Essay about Lessons from Lehman Brothers: Will We Ever Learn

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1. Describe the situation at Lehman Brothers from an ethics perspective. What’s your opinion of what happened here?
The collapse of Lehman Brothers was the results of ethical failures which were rooted in its corporate culture.
Lehman Brothers’ risk-oriented culture encouraged unethical decision for financial gain, therefore the risk-taking ideal and the overlook of questionable behaviors. Professional ethics was put behind profit, with employees ‘making questionable deals hailed and treated as conquering heroes” (Robbins & Coulter, 2011). Such reward system affected employees’ morale and bred misconduct. The huge risk appetite drove Lehman to repeatedly exceed its internal risk control limits and make the decision to follow …show more content…
A similar approach to ethical business practices could have been implemented in Lehman Brothers and therefore prevented the collapse of the billion-dollar bank.

3. After all the public uproar over Enron and then the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act to protect shareholders, why do you think we still continue to see these types of situations? Is it unreasonable to expect that businesses can and should act ethically?
Big corporations have a stressful work environment and constantly emphasize on financial gain. Profit generated from every investment dollar is used as a yardstick to measure the organizations’ performance. Therefore, the pressure to deliver excellent result often put the business survival and competitiveness above the interest of customers and society. However, not all business has built a system in place to control the unethical behaviors and often the unclear dividing line between ethical practices and misconduct is surpassed for the sole interest of the organization.
Laws such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act act as a corrective effort to set an ethical limit for the organizations. Nevertheless, ethical failures still happen because the organizations choose to adopt either the obstructionist approach or the accommodative approach towards corporate social responsibility to circumvent the law and protect its economic interest.
The outdated view towards professional ethics and financial gain is
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