Enron: The Forgotten Middle

From the perspective of middle-level employees, the analysis of Enron's implosion seldom extends beyond the economic consequences of lost jobs and pensions. For students of organizations, the largely untold story is that of the forgotten middle. Mid-level managers, professionals, analysts, and traders formed the core of Enron. The culture of the organization made the undiscussability of the undiscussable also undiscussable. For middle-level personnel to carry discussion of Enron's nefarious practices beyond informal grapevine conversations would be to breach often unstated but nevertheless powerful cultural norms of the organization. The overarching empirical question remains: Which, if any, mid-level personnel (or classes of personnel) understood that Enron was built on deceptive foundations? This question matters because its answer leads to applying effective organization and societal controls on deceptive, wealth-destroying practices of publicly traded companies. Perhaps it is time to supplement legal and regulatory rules with insights from organization theory and research.