Enron - Publications - Faculty & Research

07 Jan 2015
Research & Ideas

The Quest for Better Layoffs

jobs." Luthra rebounded into other jobs, holding C-level positions at several multinationals. In 2001, 35 years after losing the IBM job, he took a gig as CEO of the broadband division at Enron India. View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Manufacturing

03 Nov 2003
What Do You Think?

Can Investors Have Too Much Accounting Transparency?

restore credibility to financial markets? And if not through legislation and regulation, how then do we address the disease rather than the symptoms? What do you think? Original Article The collapse of companies like Enron and WorldCom... View Details

Keywords: by James Heskett

10 Mar 2014
Research & Ideas

Counting Up the Effects of Sarbanes-Oxley

Widely deemed the most important piece of security legislation since formation of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1934, the landmark Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 was born into a climate still reeling from the burst of the high-tech bubble and fraud scandals at... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Accounting; Banking

03 Sep 2009
What Do You Think?

Are Retention Bonuses Worth the Investment?

short-run performance of the kinds that led to the implosion of organizations like Enron and WorldCom. Retention bonuses are a special kind of performance pay. They provide an incentive to do nothing. That is, they encourage key people to... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

07 Apr 2003
Research & Ideas

Three Steps for Crisis Prevention

the chain—failures of mobilization—occur when leaders recognize and give adequate priority to a looming problem but fail to respond effectively. When the Securities and Exchange Commission tried to reform the U.S. accounting system—well before the collapses of View Details

Keywords: by Michael D. Watkins & Max H. Bazerman

05 Aug 2002
Research & Ideas

Are Consumers the Cure for Broken Health Insurance?

contributions increased by more than $20 billion. Fidelity also found higher participation rates in smaller plans and roughly equal savings rates between active highly paid employees and others. The recent problems with the 401(k) plans of failed companies like View Details

Keywords: by Regina E. Herzlinger

02 Feb 2007
What Do You Think?

Is There Too Little “Know Why” In Business?

one of these purposes, if pursued rigorously and successfully, is required for greatness. Putting mere goals, such as primarily making money, before purpose gets us an Enron or a Worldcom. The pity, according to Mourkogiannis, is that... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

08 Sep 2003
Research & Ideas

A Bold Proposal for Investment Reform

acquired dot-com stocks that showed poor reported financial performance, and which they recognized were wildly overvalued. Fund managers owned 60 percent of Enron at its peak (and beyond) despite the company's lofty multiples that were... View Details

Keywords: by Ann Cullen; Financial Services

24 Mar 2002
Research & Ideas

The Trick of Balancing Business and Government

Enron in the United States, "it's very easy for that [relationship] to get corrupted," said Spar. "Getting that balance right is critical." View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

01 Dec 2009
News

An Action Plan for Economic Recovery

process backed by capital, we’re not going to revive securitization. Corporate boards have been criticized for being asleep at the wheel leading up to last year’s financial meltdown. Are boards at fault? After Enron and WorldCom, Congress... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Finance

28 Feb 2011
Research & Ideas

The Importance of ‘Don’t’ in Inducing Ethical Employee Behavior

prevention of being unethical. (The paper will be published in the academic journal, "Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.") "Since the Enron scandal, there has been a lot of research across disciplines on... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

31 Aug 2009
Research & Ideas

Why Competition May Not Improve Credit Rating Agencies

regulation has aimed to increase competition among raters ever since the Enron debacle. "As researchers we feared that increased competition may have detrimental effects in this setting." In our e-mail Q&A, Becker discusses... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace; Financial Services

07 Oct 2002
Research & Ideas

What Leaders Need to Do To Restore Investor Confidence

insufficient institutional checks and balances. At Enron at the end of 1999, the options that were vested were worth $2.4 billion. That is too much temptation to put in front of people—temptation to sell out secretly, "cooking the... View Details

Keywords: by Harvard Management Update

19 Jan 2011
First Look

First Look: Jan. 18

are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to. From the collapse of View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

14 Nov 2019
News

Keeping Red Lobster Fresh

this was this was you may you may be too young for this, but there was there was a time when we had a bunch of a number of companies like Enron and WorldCom and HealthSouth and having all these corporate scandals. And I actually was part... View Details

Keywords: Food Services and Drinking Places; Hospitality

01 Dec 2004
News

One-on-One with William H. Donaldson

Donaldson Illustration by Joe Ciardiello When William Donaldson (MBA ’58) was sworn in as the 27th chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 18, 2003, Wall Street and the commission itself were in turmoil. A wave of corporate scandals that started... View Details

Keywords: Roger Thompson; Finance; Administration of Economic Programs; Government

01 Jun 2003
News

Books

development, and other business activities where on–demand creativity is essential to success. — Deborah Blagg Wheel, Deal, and Steal by D. Quinn Mills (Financial Times Prentice Hall) As a follow–up to last year’s Buy, Lie, and Sell High: How Investors Lost Out on... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg; Laura Singleton; Donald; Sull; Henry; Chesbrough; Rob; Austin; Leslie; Perlow; Publishing Industries (except Internet); Information

01 Sep 2010
News

Letters to the Editor

outside directors’ committees do everything else. The best way to ensure that directors carry out their responsibilities is to indict outside directors for malfeasance when they fail to do so. Enron was a perfect example of malfeasance... View Details

Keywords: Securities, Commodities, and Other Financial Investments; Finance

11 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Building a Better Board

external events in the late 1990s, accelerated dramatically with the accounting scandals of the Enron era plus the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, and then continued to change under the pressure of shareholder activism. There's a lot more... View Details