ACC320: Contemporary Issues in Accounting - Enron Research

This research proposal delves into the Enron scandal, a landmark case of accounting fraud. The study examines the practical and theoretical motivations behind the scandal, exploring its impact on accountants, investors, and stakeholders. It includes a literature review that analyzes the ethical breaches, failures in corporate governance, and the role of auditing misrepresentation. The proposal outlines the strengths and weaknesses associated with the Enron case. The proposal discusses the hypothesis, including both null and alternative hypotheses, focusing on the positive and negative consequences of the scandal. The positive aspects include the implementation of new regulations and the emphasis on independent auditing. The negative aspects highlight the financial losses, loss of investor confidence, and the company's ultimate collapse. The proposal concludes by referencing key academic sources that support the analysis.

Running head: CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Contemporary issues in accounting
Research proposal
Student name
Student ID
Title
Submission date

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................2
Discussion......................................................................................................................2
Practical motivation...................................................................................................2
Theoretical motivation...............................................................................................3
Literature review........................................................................................................3
Hypothesis..................................................................................................................6
References......................................................................................................................8
Appendix......................................................................................................................10

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Introduction
The study assignment deals with the scandals of Enron which is considered as one of
the biggest accounting fraud of the century. On the other hand the study topic also deals with
different other aspects like practical and theoretical motivation techniques. The literature
review of the aspect also deals with the relation between the practical and theoretical aspects
of the scandal of Enron Company. In the context of the literature review the strength and
weakness of the research area is conducted. The study areas also discusses about the key
hypothesis related to the case study overall. These hypothesis are testable and feasible at the
same time (Usikalu et al.2015).
Discussion
Practical motivation
The Enron scandal had opened the eyes of the whole auditing world. Since company
auditing is a very complex part and therefore requires full concentration and the auditors
ensure that truthfulness of the auditing should be maintained. However the scandal of Enron
had affected the accountants, investors and the company shareholders effectively.
Corporate governance
The board had failed to understand what the management is doing or if they had
understood it, they could have prevent it. The company had clearly manipulated the financial
statement by creating many separate purpose entities which had been managed by the
company officers itself.
Investors
The investors are the part and parcel of the company business. They generally be
quite concerned when the qualified group of Enron had shown themselves woefully

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
inadequate to their risk status. Thus by generalizing the board had caused the investors to
doubt the efficiency of the corporate governance in general.
Accountants and auditors
The accountants are also considered as another vital part of this company. The
company clearly had not maintained the company rules and regulations at the time of
auditing. On the other hand the CEO of this company Mr Andersen had looked for some
alternative ways to do the business which had been unethical. Hence this issue is important to
practise since it had stated clearly about the unethical ways adopted by Enron for auditing
and how it affected the investor and stakeholders (Dibra 2016.).
Theoretical motivation
The theoretical motivation deals with the existing factors which are highly related to
the scandal of Enron Company. Here it is seen that the company had fall due to the auditing
misrepresentation. This had effectively cost huge monitory loss to the company and the share
prices from high had fall down drastically. The practical motivation areas had focused on the
effect to the accountants, investors and stakeholders. Hence due to the auditing
misrepresentation as a result the company management had to stop their operation, many
people had lost their jobs, investors lost their faith to the business and the company had
suffered huge financial crisis. It had forced the ASA to implement new auditing standards.
Literature review
The Enron tragedy had also embedded another tricky which had developed very
apparent in the last year which is Wall Street’s loss of detachment. The investment banks
make good money from “underwriting of shares” in relation to the broker fees. Hence there is
a question of loyalty. Therefore here in this context the research had found key obstacles
which had let the business of Enron to stop. Since the company had faced certain ethical

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
issues related to the accounting, investors, and stakeholders. These have been discussed one
by one-
Truthfulness
The first mishap that had occurred in this case had affected the well-being of the
corporation. The older directors had whispered that the company had been the best at
everything they did in order to protect their reputations and alleged for a full compensation.
Hence the duties have been related to the good faith and disclosure. Moreover the companies
had not learned about the stock sale. Hence the bankruptcy caused by the company had
forced them to sell of the business (Markham 2015).
“Conflict of interest”
The “conflict of interest” is another part where the failure of the management of
Enron had occurred. Moreover it is also suggested that enrols compensation policy had
engaged in a narrow-minded focus on the company’s growing and earnings overall. Hence
the recent supervisory fluctuations have focused on the enhancement of bookkeeping
technique related to the internal control system. Thus the “conflict of interest” had been
correlated to the consultant of this scandal. The company had also thought of salvaging the
business of various investors. Furthermore the company scandal had different factors related
to the accounting module. These are as follows-
“Mark to market”
Being a communal concern, Enron had been subjected to the source of power
including the market pressure and error by the private beings including the “auditors”,
“equity analysts” and “credit rating agencies” as a whole. Hence this method requires a long
term convention signing and the amount at which the assets can be sold theoretically to the
future market share price as per the financial statements. (Nguyen 2014).

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Special purpose entity
Since the companies share had been co-lateral, the SPE had borrowed large amount of money
which is used to evaluate the overvalued contracts of Enron. On the other hand the company
had also enabled the loan and the properties had laden with the liability obligations into
salary. Thus the routine, liability and the monies purchased by the SPE had actually fraught
large amount of assets which had not conveyed on the pecuniary crash. Hence the past
research related to the scandal of Enron had discussed about the strength and the weakness.
These are as follows-
Strength
The company had not believed of being an overnight energy giant serving multiple of clients.
The triumph comes from marketing and value delivery. Market facilitated the company to
recognize and meet the customer requirements. The duty of any corporate is to carry the
customer worth with a return. The company can utilise the value by fine tuning the delivery
progression and choosing the superior value (Eckhaus and Sheaffer 2018).
Weakness
Failed board of directors
The “board of directors” had simply disastrous in managing the business of the company.
They probably had been more concerned about making profits. Nevertheless beyond all
analysis, board of directors stands big errands for not doing the work correctly. Hence the
board of directors had wrongly monitored the developments inside and outside of the
company by bringing to the management’s attention development.

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Evaluation and influence
A board is expected to examine the management offers, decisions, settle or upset with them
by giving advices and offering some submissions and sketch certain objectives. Hence the
company probably had been in need of monitoring the business of the company (Pai. and
Tolleson 2015.).
Hypothesis
There are two types of hypothesis had been considered to demonstrate the case? These are
as follows-
 Null hypothesis
 Alternate hypothesis
The null hypothesis means void which does not generate any effective outcomes in terms
of discussion. On the other hand the alternative hypothesis is used to deal with the positive
and negative aspects relating to the research study aspect. Here for the case of Enron, the
alternative hypothesis had been used (Hardin et al.2015). The main focus is on the positive
and negative effects on the Enron scandal. The positive areas surely had been related to the
after effects of the scandals. Hence after this scandal many new government rules and
regulations had been implemented so that no such scandals gets to occur again. Secondly the
government had given special attraction to conduct independent auditing. It is the
responsibility of the company to let the auditor to conduct auditing effectively and efficiently
where the auditor could perform the audit as per company rules and regulations as a whole
(Ailon 2015.).

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
On the other hand there are also some negative effects related to the auditing of the
company. It is seen that the company had made certain mistakes for which they had lost all
the plot. Further it is also seen that due to this mishap, the company had lost all its potential
investors, stakeholders and most importantly their client market. This had been taken as a big
loss to the company where they had no opportunity to get up from. Thus the share price of the
company had fall down drastically which had also been considered as a major failure to the
company. In this way it can be said that the company had lost their major market of Australia.
Thus this in turn had made the company stop their overall corporate.

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
References
Ailon, G., 2015. From superstars to devils: The ethical discourse on managerial figures
involved in a corporate scandal. Organization, 22(1), pp.78-99.
Broberg, P., Umans, T., Skog, P. and Theodorsson, E., 2018. Auditors’ professional and
organizational identities and commercialization in audit firms. Accounting, Auditing &
Accountability Journal, 31(2), pp.374-399.
Dibra, R., 2016. Corporate Governance failure: the case of Enron and Parmalat. European
Scientific Journal, 12(16).
Eckhaus, E. and Sheaffer, Z., 2018. Managerial hubris detection: the case of Enron. Risk
Management, 20(4), pp.304-325.
Hardin, J.S., Sarkis, G. and Urc, P.C., 2015. Network analysis with the enron email
corpus. Journal of Statistics Education, 23(2).
Markham, J.W., 2015. A financial history of modern US corporate scandals: From Enron to
reform. Routledge.
Mattern, S., 2015. Mission control: A history of the urban dashboard. Places Journal.
Nguyen, T.N., 2014. A different approach to information management by exceptions (toward
the prevention of another Enron). Information & Management, 51(1), pp.165-176.
Pai, K. and Tolleson, T.D., 2015. India's Satyam Scandal: Evidence the Too Large to Indict
Mindset of Accounting Regulators Is a Global Phenomenon. Review of Business & Finance
Studies, 6(2), p.35.

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Roy, M.N., 2015. Statutory Auditors' Independence in the Context of Corporate Accounting
Scandal: A Comparative Study of Enron and Satyam. IUP Journal of Accounting Research &
Audit Practices, 14(2), p.7.
Usikalu, O., Ogunleye, A.J. and Effiong, J., 2015. Organizational Trust, Job Satisfaction and
Job Performance Among Teachers in Ekiti State, Nigeria. British Open Journal of
Psychology, 1(1), pp.1-10.

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
Appendix
Author Dat
e
Title Journa
l
Type of
Paper
(Theoretic
al or
Empirical)
If
empirica
l,
research
method
and
sample
If
empirical,
dependent
and
independe
nt
variables
100 word
summary of
contribution to
the research
question
Ailon,
G.,
201
5
From
superstars to
devils: The
ethical
discourse on
managerial
figures
involved in a
corporate
scandal.
yes theoretical n/a n/a The paper
magnets upon
a increasing
body of the
foundation
related to the
business
ethics which is
considered as
a primary
objective in
the site of
dynamic
discursive
production in
the
contemporary
times related
to the
operation of
Enron
company. this
paper had also
examined the
moral threats
asking of
knowledge
and
expression.
Hardin,
J.S.,
Sarkis,
G. and
Urc,
P.C.,
201
5
Network
analysis with
the enron
email
corpus. Journ
al of Statistics
Education,
no theoretical n/a n/a Here the
Enron email
corpus have
been used to
study certain
relationships
in the network

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN ACCOUNTING
by applying
six different
measures of
centrality.
Hence the
research result
came out of
the collected
results. Hence
this corpus is
well suited to
the statistical
analysis at the
levels of
centrality. The
study had
provided
certain initial
assumption
and the
interplay
between the
centrality
measure and
hierarchical
ranking.
Hence the
studies had
applied the
springboards
into the
analysis.
Markha
m, J.W.,
201
5
A financial
history of
modern US
corporate
scandals:
From Enron
to reform.
no empirical n/a n/a This paper
analyses the
overall
downfall of
the Enron
corporation
and the other
monetarist
results which
had cost the
company to
collapse as
well as the
market boom
which had
been also laid
responsible.
The aftermath