Opinions lower on big business

The Enron scandal not only affected the people directly involved with the company, but also the way ordinary citizens felt toward business.

A recent poll conducted by the American Enterprise Institute concluded that the recent scandal, along with similar scandals have negatively affected the way people view big business and business in general.

Research conducted by the AEI covers a broad range of areas, from economics to U.S. defense and foreign policies. The institute publishes dozens of books and hundreds of articles and reports each year, including polls on business.

According to the poll, only 12 percent of respondents said they had quite a lot of confidence in big business. This percentage is down considerably from the 50 percent approval rating for big businesses in June of 1985. The decrease in confidence came as no surprise to Thomas Gutteridge, former dean of the School of Business.

Gutteridge said it was no surprise that the attitudes toward business have changed given the magnitude of recent business scandals.

"Enron hurt the image of business," Gutteridge said. "People behaved very inappropriately and it hurt the economy and image globally."

The scandal has caused a lot of stereotyping of big businesses, according to Susan Fair, a 5th-semester psychology major.

"I think that many people are stereotyping big businesses now as scandalous because of Enron," Fair said. "I think the stereotyping gives a bad image to all big businesses."

Enron was not the first business scandal to cause disruption to the trust of people. In 1938, 63 percent of people surveyed by the Gallup organization had heard of the Wall Street case of stockbroker Richard Whitney, who was convicted of embezzling money from family and clients at his firm, J.P Morgan. In the same poll, 31 percent said stockbrokers were less honest than bankers, but 40 percent said there was no difference. Four percent said they were more honest.

Sixty-four years after the Whitney case, only 16 percent of respondents said they thought business executives had very high ethical standards, according to the AEI poll.

Gutteridge said the low rating could have to do with stereotyping of big business, and the fact that the temptation for doing unethical things for profit is out there. He also said that all students could play a part in reducing unethical practices.

"There is opportunity in every profession for people to do unethical things," he said. "Students need to have a personal code of ethics so when they get out into an organization, they can pay attention to what is going on out there."

Gutteridge added that an entire profession could not be blamed for the unethical behavior of a group of people.

"People can't stereotype an entire group," he said. "No one would argue that all Roman Catholics are pedophiles."

Since the scandals, the question has arisen as to how involved the government should be in big business affairs. According to the poll, 37 percent of respondents said the government should pass new laws. However, 48 percent said there should be better enforcement of existing laws.

Some companies, including Enron, used self-policing procedures to make sure that their accounting practices followed certain ethical and legal standards. Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they believe this method does not work.

Gutteridge said that although it is very important for laws dealing with big business to be in place, it is also important for businesses to learn how to be ethical and to correct their own mistakes.

"Clearly big businesses have to clean up their own house," Gutteridge said. "It does not hurt to have other bodies intervening, but generally it is a big wake-up call that it can't be business as usual."

Gutteridge also said he thought many businessmen wanted to adhere to ethical standards and would take the Enron scandal and similar situations as evidence that businessmen and other professionals must act in an ethical manner.