REFLECTION:

Honesty is the best policy, it’s a golden rule that everyone should follow. But, an
excessive desire can really drives people’s mind, greediness gives birth to dishonesty,
and dishonesty creates destruction. Even you have the smartest man owned in your
company, it is not to be compared to good governance. Talented people are becoming
worthless if those who sits at the top walks straight to the wrong path, downfall will be
inescapable.

WorldCom was once the greatest telecom company America ever had. And it is
really disappointing on how that company end up failing. With that great image they
possessed, what’s really inside the frame matters the most, how they do their work and
how do they manage everyone and everything is really alarming. It was full of
intolerable culture of competition, and greediness. The one who is in control even
encourage them to get something even if it is questionable on achieving them. The
pressure is to heavy for them since competition keeps rising. A huge fraud was playing
inside the company, they even manipulated the cash flows, which they make the
expenditures into capital just to make the company’s financial status healthy. The
company’s stock price has risen dramatically as a result of the bogus profitability, but
this has only been used by a few people to take advantage of investors with malice. The
misleading information obtained by the investors is unethical thing to do. Internal control
appears to require the quality of integrity as a system, because if some people are
honest but others are not, the system will still fail.

The WorldCom is the basis what would be the consequences in possessing

greediness, what kind of damage does it bring to other people, and how the accounting
profession would be affected and be used as an instrument in any unethical behavior
such as fraud. As we know, accounting has this requirements which is to be accurate
and truthful. Sadly, WorldCom doesn’t have this characteristics as the accounting
information was distorted to benefit only those few people. Without thinking what might
be the consequences in doing such thing really creates a huge hole and might end up
falling there. This WorldCom scandal is a wake up call for those who had businesses,
small or big, to pay attention for those people who partake in their said businesses,
what kind of people they are, how do they control or manage things and how do they
work. We should not be blinded by the money and should think what might happened if
we do this unethical thing. Creating healthy business starts within those who gains
control. If this part of the control fails, the rest of the control system will cease to work
properly.