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Thought Leadership, Research & CPA Spotlights

5 Courses for CPAs to Improve Ethical Decision-Making

Professional ethics is one of the key values of the accounting profession. Ethical decision-making must be embedded in the choices and behaviours of CPAs, but at times, external pressures and lack of understanding can hinder making the right choice. That’s why we offer tools, insights and frameworks through our professional development offerings to help you become confident and knowledgeable in your decisions.

We’ve curated five of our on demand ethics courses that will help you build professional competence, examine your biases, identify unethical behaviour and promote good practices. Come away with practical learnings that will make a positive difference in your workplace.

Man with beard looking at glass wall with writing and post-it notes

Behavioural Ethics: Decision-making Biases and Heuristics

Learn from Tom Hardin, aka “Tipper X”, one of the most prolific informants in securities fraud history who worked undercover with the FBI to dismantle one of the largest insider trading rings in Wall Street history. This course uses examples from the accounting and audit profession and focuses on behavioural ethics, which draws on psychology, cognitive science, evolutionary biology and related disciplines to determine how and why people make ethical and unethical decisions.

Professional Ethics: A Theranos Story

The infamous story of Theranos is examined in-depth in this course from the perspective of ethical decision-making and organizational culture using the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants’ five fundamental principles of ethics as the framework. This case study shows what can go wrong if our fundamental principles of ethics are threatened by low psychological safety and a toxic organizational culture.

Ethics for Accountants

The course will explore the most frequently broken rules in CPA Ontario’s Code of Conduct that account for 90 per cent of all disciplinary cases. Participants examine disciplinary cases in detail, including the sanctions imposed in each case and reviewing the oversight and disciplinary process.

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