Tyco: I'm Sure That IT'S Case Study

The first trial for the two began on September 29th, 2003. The trial was not concluded as one of the jurors had complained of been pressurized to convict the two former executives. The retrial was conducted, and the jury reached its verdict on June 17th, 2005. They were both acquitted for one count and convicted for 22 criminal counts. They were not found guilty of falsifying business documents. Both of them were sentenced to eight years t twenty five years in a state prison where they would be working six hours daily and earning $1.05. Eventually the charges that had resulted in the fall of Dennis Kozlowski were dismissed after he agreed to pay off his sales tax liabilities and restitution.

What do you think Kozlowski's motivation for trying to avoid sales taxes on his art purchase was?

Power and greed in this case were Kozlowski's main motivators. He had no loyalty to Tyco and thus he did not feel accountable for its performance. Been in a position of authority, he knew no one could ask him about his wrong-doings. For his own monetary gains, he misused Tyco's assets and funds. The risk he took of falsifying shipments records when he was purchasing art work using Tyco funds was a great one, although he never cared for paying taxes, and this is what motivated him to falsify the records.

Explain the concept of commingling assets with respect to the Tyco case

Treating a company's money as ones one is what is referred to as the Commingling assets concept. It is a very poor business concept as established in the case study Byrne, 2002.

The two Tyco executives applied this concept, and they used the company's assets to enrich themselves.They were very extravagant in their use of the company's assets, which led to them to start getting negative attention from the authorities.

Would it have been possible for the board of directors to see the adjustments taking place in the many programs at Tyco?

In this case, it was very unlikely for the board of directors to find out the wrongful adjustments that were taking place. Had the board of directors been proactive they would have discovered what the two executives had been doing, and they would not have done as much damage as they did, so in a way the board of directors can also be faulted. Had they been more active they would have found out what the two executives had been up to and could have stopped the fraud schemes and falsifications. Since they did not take any active role then they are not to blame because what the two executives did was intentional, deliberate, and they wanted to harm the company. Even though, the things they were doing were illegal, and they knew this, they still continued to do them. Awarding bonuses to employees without approval to silence them and intentionally paying officials for them to remain quiet was wrong too. For their personal gains, the people involved risked doing things that were unethical, costly and illegal to Tyco. They all hoped that what they were doing would not catch up with them.

References

Beschorner, T. (2006). Ethical Theory and Business Practices: The Case of Discourse Ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 66(1), 127-139.

Byrne, E.F. (2002). Business Ethics: A Helpful Hybrid in Search of Integrity.….....