Recommendations

According to the case study, it can be seen that Nissan was on the verge of bankruptcy
during the financial crisis. However, Renault bailed them out by installing Carlos Ghosn as
the CEO of Nissan. Despite the achievements and some ethical implications, he was caught
for financial fraud and scandal due to his misconduct as Nissan’s CEO. However, such a
devastating issue can be avoided if Carlos Ghosn takes the rule-based accounting standards
seriously. During his act, he utilized an unethical aspect of accounting. The main reason is
that an unethical management accounting could, in principle, steal money or control
information such that he could benefit from it. The subsequent reason is an unprincipled
management accounting who couldn’t care less about the exactness of the information. For
example, Carlos gave management erroneous monetary information that will probably
prompt Carlos to settle on terrible choices with severe consequences for partners, workers
and the economy, most often at the local level. Hence, that avoids mentioning the
justifications for why Carlos should be ethical in management accounting, which is why
Carlos should consider the rules of accounting where every transaction must be recorded.

Businesses that don’t record transactions or incorrectly record transactions are

submitting fraud. Plus, every recorded transaction should be caught in a log called the general
book that separates between personal, real and nominal (Toma & Marinescu, 2013). Carlos
needs to emphasize the general rule of accounting before making decisions on behalf of the
company instead. Nissan’s ethical accounting department is vital because it handles all the
financial inflows and outflows. Because Nissan is such a primary company in the automotive
industry, everyone would be keen on knowing where the company is moving its money.
Therefore, Carlos should emphasize the management accounting standards and all
subordinates operate in posts of trust.

With what Carlos had been portrayed in the company, it can be seen that such an
unethical leadership has guided inappropriate behaviour in his position as the CEO. To
prevent it from happening again, Nissan must create company policies and rules that outline
expectations clearly and understandably for employees and stakeholders to be ethical as a
representative of the business. Carlos must create visions and understand the importance of
maintaining and indoctrinating values in the company to achieve the goals as a whole, not for
personal benefit. The only way is to have the legitimacy to follow the directions. Once the
stakeholders and employees lose the moral values, they can’t trust an unethical leader like

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Carlos that people should truly think for the company’s greater good. Carlos must serve
others and be completely selfless (Jean, 2004).

Another suggestion to avoid unethical scandal opposed towards Carlos in the

company is to hire auditor independence to protect the public and personal interests. This is
because there was no action been taken from the accounting department or even Carlos
during the occurrence to fix the situation. Instead, they remained silent. Theoretically, if
unethical issues happen, the issue must be fixed right away instead of waiting for the public
to act by putting charges on the company. Hence, Nissan should consider hiring auditor
independence to investigate the issue thoroughly. Even in any company, having an auditor is
essential as it is an independent examination of financial statements to express an opinion on
a true and fair basis (Millikin & Fu, 2005). Besides, implementing it refers to an unbiased act
about its actual status. Meaning here, no means is connected to the entity and that the
auditor’s judgment is completely unbiased. Thereby creating a stable and transparent
accounting ecosystem (Gill, 2012). The unethical act that Nissan did was remain silent. Even
if they took action, no external parties could lead Nissan out of the chaos and more internal
interferences were made to address the issue, which is not convincing from the public’s point
of view.

Conclusion

It can be seen that ethics play a significant part in every organization regardless of
which industry the businesses are emerging into. It is indeed the relationship between a
company and its clients, business partners, employees and rivals. The issues that the case
study indicated can be avoided if an implementation of ethical leadership and behaviour is
being used in the company as a reference point. This is the only correct, although not always
observed, direction for achieving financial and professional success. Carlos’s fraud and
financial misconduct issues are literally a definition of a selfish leader despite his
contributions in saving Nissan from bankruptcy. Although leaders have ways of saving and
leading the company, it doesn’t mean being ethical in every decision-making cannot be
achieved and vital. This is why a total reshuffle in management is needed for Nissan to
bounce back and prevent unethical issues in the future. The mentioned recommendations are
useful for any company.

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References

Gill, C. (2012). The role of leadership in successful international mergers and acquisitions:
Why Renault-Nissan succeeded and DaimlerChrysler-Mitsubishi failed. Human
Resource Management, 51(3), 433–456. https://doi.org/10.1002/HRM.21475
Millikin, J. P., & Fu, D. (2005). The global leadership of Carlos Ghosn at Nissan.
Thunderbird International Business Review, 47(1), 121–137.
https://doi.org/10.1002/TIE.20043
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Toma, S.-G., & Marinescu, P. (2013). Global Strategy: The Case of Nissan Motor Company.
Procedia Economics and Finance, 6, 418–423. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2212-
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