The corporate performance has been affected by various ethical factors such as an ethical leadership, ethical culture, and a shared commitment of the management and employees to the core values of the corporation. The collapse of Enron Corporation in 2001 or the Volkswagen emission scandal in 2015 show that an unethical behavior or a lack of ethics can do significant harm to a corporation. However, the outcome of recent corporate ethics scandals is different from that of the accounting scandals of the early 2000’s. For example, Volkswagen has recovered from the damage caused by the emission scandal, but Enron, WorldCom, and others declared bankruptcy after their unethical accounting practices. The purpose of this study is to examine contemporary corporate ethics scandals such as Toshiba in Japan and Volkswagen in Germany and analyze how these scandals have affected the corporate performance of Toshiba and Volkswagen. In addition, this study also goes further by exploring the recovery process of these respected corporations.