The 2002 meltdown of major U.S. corporations was the culmination of a number of interrelated trends that started in the 1970s and continued unabated through the 1990s. Cultural myths, public policies, and organizational practices coalesced to create a fraud-inducing system, one in which executive selection and reward systems encouraged unethical and/or illegal activities, public discourse elevated private financial gain over the interests of multiple stakeholders and glorified short-term asset appreciation while denigrating long-term corporate development, and public policies and institutional changes seriously weakened executive accountability.
Altman, D. (2002, September 8). How to tie pay to goals, instead of the stock price. New York Times on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
2.
Aune, J. A. (2001). Selling the free market: The rhetoric of economic correctness. Boulder, CO: Westview.
3.
Bigger than Enron. (2002, June 28). Frontline. Boston: WGBH. Transcript available at http://www.pbs.org
4.
Blasi, J. R. , & Kruse, D. L. (2003). In the company of owners. New York: Basic Books.
5.
Bogle, J. (2002, July 19). Interview with B. Moyers. Now. Public Broadcasting System. Transcript available at http://www.pbs.org
6.
Boje, D. M. , & Rosile, G. A. (2003). Life imitates art: Enron's epic and tragic narration. Management Communication Quarterly, 17(1), 85-125.
7.
Bryce, R. (2002). Pipe dreams. New York: Public Affairs Press.
8.
Buffett, W. E. (2002, July 24). Who really cooks the books?New York Times on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
9.
Cadette, W. M. (2002, July 12). How stock options lead to scandal. New York Times on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
10.
Child, J. (1974). Managerial and organizational factors associated with company performance. Journal of Management Studies, 11, 13-27.
11.
Cloud, D. (2001). Laboring under the sign of the new. Management Communication Quarterly, 15, 268-278.
12.
Conrad, C. (in press). Stemming the tide. Organization.
13.
Dalton, D. R. , Daily, K., Certo, C. T., & Roengpitya, R. (2002, August). The relationship between stock options and organizational performance. Paper presented at the Academy of Management Convention, Denver, CO.
14.
Deetz, S. (1992). Democracy in the age of corporate colonization. Albany: State University of New York Press.
15.
DiTomaso, N. , Parks-Yancy, R., & Post, C. (2003). Structure, relationships, and community responsibility. Management Communication Quarterly, 17(1), 143-150.
16.
Dornay, B. (1988). From Taylorism to Fordism. London: Free Association Books.
17.
Elliott, A. L. , & Schroth, R. J. (2002). How companies lie: Why Enron is just the tip of the iceberg. New York: Crown Business.
18.
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
19.
Friedman, M. (1970, September 13). The social responsibility of business is to increase profits. New York Times Magazine, pp. 122-126.
20.
Fusaro, P. C. , & Miller, R. M. (2002). What went wrong at Enron. New York: John Wiley.
21.
Greider, W. (1992). Who will tell the people: The betrayal of American democracy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
22.
Hall, B. , & Jones, B. (1997). Agenda denial and issue containment in the regulation of financial securities. In R. W. Cobb & M. H. Ross (Eds.), Cultural strategies of agenda denial (pp. 40-69). Lawrence: Kansas University Press.
23.
Hambrick, D. (1994). Top management groups: A conceptual integration and reconsideration of the team label. In B. Staw & L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 15, pp. 171-214). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
24.
Hambrick, D. , & Mason, P. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers. Academy of Management Review, 9, 193-206.
25.
Hirschman, A. O. (1991). The rhetoric of reaction: Perversity, futility, jeopardy. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.
26.
Huffington, A. S. (2003). Pigs at the trough. New York: Crown Publishers.
27.
Hulbert, M. (2003, March 2). The bad news on certification was old news to the market. New York Times on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
28.
Jaques, E. (2003). Ethics for management. Management Communication Quarterly, 17(1), 136-142.
29.
Khurana, R. (2002). Searching for a corporate savior. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
30.
Krugman, P. (1994). Peddling prosperity. New York: W. W. Norton.
31.
Kuhn, T. , & Ashcraft, K. (2003). Corporate scandal and the theory of the firm: Formulating the contributions of organizational communication studiesManagement Communication Quarterly, 17(1), 20-57.
32.
Kuttner, R. (1997). Everything for sale. New York: Knopf.
33.
Leonhardt, D. (2002, August 11). Options do not raise performance, study finds. New York Times on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
34.
Lerach, W. S. (1995, January 19). Testimony before the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance, House Committee on Commerce, Legislation on Securities Fraud Litigation (H.R. 10). Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. Retrieved from Lexis-Nexis Congressional database.
35.
Levinthal, D. , & March, J. (1993). The myopia of learning. Strategic Management Journal, 14, 95-112.
36.
Levitt, A. (2002). Take on the street. New York: Pantheon.
37.
Madrick, J. (2003, February 20). A theory on corporate greed. New York Times on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
38.
Mahon, J. F. , & McGowan, R. A. (1997). Making professional accounting accountable. In R. W. Cobb & M. H. Ross (Eds.), Cultural strategies of agenda denial, (pp. 70-85). Lawrence: Kansas University Press.
39.
Morgenson, G. (2002, November 10). When options rise to the top, guess who pays. New York Times on the Web. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
40.
Nadesan, M. H. (2001). Post-Fordism, political economy, and critical organizational communication studies. Management Communication Quarterly, 15, 259-267.
41.
Paine, L. S. (2002). Value shift. New York: McGraw-Hill.
42.
Perrow, C. (2002). Organizing America: Wealth, power and the origins of corporate capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
43.
Reagan, M. (1999). The accidental system. Boulder, CO: Westview.
44.
Seeger, M. , & Ulmer, R. (2003). Explaining Enron: Communication and responsible leadership. Management Communication Quarterly, 17(1), 58-84.
45.
Seligman, J. (1994). The merits do matter. Harvard Law Review, 108(2), 438-457.
46.
Shiller, R. J. (2000). Irrational exuberance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
47.
Soros, G. (1998). The crisis of global capitalism: Open society endangered. New York: Public Affairs Press.
48.
Staw, B. , & Ross, J. (1980). Commitment in an experimenting society: An experiment on the attribution of leadership from administrative scenarios. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 249-260.
49.
Staw, B. , & Ross, J. (1987). Behavior in escalation situations. In B. Staw & L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 46-82). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
50.
Stiglitz, J. E. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. New York: Norton.
51.
Thompson, J. (1967). Organizations in action. New York: McGraw-Hill.
