Cynthia Cooper and WorldCom



Cynthia Cooper and WorldCom

Introduction

Ethics is an ideal of human behavior that guides each person about what is right, what is right and what to do, understanding their life relationship with peers, seeking the common good. Ethics at work not only guide the decision-making (what I do) but also the process that follows once the decision (how I do). In its action, each has its own pattern of values, which means that everyone must do their own thinking. It is a way to reconcile their behaviors with corporate values, the code of conduct and ethics business, strategic objectives, the internal rules of the company and the applicable legislation

It is without a doubt that WorldCom was responsible for one of the biggest fraud in the corporate history of the world. This led many to refer to WorldCom as WorldCon as they were guilty of misstatements and fraudulent entries that were worth more than $11 billion. This constituted almost 30 percent of the total reported revenue in 2002. This means that the fraud ratio of WorldCom was significantly more than Enron, which stands at a figure of 1.1 percent.

It is important to analyze the case of WorldCom critically in terms of different theories in ethics. This will help us to understand if Cynthia Cooper was right to pursue and report the $4 billion accounting fraud she suspects to the audit committee of WorldCom because she was asked by the top management to delay her findings till the next quarters. The beckons the question that perhaps WorldCom would have avoided Bankrupty, had Cynthia Cooper delayed the reporting of her finding. However, would this have been the right and ethical course of action?

Discussion

The adventure of WorldCom did not exactly end well for the perpetrators. All the people involved in the WorldCom fraud were sentenced with the CEO Bernie Ebbers receiving a sentence of 25 years imprisonment. The CFO was served a 5-year sentence and all the other persons involved were jailed or they faced long-term probations.

The most shocking thing about WorldCom was the fact that it was not the wrongdoing of a single person but rather a collusive action of the top management and accountants. It was the bravery of Cynthia Cooper, Vice President of Internal Audit, which ultimately exposed this fraud. She must be commended for her exhibition of ethics of the highest standard. She went out of her way and risked her job to stand for what she believed was right. She investigated the whole manger doggedly and was the whistle blower that revealed to the world the massive scam that they had suffered.

Let's start by taking a look at Kant' Mechanism called Categorical Imperative, which is basically used to determine whether a moral judgment is a moral rule or not. One version of this states that you should only follow those maxims that can be consistently regarded as universal laws. This is known as the Universalizability Principle and is extremely similar to the Golden ...