Enron financial staff who structured the financial
mechanisms and financial statements and the Arthur
Andersen auditors who certified Enron’s financial
statements appear to have operated under a cloak of
moral self-deception (Arbinger, 2000) while consistently
maintaining the position that their actions
did not constitute the ‘‘material departure from
accounting pronouncements’’ that FASB declared to
be specifically prohibited (McLean and Elkind,
2003). As McLean and Elkind (2003, p. 142) noted
in their explanation of the Enron machinations,
Enron’s financial staff had hired former FASB staff
who had written the accounting rules in ‘‘gaming
the system.’’ McLean and Elkind (2003, p. 142)
explain the Enron manipulated the process in subverting
FASB rules and Generally Accepted
Accounting Principles (GAAP):