Philosophy 104: Business Ethics

Russell Marcus. Instructor. Email me.

Queens College, Spring 2007

Enron Materials

Books:

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story, by Kurt Eichenwald. Broadway: 2005.

The best narrative of all the books, and comprehensive. It is well-researched, with detailed notes. Eichenwald does a good job with the characters and their relationships. He emphasizes the central importance of the special-purpose entities, but neglects details of the many failing ventures that they were designed to support. The reconstructed conversations are sometimes distracting.

The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. Portfolio: 2003.

More concise, and detailed, than Conspiracy. McLean and Elkind depict nicely the inner workings and the corporate culture at Enron, and how they relate to Enron's collapse. Also, they describe in excellent detail the various parts of the complicated company. This is the best of the books.

From Edison to Enron : The Business of Power and What It Means for the Future of Electricity, by Richard Munson. Praeger Publishers: 2005.

An excellent background to the energy industry. Munson repeatedly emphasizes the need for deregulation, perhaps to a fault. The history is fun, though.

Infectious Greed: How Deceit and Risk Corrupted the Financial Markets, by Frank Partnoy. Times Books/Henry Holt & Company: 2003. In paperback by Owl: 2004.

Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron, by Robert Bryce. PublicAffairs Books: 2002.

Enron: The Rise and Fall, by Loren Fox. Wiley: 2002.

What Went Wrong at Enron: Everyone's Guide to the Largest Bankruptcy in U.S. History, by Peter C. Fusaro, Ross M. Miller. Wiley: 2002.

24 Days: How Two Wall Street Journal Reporters Uncovered the Lies that Destroyed Faith in Corporate America, by Rebecca Smith and John R. Emshwiller. HarperCollins: 2003.

Not a good first book to read on the subject, but well-written and interesting for a second perspective. Smith and Emshwiller do a very good job with a lot of the details about the SPEs and other accounting issues. They were among the most successful reporters investigating the collapse, and their description of how information about Enron came out is edifying.

Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an Enron Insider, by Brian Cruver. Carroll & Graf Publishers: 2002.

Power Failure: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Enron, by Mimi Swartz with Sherron Watkins. Doubleday: 2003. In paperback by Currency/Random House: 2004.

Final Accounting: Ambition, Greed, and the Fall of Arthur Andersen, by Barbara Ley Toffler with Jennifer Reingold, Broadway Books: 2003. In paperback by Currency/Random House: 2004.

Quite a bad book. Toffler is impressed with herself, and not afraid to tell us. But she provides a view into the culture at Andersen.

Inside Arthur Andersen: Shifting Values, Unexpected Consequences, by Susan E. Squires, Cynthia Smith, Lorna McDougall, William R. Yeack. Prentice Hall: 2003.

Websites:

• The Houston Chronicle's indispensable Enron website
• A scorecard, from the NY Times
• Links to lots of good Enron sites, from a Canadian ethics website
• The Powers Report, Enron's Post-Bankruptcy Internal Investigation
• A timeline, from Wikipedia
• A teaching instrument for whistle-blowing
  
• Research Activities, from Newsweek Education

Movies:

Enron - The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005). Director: Alex Gibney

• Not as comprehensive as the book of the same name, but very well done.

The One Percent (2006). Director: Jamie Johnson.

• Not directly about Enron, but it concerns related business-ethics issues.

The Corporation (2003). Directors: Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott

• Similarly not directly about Enron, good background for the course.