从安然丑闻看证券市场的监管

“证监会干什么去了？会计师协会干什么去了？公司的审计委员会干什么去了？会计干什么去了？律师干什么去了？股行干什么去了？分析师干什么去了？机构投资者干什么去了？人们的投资常识呢？”面对“安然丑闻”，美国能源和贸易委员会民主党人士John Dingell发出了上述一连串严厉质问。     

安然三大失衡

安然曾经是华尔街的宠儿，现在成了华尔街的弃儿。虽说在”帮富不帮穷”的资本市场上实属平常，但安然自身确实在资本运作的某些方面玩过了火。     

“安然破产”叫板公司经营理念

美国安然公司破产了，由此引发的问题及带给我们的思考很多。本文仅就安然破产给我国公司内部经营、管理理念上带来的反思发表看法：一、公司决策应该集权还是分权？集权与分权是现代公司管理中最大“盲点”，“一统就死，一放就乱”似乎成为决策体制选择的两种必然结果。但是这两种结果在现实中绝对有轻重之别。“创新想法的可行性不应由管理层来决定”这是安然董事会一条重要的经验，外界多少人对安然公司内部决策权最大限度的下放大加赞赏。现在看来，经验恰好变成了教训：在分权体制下，拿着“奶酪”的人很多时候不是外部人，而是自己的…     

从安然破产事件解析"信息化"泡沫

信息化究竟“从哪里来?到哪里去?”信息化不仅仅是一个购买软件的简单问题,而且是一个重新改造公司业务流程的过程,最终落脚点则在于业务和管理水准的改进。安然案例所传递出的正是一种新的泡沫信号——传统企业的“信息化”泡沫。     

What Plato Knew About Enron

This paper applies Plato’s cave allegory to Enron’s success and downfall. Plato’s famous tale of cave dwellers illustrates the different levels of truth and understanding. These levels include images, the sources of images, and the ultimate reality behind both. The paper first describes these levels of perception as they apply to Plato’s cave dwellers and then provides a brief history of the rise of Enron. Then we apply Plato’s levels of understanding to Enron, showing how the company created its image and presented information to support that image, and how the public eventually emerged from the cave to realize the truth about Enron’s actual accounting practices and financial state, which led to the corporation’s downfall. We find Plato’s allegory both useful in analyzing the relationship between Enron and the public and instructive about the power and moral responsibility of Enron’s executives.     

美国安然公司破产的启示--大企业投资的五大风险

兴衰安然 去年11月28日,曾经是美国最大的能源贸易公司安然(Enron)当日股价重挫75%,跌至略高于1美元,而十一个月前,安然公司还处于五十二周最高价85美元的水平.起因是迪奈基电力公司(Dynegy)终止收购安然.此事在美国股市,乃至世界各国经济界引起轩然大波.不出数日,至12月初,安然公司便递交了破产保护申请,成为美国历史上最大一笔破产案.     

Downfall delayed: Danish shipbuilding and industrial dislocation

This article analyses the decline of the Danish shipbuilding industry. European shipyards dominated global shipbuilding markets in the first half of the twentieth century, but began to be challenged by the Japanese from the 1950s and by the South Koreans from the late 1970s. More recently, China has taken over large slices of the global shipbuilding market and currently is the world's largest shipbuilding nation. As a result of this new competition, European shipyards closed en masse and Europe experienced a process of maritime deindustrialisation in the 1970s and 1980s. Danish shipyards were not immune to these challenges, although maritime deindustrialisation in this country was almost two decades later than in many other European countries. This article examines how Denmark was able to escape this general maritime deindustrialisation for so long and offers three explanations: institutional, entrepreneurial and political.     

由“安然”事件引发我国审计执业的新思考

“安然”事件震动了审计界 ,它的影响力也许会使整个审计业发生变迁。从其事件产生的背景出发 ,着重分析了事件发生的原因 ,进一步强调了我国在此事件中应汲取的教训 ,以便及时改变与审计不相称的形象。     

The Silence of the Stakeholders: Zero Decibel Level at Enron

While the demise of Enron has raised a number of interesting issues, such as proper governance of large corporations, and the effectiveness and efficiency of statutory direction and regulatory mechanisms, the lack of meaningful vocal stakeholder stewardship has not been one of them. While the relative “silence” of Enron’s stakeholders (watchdogs) could simply have been a communication glitch, or a temporary lapse in social morality, an understanding of hat was not said and why, could well be a significant requisite in formulating meaningful measures to preclude future Enrons. Why weren’t the watchdogs barking? Why had the stakeholder alert system shut down? Further, what are the implications for then and now of this quiescence? Since Enron’s demise many questions have been asked and answered about what went wrong. But little has been said about why the stakeholders failed to speak out by exercising their fiduciary responsibilities. This paper takes a closer look at the behavior of some key Enron stakeholders.     

Enron Ethics (Or: Culture Matters More than Codes)

This paper describes and discusses the Enron Corporation debacle. The paper presents the business ethics background and leadership mechanisms affecting Enron's collapse and eventual bankruptcy. Through a systematic analysis of the organizational culture at Enron (following Schein's frame of reference) the paper demonstrates how the company's culture had profound effects on the ethics of its employees.     

安然事件的会计、审计思考

美国安然公司、世界通信、施乐公司等世界顶级企业的财务丑闻曝光后,世界各国都在研究其产生的原因及防范此类事件再次发生的对策.本文侧重讨论其中的安然事件.在对安然事件作扼要回顾的基础上,对安然申请破产保护、安达信被起诉的问题,从会计和审计角度进行了分析.论文最后从会计准则建设、强化公司治理结构等方面探讨了完善我国证券市场运行机制的对策.     

Legislated Ethics: From Enron to Sarbanes-Oxley,the Impact on Corporate America

This paper explores the financial reporting scandals of the past decade and the resulting U.S. legislative attempts to impose ethical behavior and control the incidence of new reporting problems via the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. We begin with a brief historical perspective followed by assertions of ethical consequences of legislation with discussions of key recent corporate scandals, the motives for the frauds, and the consequences. Ethics related provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are discussed with the potential impact of the legislation on the likelihood of similar future frauds and accompanying prognosis for future corporate ethical behavior.     

Agency Theory,Reasoning and Culture at Enron: In Search of a Solution

Applying evidence from recently available public information on Enron, I defined Enron’s culture as one rooted in agency theory by asserting that Enron’s members were predominantly agency-reasoning individuals. I then identified conditions present at Enron’s collapse: a strong agency culture with collectively non-compliant norms, a munificent rare-failure environment, and new hires with little business ethics training. Turning to four possible antidotes (selection, objectivist integrity, integrity capacity, and stewardship reasoning) to an agency culture under these conditions, I argued that the currently available ethics literature would have made little difference toward averting Enron’s collapse if any of the recommendations from the relevant ethics literature had been implemented. I conclude by identifying new directions for business ethics literature in order to make it more implementable under the conditions identified at Enron. Essentially, we need a way to clearly determine (1) the difference between connivance and commitment, (2) what is meant by balance with regard to the multiple dimensions of ethics and legal theories, and (3) the proper balance between agency and stewardship reasoning. Brian E. Kulik is a Ph.D. candidate in Management at Washington State University’s School of Business. His work focuses on the prevention of corporate corruption, corporate governance and ethics, teamwork and diversity, and research methods. His research to date has appeared in the Western and National Academy of Management conference proceedings and the journal Organizational Analysis. He earned M.S. degrees from Washington State University and The University of Cincinnati, and M.B.A. from The University of Denver.