Corporate villains: taking the bore out of law

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to describe the implementation of a storytelling teaching method in a company law course for accounting students and to evaluate its influence on engagement and effective learning. Design/methodology/approach - The learning activity, known as “corporate villains”, is based on theories of storytelling and engagement. Selected qualitative and quantitative data from university course and teaching evaluation surveys were used to assess the achievement of objectives and identify learning outcomes. Findings - The corporate villains learning activity engaged students at the beginning of the lecture and influenced student learning by demonstrating the relevance, or “real life” application, of company law to accounting students. Corporate villains also stimulated curiosity in learning more about the law which is characteristic of students pursuing a deep approach to learning. Originality/value - The study extends the research on storytelling in accounting and legal education and supports empirical evidence as to the positive impact of storytelling on student engagement in learning. In particular, the study reveals the potential for corporate villains to address various academic and student concerns about company law by humanising the law and enabling students to connect the legal concepts to the story and to the curriculum.