Sociology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Sociology - Essay Example status to being equated with disputed accounting techniques and off balance-sheet financing transactions, misleading statements, unscrupulous executives, dishonest partnerships, and ill-gotten personal gain? The roots of Enrons fall can be found in its failed internal control system and bureaucratic culture. Henry Fayol and Taylor’s approaches of internal control help describing how executives at Enron created an organizational bureaucratic culture that put the bottom line ahead of ethical behavior. (Prentice, pp 3-4) After a brief background on Enron and its rise and fall, like the analysis of the Salomon Brothers fall, the five most important mechanisms available to leaders to create and reinforce aspects are used to analyze systematically the bureaucratic culture and internal control system that led to the companys fall after shocking disclosures about the companys finances. Firms differed not only in the general character of their control systems that changes as the length of the hierarchy, the labor breakdown, and the cost structure. The command hierarchy could be anything from two to twelve distinct levels of control system between the board and the operators. The varying lengths of the command hierarchy made it impossible to make direct comparisons between firms of the size of the span of control at the intermediate levels of management. No single misstep brought Enron to the brink. A series of missteps and just plain bureaucratic control system brought Enrons more nefarious dealings to light, precipitating its ultimate collapse. (Julian, pp 1-2) The dirtiest of Enrons deals involved SPEs of its own construction that sported names straight from Star Wars such as Chewco. While Enrons traders may still have inhabited the fantasy worlds of their youth, their trades had a harsh reality to them that touched the heart and soul of American life. Who got electricity during Californias energy crisis, which farms would have water to irrigate their crops, and