Playing Dual Roles in Organizations Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Playing Dual Roles in Organizations - Essay Example These people were voted on by a review committee and part of the determining factor was that these people were not meeting the standards and objectives that Enron created. Those who did meet the standards often received millions of dollars in bonuses. Therefore, this particular system made it so that employees were rewarded for doing what Enron wanted and punished for when they didn’t. This fostered a dangerous mindset, especially since the company was unethical. Following groups norms is similar to peer pressure in that people are persuaded to do something or behave in a certain way solely because everyone else is doing or behaving in the exact same manner. In this particular documentary, traders followed group norms by being very ruthless. It was noted that due to the competitive atmosphere, people would slit each other’s throats or stomp on each other’s throats in order to get to the top. Additionally, one trader said that he did not ask questions about the unethical practices because nobody else was. Both examples illustrate an overall acceptance of values and standards due to the fact that â€Å"everyone was doing it† or was commonplace behavior. Andrew Fastow who was the CFO of Enron was assigned the role of being in charge of the money and financial aspects of Enron. The movie discusses how Fastow essentially lied to investors by convincing them to put money into the company without really receiving anything of actual value in return. He kept Enron afloat by creating a variety of bogus companies and having investors such as banks place money on them. Additionally, he skimmed money off the top of these accounts to the tune of $45 million. Fastow’s role as CFO gave him access to a lot of money and power. It appears that he was set up as a fall guy in a way since a lot of the crime had to do with the accounting aspect of the business which Fastow was largely in charge of. It can either be said that the role of CFO corrupted Fastow and he perpetrated fraud as a means of fulfilling his greed.