Chicagotribune.com, 12 July 2008.

Background: This article summarizes the effect Enron had on Andersen; Andersen was one of the big five accounting firms until Enron became one of their customers. Enron asked Andersen to lie on the books about how their company were making profits but in reality they were losing. Soon when the SEC found out that Enron committed fraud it also came into ties with Andersen and how they didn’t announce what Enron was doing.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain how easy it is for one big company to influence other companies. I made an example from Enron and how the company encouraged Andersen to behave unethically with having money thrown at them. Greed, money, moral ethics and business ethics all come into play its the survival of the strongest and who is willing to disobey the rules.

5. Investopedia. “5 Most Publicized Ethics Violations By CEOs.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 5 Feb. 2013.

Background: This article contains a list of CEOs who publicized ethic violations. For each CEO named there is a summary of what harm they caused to their company. The CEOs are come Enron, Yahoo, Tyco, Worldcom, and Hollinger International.

How I used it: How I used this article’s information was to elaborate and have more evidence about Enron and how the unethical behavior wasn’t the fault of the employees. The person who usually enforces ethic behavior rules must stand by them but not Kenneth Lay the CEO of Enron who personally wasn’t ethical which means the whole company had not been either. “CEOs have always been expected by shareholders and investors to maintain high ethical standards. Although it doesn’t always happen, today’s regulatory environment makes it easier to identify transgressions and bring violators to justice.”

6. Arlow, Peter. “Personal Characteristics in College Students’ Evaluations of Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility.” Journal of Business Ethics 10.1 (1991): 63. ProQuest.

Background: This journal discussed how the age, years of experience, and sex goes hand in hand to determine whether someone will commit unethical behaviors. Arlow took many surveys with older people, college students, males/females to measure the correlation between who is more likely to be unethical when in a difficult situation. In the end he figured out that students’ ethical attitudes are influenced more by exposure to the larger socio-cultural norms.

How I used it: How I used this journal was by evaluating the age of employees who worked specifically at Enron. I noticed that older employees were more likely to be unethical in order to keep their jobs because they are families to take care of rather than younger people.

7. Ackman, Dan. “Enron The Incredible.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 06 June 2013.

Background: This article is similar to some other ones but has a bit more information of how Enron made their profits in just a short span of time. This article compares the amounts of hours between other companies in the 2000s and Enron and the ratio of hours to revenue don’t quite just add up.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain the certain years Enron started to skyrocket in profits and how before hand they were following the rules. I made sure to explain how that Enron’s numbers couldn’t have been so high in revenue within 3 years and with a small amount of employees it is figuratively impossible.

8. “How Corporate Social Responsibility Pays Off.” Long Range Planning, Pergamon, 26 Feb. 1999.

Background: This database explains what CSR is a how it pays off to have enforced in a company. CSR was announced in the mid 70s but was never really looked upon because every business company were doing fine without it.

How I used it: How I used this database was to discuss how Enron had corporate values and responsibilities but they never really enforced it like they should have.

9. Tribune, Chicago. “The Fall of Andersen.” Chicagotribune.com, 12 July 2008.

Background: This article focuses on the fall of Andersen a big time accounting firm that was part of the big five. Well once known as the big five now it’s just the big four. Andersen had great clients but because of one mistake they fell and lost all of their clients because none of them wanted to be bothered getting investigated after what happened to Enron. Enron brought Andersen down because they asked and paid much money to Andersen to help them cover and falsely write on their books.

How I used it: How I used this information was by explaining the methods of how Andersen dealt with Enron. I intend to expose Andersen and how they could’ve used common sense and not get mixed up in this mess. Andersen could of followed their normal ethics by doing the right thing of just letting Enron go and slip away from their fingers or could have told the SEC what they were doing.

10. Berenson, Alex. “S.E.C. Opens Investigation Into Enron.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2001.

Background: This article discusses about the SEC and what they are capable of doing. S.E.C. stands for Securities and Exchange Commissions which stand for what is right and what is wrong. The SEC follow the corporate rules just as moral ethics. In Enron’s case, the SEC were not keeping a close eye on Enron until word was busy through Wall Street about Enron skyrocketing in the stock market as well as Forbes magazines as being the best place to work. That is where the SEC just opened an Investigation on Enron and wanted to know how they were making so much revenue in small span of time, Enron tried to tell them their profits were real but once the SEC got a hold of Andersen and the books; Enron as everyone knew was ruined.

How I used it: How I used this article was to explain how the SEC works and what they are allowed to do through an open investigation. I also plan to say that companies that say they are ethical like Enron are never truly ethical. Since the Enron incident I intend to say that the SEC has been more strict upon businesses and because of Enron there is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

11. “Ethics vs Morals.” Ethics vs Morals – Difference and Comparison 

Background: This article describes the differences between business ethics and morals. It explains the definition, where do they come from, why, origins and etc. Knowing the differences helps identify what each company follows by.

How I used it: How I used this article was by understanding the concept of the two and make sure to keep reminding myself the difference. I intend to implement them into my writing and talk about different companies and how they have gone through unethical phases and how that hasn’t done any justice for them. While those who have been ethical like on that list are active, I also plan to write about how sticking with our morals from birth will help us become successful. If we intend to do the opposite of what we were taught because of business standards then we shall know what happens to those who fall in that trap. Being unethical ruins environments and causes more strict rules that other businesses do not deserve to get penalized.

12. Investopedia. “Enron Scandal: The Fall of a Wall Street Darling.” Investopedia, 23 Oct. 2017.

Background: This article elaborates more about what happened in each year. Enron started back in 1985 and was rising slowly up without and frauds or lies. Though it says once management changed within Enron everything changed and profits were skyrocketing but the SEC got suspicious that within 3 years Enron went bankrupt and was the fall of wall street.

How I used it: How I used this article was by elaborating the skyrocket of Enron and the cause of downfall. Within the article there is a timeline where it states that in 1998 Andrew Fastow was promoted to CFO. I used this information to connect the pieces of when the business was going to fail because when Fastow became the new CFO he hid there debts by falsely cooking the books with Andersen and since Enron was in the stock market they wanted their shares to keep rising so they “increased” revenue to have people buy more shares and increase profits that would then be put in the CFO, and CEOs wallets.

13. PBS. Public Broadcasting Service,Web. 02.

Background: This article is a timeline of all the years of Enron and what happen in almost every month of each year. The timeline gives detailed information about the stock market, the revenue of the business, the CEOs who fined and charged for the fraud offense.

How I used it: How I used this article was by backing up any sort of explanation with each time year and what happen to Enron and the amount of stock it went up or when they changed CEOs or even the time they wanted Arthur Andersen to be their auditing team to help them increase their profits.

14. Jenkins, Heledd. “Small Business Champions for Corporate Social Responsibility.“SpringerLink. Kluwer Academic Publishers, 02 Sept. 2006. Web. 03

Background: This journal contains information and statistical data from the UK proclaiming that small to medium businesses perform best and follow the ethics they have as rules

How I used it: How I used this journal was by confirming about how business have less of a lack of ethics like big businesses do. I will use think link for my rebuttal and say give examples that can go along with this journal I got off of google scholar.

Visual Rewrite – theintern

0:00- Looks like this scene is taken place in today’s time because we can still see that people go to appointments. In this scene we see a woman and a man are in an office in a building. We can tell they are in a building because we can see the body of trees because only the first floor would be able to see the tree trunks which means the office must be on a higher floor level. The office is like an ordinary office theres cubes in the center with executive offices surrounding them. In the office there windows sills to look outside and the lobby where the cubes are located. The man is a white older man who is wears glasses and seems like he is one of the executives because only people higher in position get to make the decisions of a company. He seems to be comfortable not only because he is an executive but because he is also in his office. It looks like he is beginning shake hands with a black woman, he wears a nice light charcoal suit with a baby blue buttoned down dress shirt, meaning that he is dressing business casual. His office has a plant inside with a desk that has a paperweight and pencil holders and some sort of certificate hanging from the wall. The black woman is there to discuss a proposal or just to have a meeting with the man she is reaching out to shake his hand. She wears a black suit with a black appropriate skirt and her hair is braided and tied up; she must’ve had to do that to look more professional because having her hair in a different manner would give off a bad first impression. Later the man asks her to sit with is hand gesturing. There is a man outside of the executive office in one of the cubes holding a phone to his ear perhaps talking to a client while looking at his desktop but he is blurred out. There seems to be another cube in front of him but we can not see who is there.

0:01- They are both sitting and the camera is angled from the woman’s right shoulder and faced to the man. The man looks amazed but also having a curious look on his face. The man looks like early or mid fifties with his lips puckered up a bit. His hair is receding a bit where it looks like he has a bigger forehead. His eyes are green.

0:02- The camera is again outside the office and near the cubes now we can see the woman better she wears a light orange buttoned down dress shirt and by the looks of her face it looks like she is waiting to answer a question from the man who is looking at her with is hands up and crossed in front of him near his face. The man seems like he is getting a better observation of her and at the same time asking her a few questions. As the meeting is going on everyone outside his office are working the man with the phone is still there but there is one man walking by the office almost blocking the man, he is also blurred out a bit. As the second keeps going he is talking to her.

0:03-  Now the camera is angled on the man’s left shoulder facing the woman’s face. She looks puzzled but at the same time it looks like she is about to answer the man. The woman’s eyes are brown, she has a young face seems like she just got out of college.

0:04- She just answered a question she had for the man with a smile on her face. She is now waiting for his answer and hopes the answer she gave was good enough.

0:05- The camera switched back to where the cubes are located and is looking through the window sills of the executive office.

0:06-0:08 – The camera is up in her face, we can see her mouth open ready to speak with her eyes looking very concerned. Now I see that on her left her she has an earring.

0:09- Now the camera is angled on her shoulder facing him, he is looking down either at her resume, desk, or a gesture of disappointment who knows. His face has changed a bit, now he has a more serious face and left wondering from her answer.

0:10- He is now beginning to talk while leaning back in his chair but still looking downward with no eye contact. We can tell a person if they seem confident and comfortable he/she is definitely in high rank of position because not just any employee can just lean but in a chair all day long.

0:11- He has a serious look on his face once he asks her a question but his face is more rude than serious like there is something bothering him.

0:12-0:16- The camera turns from him quickly to her from his left shoulder to her face and she begins to answer to him but her face expression is sharp, confident she knows what she wants.

0:17- Quickly turned for a close up on the man who listened very closely to her answer but is now thinking of a question to ask her again.

0:18-0:20- The camera faces the man and he looks her straight in the eyes and is slightly smiling but questioning whether to hire her or look for someone else to do the job he wants to be fulfilled and then gives his final thoughts.

0:21- The camera is right outside the window sill looking at her. She looks like she is about to get up. The office has more detail he has a dial up phone on his desk. Near the the widows to look outside he has a shelve with books lined up together.

0:22- The woman stands up and reaches out to shake the man’s hand which is usually the conclusion of any meeting.

0:23- The camera is near the widow sill to look into his office and you see the man holding out his hand to shake the woman’s hand but then we realize she is not there and there is no one in front of him just two empty chairs.

0:24-0:25 – The camera focuses on him with his puzzled and concerned face looking beyond his desk. It seems like he’s having a flashback to the time where he chose to hire her and is waiting for another recipient to be just like her.

0:26-0:27 – The camera is angled from his left shoulder and is looking facing his chair there is no one sitting in it, it’s empty and facing him as well.

0:28-0:30 – The commercial ends and you see the man faded and looking downwards with white words in the middle of the screen reading “GRADS of LIFE. org” and Ad council copyright on the screen to the bottom right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8T85zLF4m4