[Submit Cover Page] Introduction Organizations that behave ethically are more apt to earn the trust of their customers, employees, and stockholders… [Complete “Introduction” paragraph] Background As a publicly-traded corporation, Adelphia, Inc. was one of the largest providers of cable services in the United States. After the company went public, it was learned that the company had materially misrepresented its audited financial statements by failing to disclose billions of dollars in debt. To make matters worse, the company’s independent auditors were found to have been complicit in the fraudulent activity, helping the company to conceal the lavish personal expenditures of the Rigas family. [Insert section heading here] The first major ethical problem raised by the Adelphia case relates to the manipulation of Adelphia’s financial statements. John Rigas and his sons routinely “cooked the books,” purposefully inflating earnings in an effort to meet shareholders’ earnings expectations, and to demonstrate the company’s earnings power to prospective investors. Fearful of a plunge in stock price or defaulting on its creditor agreements, Adelphia executives would hold secret meetings at the end of each quarter to discuss the company’s financial results (Grant, 2004). When Adelphia’s quarterly numbers were out of line with creditors’ covenants, employees were tasked with making arbitrary adjustments to the accounting records, inflating the company’s revenues and reducing its expenses, ultimately bringing the numbers back into alignment with creditors’ expectations (Meier, 2004). Unfortunately, Adelphia’s fraudulent accounting practices went undetected by the company’s auditors, who failed to ensure that the company’s financial statements accurately reflected the company’s true financial position (Barlaup – insert in-text citation). For instance, the funds owed the company by the Rigas family went undisclosed in the statements, because the management at Adelphia deemed such disclosure as being “unnecessary” (Barlaup et al., 2009). Given that Adelphia was a publicly traded company, the purposeful non-disclosure caused potential investors to rely on financial records that were grossly misleading. The inevitable result was the investors continued to inject money into a company that had all the appearances of profitability and sustained growth, but that was, in reality, rapidly becoming insolvent. Moreover, lending institutions also relied on the “independently-audited” financial statements, and they were more than eager to loan the company money, given Adelphia’s presumed state of financial “profitability.” [Insert section heading here] The second ethical problem in this case relates to the Rigas family’s use of publicly-held corporate funds as a personal “piggy bank.” The Rigases used the company jet for personal reasons (without approval of the Board of Directors), on one occasion flying to Africa for a safari (Markon & Frank, 2 ...

1. [Submit Cover Page]
Introduction
Organizations that behave ethically are more apt to earn
the trust of their customers, employees, and stockholders…
[Complete “Introduction” paragraph]
Background
As a publicly-traded corporation, Adelphia, Inc. was one

2. of the largest providers of cable services in the United States.
After the company went public, it was learned that the company
had materially misrepresented its audited financial statements
by failing to disclose billions of dollars in debt. To make
matters worse, the company’s independent auditors were found
to have been complicit in the fraudulent activity, helping the
company to conceal the lavish personal expenditures of the
Rigas family.
[Insert section heading here]
The first major ethical problem raised by the Adelphia case
relates to the manipulation of Adelphia’s financial statements.
John Rigas and his sons routinely “cooked the books,”
purposefully inflating earnings in an effort to meet
shareholders’ earnings expectations, and to demonstrate the
company’s earnings power to prospective investors. Fearful of a
plunge in stock price or defaulting on its creditor agreements,
Adelphia executives would hold secret meetings at the end of
each quarter to discuss the company’s financial results (Grant,
2004). When Adelphia’s quarterly numbers were out of line
with creditors’ covenants, employees were tasked with making
arbitrary adjustments to the accounting records, inflating the
company’s revenues and reducing its expenses, ultimately
bringing the numbers back into alignment with creditors’
expectations (Meier, 2004).
Unfortunately, Adelphia’s fraudulent accounting practices
went undetected by the company’s auditors, who failed to
ensure that the company’s financial statements accurately
reflected the company’s true financial position (Barlaup – insert
in-text citation). For instance, the funds owed the company by
the Rigas family went undisclosed in the statements, because
the management at Adelphia deemed such disclosure as being
“unnecessary” (Barlaup et al., 2009). Given that Adelphia was a
publicly traded company, the purposeful non-disclosure caused
potential investors to rely on financial records that were grossly
misleading. The inevitable result was the investors continued to
inject money into a company that had all the appearances of

3. profitability and sustained growth, but that was, in reality,
rapidly becoming insolvent. Moreover, lending institutions also
relied on the “independently-audited” financial statements, and
they were more than eager to loan the company money, given
Adelphia’s presumed state of financial “profitability.”
[Insert section heading here]
The second ethical problem in this case relates to the Rigas
family’s use of publicly-held corporate funds as a personal
“piggy bank.” The Rigases used the company jet for personal
reasons (without approval of the Board of Directors), on one
occasion flying to Africa for a safari (Markon & Frank, 2002).
On another, one of John Rigas’ sons used a corporate jet to pick
up an actress friend of his (Grant, Young, & Nuzum, 2004). The
former CFO claimed that Adelphia’s funds were used by one of
Rigas’ sons to buy a condominium, and to build a $13M golf
course (Grant et al., 2004). In another incident, the corporate jet
was used to ship a Christmas tree from
Pennsylvania to New York. The tree was not the right size, and
a second tree was jetted to the daughter – the cost of the two
trips to Adelphia shareholders was $10,000 (Stern - insert in-
text citation).
[Insert section heading here]
In duty ethics, it is the action or behavior itself that
determines whether that action or behavior is right or wrong –
and not the outcome or consequences of that action(Alexander
& Moore – insert in-text citation). For example, most would
agree that people have a duty not to steal. In duty ethics, is the
act of stealing that is deemed to be unethical – and not the
outcome or consequences that may arise because someone has
stolen something. Beyond the nature of the act itself, duty
ethics is also focused on the rights of other individuals – that is,
the rights of individuals take precedence no matter how good
the outcome may be (Alexander & Moore, 2012). For example,
while an individual has a duty not to steal from a property
owner, the property owner has a reciprocal – and inherent –
right not to be stolen from.

4. The renowned philosopher Immanuel Kant is well known
for his Categorical Imperative, which generally states that a
given act is ethical only if we can will that act to be
universally-acceptable (Johnson, 2008). In other words, if we
cannot say that we would want everyone to act or behave in a
certain way – and at all times – then that act or behavior is not
ethical. Stealing is wrong because none of us would want to live
in a world in which stealing was universally acceptable, simply
because such a world would be filled with chaos and
unpredictability (nor could anyone safely own property). For
this reason, duty ethics would consider stealing to be wrong –
because stealing is universally held to be wrong.
[Insert section heading here]
If we are to apply duty ethics to the Adelphia case, we will
find that the Rigas family acted unethically. First, Rigas had a
duty to safeguard the money invested by the company’s
shareholders. Conversely, the shareholders at Adelphia had a
right to expect that Rigas would use their money only for
purposes of running the business. Kant’s Categorical Imperative
would say Rigas’ use of company money for personal use was
unethical, simply because we would not wish to live in a world
in which company executives could freely use stockholders’
money for personal use.
Of course, had Rigas truthfully disclosed the magnitude of
the company’s debt, potential investors would have been apt to
invest their funds elsewhere. As is true of Rigas’ use of
company funds for his personal use, Rigas’ lack of disclosure
was unethical because he chose to contravene his duty to
disclose all of the company’s debt, and to hide the true value of
the company from possible investors. Immanuel Kant would say
that Rigas acted unethically because we would not want to live
in a world in which the falsification of the accounting records
of publicly-held companies was universally-held to be an
acceptable practice.
Conclusion
[Write Conclusion paragraph]

5. In summary…
References
Grant, P., Young, S., & Nuzum, C. (2004, March 2). Executives
on trial: Prosecutors say Rigases stole from Adelphia;
Founding family is accused of a long list of abuses as the fraud
case begins. Wall Street Journal, C.4. Retrieved from ProQuest.
Markon, J., & Frank, R. (2002, July 25). Adelphia officials are
arrested, charged with ‘massive’ fraud – three in the Rigas
family, two other executives held, accused of mass looting.
The Wall Street Journal, A.3. Retrieved from ProQuest.
Alexander, L., & Moore, M. (2012). Deontological ethics.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/
Stern, C. (2004, Mar 02).Fraud trial begins for Adelphia's
founding family. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
ProQuest.
Barlaup, K., Hanne, I.D., & Stuart, I. (2009). Restoring trust in
auditing: Ethical discernment and the Adelphia scandal.
Managerial Auditing Journal, 24(2), 183-203. Retrieved from
ProQuest.
Johnson, R. (2008, April 6). Kant’s moral philosophy. Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/#CatHypImp
Grant, P. (2004, May 19). Adelphia insider tells of culture of
lies at firm; Government's star witness says manipulation
of reports began soon after company went public. Wall Street
Journal, C.1. Retrieved from ProQuest.

6. Meier, B. (2004, May 05). Witness tells of dual accounting at
Adelphia. New York Times, C.4. Retrieved from ProQuest.