Homework
Corporate violence involves engagement of both corporations and individuals within corporations in activities that are socially injurious or harmful. These activities are sometimes illegal and other times legal. This means legal, just like illegal corporate activities, can cause harm. Corporate violence acts include harms cause by corporate inaction or action. Violent corporate acts can be intentional or unintentional. Corporate inaction are things that corporations fail to do resulting to a harm. Corporate violence includes wide activities or failures to act. Major corporate violence examples are labor violence and ant-union, industrial accidents, defective products, safety deficiencies, and couos and interventions in foreign states among many other foreign states. The lack of corporate from following occupational and health administration laws also amounts to corporate violence.
Violence against workers in Imperial Food Products in Hamlet, North Carolina resulted to the death of 25 workers by fire. The plant managers had locked fire escapes to prevent workers from stealing chicken nuggets.
The death of diggers and miners caused by unsafe working conditions is also corporate violence. The industries in mining industry have a long history of not protecting its workers.
Injuries and loss of property are other consequences of corporate violence. Fires and collapsing of buildings is the order of the day nowadays. Contractors are not paying much attention to safety in structures.
Consumers have been victimized by corporate violence. For instance, the crash of ValuJet Flight in resulted to the death of 105 passengers in 1996. The crash resulted due to the failure to adhere to the Federal Aviation Administration rules.
Corporate violence is also affecting the environment in different ways. For example, a chemical industry releasing dangerous affluent to rivers leads to the death of aquatic life.
The industries with worst records of corporate violence include mining industries, food processing plants, oil mining and processing, and chemical processing and manufacturing plants. The mining industries do not put much concern on the safety of workers. The food processing plants do not put much emphasize of healthy of food products and the safety of its workers, oil plants and chemical manufacturers do not care more about the environment and the ecosystem. Oil spills continue to rock different parts of the world. Damping of dangerous chemicals on rivers, lakes and oceans has been a great danger to aquatic life.
The characterization of colleges and universities as corporate criminals is warranted. This is because there is a lot that goes on in higher education institutions that make them corporate criminals. A lot of actions and inactions that can cause harm or have caused harm are very popular in higher education institutions.
Institutions of higher learning have many students involved in different actions. These actions and inactions that could harm other students together amount to the corporate violence or crime. Because of the nature of students and their actions and inactions, there is tendency of more corporate criminality in higher learning institutions. Different people from different backgrounds meet at campuses and live with 100% degree of freedom. These students come from homes that probably were controlled to an area where they can do anything they want. Under such a circumstance, there would be more corporate violence.
Arthur Andersen was an Enron’s accountant mandated to objectively review the organization’s financial condition and give a report on the condition in an honest opinion. This will allow the public and the investors to fairly evaluate the risks that come with trusting Enron and subsequently investing in the firm. However, Arthur Andersen helped Enron defraud the public and investors by helping the firm keep important information private. Arthur Andersen was a very trusted and respected firm which was believed to be the best expert in its work. Arthur Andersen’s stamp of approval legitimized Environ and gave its financial statements and reports credibility that it did not otherwise had. AA also destroyed and shredded of Enron audit papers which were evidence to the disaster. AA approved the structure of special purpose entities (SPEs) that were used to form false profits and hide losses. These SPEs also kept all unfavorable information out of reach of Enron’s consolidated statements.
It is the interest of the author to be honest and faithful in their audits to the public. Auditors should not allow the public to be misled because they have a duty to ensure that they give honest audits that will allow the public and investors to evaluate the risks involved before deciding to invest in the particular company. Auditors need to make decisions in the public interest to prevent scandals where the management and shareholders accrue wealth from unsuspecting investors/public. Auditors need to tell the truth to the public so that the public can know what they are getting themselves into when investing in a firm. The public shares the greatest loss when the company fails.
The Arthur Andersen partners responsible for quality control did not stop the flawed decisions because they lacked courage. Even thou they tried in memos, the company’s governance structure had determined that the audit partner in charge could override them. The people involved in the decisions were powerful and had a lot of control. To save their jobs, they decided to keep quiet about the flawed processes. For instance, Bass once questioned the role of Fastow in SPEs and was immediately removed from the client case. The management also could overrule any quality decision made. The employees were between a hard place and a rock.
No, they should not have suffered because of the actions or inactions of a few people. This is because it is unfair to many innocent workers, partners and audit client stakeholders that lost value because of the discontinuity. The society may also have been affected by the discontinuity of the firm. The discontinuity of AA, however, had one advantage. It sent warning to all audit firms that their firms could go the same. The best way to have dealt with this scandal would have been huge fines and imprisonment of the AA’s decision makers who carried and determined the policy and huge fines for the continuing firm.