METHODOLOGICAL PROPOSAL FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE TEACHING OF THE “ETHICAL COMMITMENT” COMPETENCE IN UNIVERSITY, IN THE AREA OF ECONOMY AND ENTERPRISE ADMINISTRATION

In the current economic crisis, companies demand technically trained professionals, to whom entrust decision and execution, for purposes of efficiency and effectiveness. That confidence in future professionals who are currently being formed at the University requires the implementation of methodologies and readings of the problems generated by the actual environment they will face in a few years.

The Bologna Declaration in 1999 states that "the Europe of Knowledge is now widely recognized as an irreplaceable factor for social and human growth ... able to give an awareness of shared values and belonging to a common social and cultural space."

In the context of Spanish higher education, the Organic Law 4/2007, of April 12, by amending the Organic Law 6/2001, of 21 December, on Universities in the Explanatory Memorandum I, states that "Spanish society needs ... better qualified teachers to train students who will take in the immediate future the increasingly complex professional and social responsibilities."

This complexity not only occurs due to the difficult socioeconomic circumstances which reduce and delay the arrival of the new college graduates to the labour market, but rather to issues that go beyond the mere technical application of the knowledge acquired at university.

Those situations result in a broad range of cases and behaviors in the professional field that violate the university ethics damaging the "social and human growth" mentioned in the Bologna Declaration of 1999.

Repeatedly the media bring to light these facts with presumption of guilt of the people involved in unethical behavior such as; fraudulent enrichment in the company, use of public information for private use, labor exploitation, manipulation of balance sheets, biased economic information and strategic tax evasion.

To structure a methodology of study we will start from the weakness, in the news published in the media which warn against possible criminal acts coming from unethical behavior which coexisting behind the abusive economic event.

Thus the absence of a standardized process of analysis in the study of these cases makes it an unreliable tool in order to retrieve practical consequences adjusted to business reality.

In search of true events sanctioned by a professional body we have gone to the Supreme Judicial Council.
Thus, we started from the information contained in the database of the judiciary and it said that the information obtained in the sentences published in the last two years, 2011 and 2012. From here we calculated the number of those that reproduce each of the descriptors of unethical behavior outlined above.

The long list of statement of condemnation in our country in the past two years becomes a reference and an object of study of the practical consequences of unethical behavior in the workplace and in the practice of professionalism.

In order to do this we analyzed 100 teachers of the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Extremadura and Seville. The sample was stratified by departments: Applied Economics, Financial Economics, Management and Sociology.

This paper moves away from any formulation (eminently vertical) which stands for the incorporation of ethics-related courses. It rather calls (from a mainstreaming approach cross competencies) the introduction of an ethical vision of each and every one of the subjects in the syllabus in the matters related to the economy and business.