Abstract:

Sometimes the study of unethical behaviors has been analyzed from business cases that include codes of professional ethics, magazines and newspaper articles (Mintz, 1990). Often, cases do not exactly adapt to reality or even do not include important information for the resolution.

This paper attempts to address this gap through the information given in judicial decisions on economic and corporate corruption, whose methodology is based on proven facts. Between 2013 and 2014 more than 4000 sentences have been published on the database from the Judiciary Court in Spain, gathered in different sections such as; illegal enrichment of the company, use of public information for private purposes, labor exploitation, balances manipulation, strategies and capital tax evasion, falsehoods and documentaries taxes, unfair competition. Although unethical behavior is not limited only to crimes, it can be said that any offense has been produced by a previous unethical behavior resulting in a guilty criminal attitude.

The study begins analyzing a random sample of 100 sentences and thereafter proposes a methodology for studying unethical behaviors. It is aimed at university students in the business, finance and economics areas, and also belongs to the second Teaching Innovation Plan approved by the University of Extremadura at 2014 where 15 teachers and 486 students from three different areas mentioned before have been involved.

Keywords:

Judiciary Court, Business cases, Teaching Innovation Plan, Unethical behavior, Methodology.