Lehaman Case Study

Case Application 1 Lessons from Lehman Brothers

Week 6 Team A Reflection

MGT/521

August 4, 2014

Case Application 1 Lessons from Lehman Brothers

Case Application 1 “Lessons from Lehman Brothers”

Question # 2: What was the culture as Lehman Brothers like how did this culture contribute to the company’s downfall?

The culture in the Lehman Brothers company, was one of greed. There was clearly negligence because of the practices of promoting untruthfulness within their financial reports and the abuse of accounting device repo 105. The companies misuse of this device, allowed them to remove fifty billion of the unwanted assets off of their balance sheets from 2008 (Robbins, 2012, p. 147). The culture was corrupt, and the leader’s sole purpose seemed to be their greed for money. The Chief Executive was very much aware of the negligence and abuse, within the company, but he took no responsibility or actions and chose to ignore the unethical behavior, and Oliver Budde one of the associates of the general counsel, questioned the Executives, decisions but he was ignored, and discredited. These unethical practices is exactly what led the Lehman Brothers company to filing the largest bankruptcy filing in history.

Question #3: What role did Lehman’s executives play in the company’s collapse? Were they being responsible and ethical?

The filing of Chapter 11 on September 15, 2010 (Valukas, 2010) by the Lehaman Brothers Company, was one of largest reasons for the downfall of the company. Upper management should have stepped in and been more active and hands on, in some of the decisions that contributed to the end of the company.

Case Application 1 Lessons from Lehman Brothers

Question#5: After all the public uproar over Enron and then the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Ac to protect shareholders, why do you think we still continue to see these types of...