The Function of Fraud. World Con Case Study

Bernard Ebbers has created a corporate culture that advocates deception and corruption. WorldCom’s fast-paced growth under Ebbers’s leadership allowed him to systematically align his top management through threats and challenges. The simple fact is that WorldCom over reported their earnings and understated their expenses (Kaplan & Kiron, 2007). This double bookkeeping allowed WorldCom to over value their stock. No one challenged Ebbers, including the board of directors because they too benefitted from the stock increase. According to Kaplan & Kiron (2007) when the internet bubble burst in 2000, it destroyed many of WorldCom’s biggest customers. The entire telecommunications industry slowed down and WorldCom Company found they were inefficient in generating enough revenue. In the scope of cultural styles and elements, what type of culture is at play at WorldCom? The purpose of this essay is to evaluate the organizational culture under Bernard Ebbers. In addition, this paper will assess who was to blame for the long term accounting fraud that was perpetuated at WorldCom and how corruption became business as usual.

Evaluating the culture at WorldCom

In order to evaluate the culture at WorldCom, there must be a set of criteria that are applicable to the situation. Within the article by Goffee & Jones (1996) two major themes of sociology; sociability and solidarity are use to chart four culture types. Sociability is the measure of emotional ties and friendliness. Shared aims are based in solidarity. According to Goffee & Jones (1996) “The answer comes when you plot the dimensions against each other. The result is four types of community: networked, mercenary, fragmented and communal” (p. 133). For the purpose of this evaluative essay the types of communities as defined by Goffee & Jones will be the framework for measuring the WorldCom corporate culture.

The first analytic criterion will be traits of the networked culture. According to Goffee & Jones (1996) the...