Introduction The allure of profits, notability, or even personal gain may cause many to stray from ethical decisions and instead lead them to follow their self-interests. It is crucial for individuals to separate self-interest and corporate interests to ensure legal and ethical work practices. Self-interest is more commonly known as the conflict of interest (COI) brings forth more harm than it does to the company and even the instigator. As noted by Norris, Holmer, Ogden, Selph, and Fu (2012) “COI is a set of conditions in which professional judgment concerning a primary interest may be unduly influenced by a secondary interest” (p. 1). Similar to the notable Enron scandal, self-interest was what led to the downfall of Bernie Madoff the founder of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. This short essay will examine the Bernie Madoff scandal and view the consequences of self-interest and provide a brief introduction to those that resisted self-interest to maintain stakeholder equity and honesty.
Scandal and Resistance of…show more content… With the management of stocks and investment portfolios, Bernie was able to accumulate returns of 10 to 12 percent and even more year-after-year (Bernie Madoff, 2009). However, the return that Madoff had been widely known for is nothing but a myth. The entire investing scheme was nothing but a Ponzi scheme which involved the swindling of a total of $65 billion from investors (Arvelund, 2010). According to Bernie Madoff (2009), “what the Madoff organization did with all that money was pretty straightforward: what they did not spend they simply deposited in a business account in the Chase Manhattan Bank” (p. 32). The scheme consisted of Madoff balancing the incoming money by “paying off those who wanted to see some of their returns and ensuring that enough new money was coming in to cover the losses” (Bernie Madoff, 2009, p.