Educating Professionals: Ethics and Judgment in a Changing Learning Environment

According to Gordon Beal, Vice President of the Research, Guidance & Support Department at CPA Canada: “Ethics and professional judgment are key attributes that distinguish professionals from others.” With this in mind, “The profession continues to refine the framework for the new single, unified designation and business credential and define the criteria for the qualities required to be recognized as a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA). The challenge is to effectively embed, in the fabric of every professional accountant’s decision-making process, the essential principles of ethics and foster their ability to apply professional judgment while balancing this with the task of acquiring the ever-increasing technical knowledge.”

As previously reported, CPA Canada partnered with the University of Toronto in March 2014 to create a forum for exploring best practices with respect to teaching the principles of ethics and professional judgment. As the need for these skills is common to all professions, a one-day Educating Professionals Symposium was organized which included participation of five professions: education, health care, engineering, law and accounting. Leading academics from the identified professions were asked to prepare thought papers prior to the symposium. The dialogue that ensued on the day highlighted similarities, differences and opportunities. It was the beginning of new conversations across the professions.

The Educating Professionals: Ethics and Judgment in a Changing Learning Environment project is a joint initiative between the Chartered Professional Accountants and University of Toronto. Its objective is to explore possible strategies to effectively refine the approaches to teaching ethics and professional judgment in a changing learning environment.

Educating Professionals: Ethics and Judgment in a Changing Learning Environment

There is a general consensus that it has never been more important for the accounting profession and accounting and business educators to work together to determine how best to prepare tomorrow’s accountants.

In November 2010, the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) partnered with the University of Toronto to respond to this challenge. The result was Leveraging Change – The New Pillars of Accounting Education, a one-day symposium during which leading academics from Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom explored the new pillars of accounting education, along with 100 delegates from across the country.

The five new pillars were identified for the symposium as: (1) accounting principles and concepts; (2) ethical decision-making; (3) professional and personal attributes; (4) professional judgment; and (5) integration. The objective of that symposium was to begin the process of re-thinking accounting education by articulating the questions that accounting educators need to ask.

In March 2014, the University of Toronto  hosted a follow-up symposium which was jointly sponsored by the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada), the Institute for Management & Innovation (IMI) and the CPA/Rotman Centre for Innovation in Accounting Education. The symposium provided an opportunity to discuss the issues across several professions including Health Care, Engineering, Law, Education and Accounting.

Fundamental questions that were discussed at the symposium included: How do the various professions define professional judgment? How do the concepts of ethics and judgment pertain to different professions? How can educators help students develop these very important abilities? How does the changing educational environment offer new opportunities for enhanced learning in these areas?

The conference was chaired by Irene Wiecek and included speakers from across Canada. For each profession, at least two perspectives were presented – the academic perspective and the practitioner perspective. Those who attended the symposium worked in groups to encourage reflective discussion. From the perspective of the Accounting Profession, a presentation was given on “Educating Accounting Professionals About Ethics and Judgment.” For more information, contact Efrim Boritz (Professor; Assurance, Information Systems) and Krista Fiolleau (Assistant Professor; Assurance, Ethics) at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada.

Centre for Accounting Ethics: 2013 Symposium on “Tone at the Top”

The Centre for Accounting Ethics at the University of Waterloo was established in 1991 through a grant from the Auditing and Accounting Development Fund. In supporting projects designed to enhance the teaching of ethics to accounting students and the research of ethical issues in accounting, the Centre aims to help prepare future accountants and financial managers to exercise professional judgment within an ethical framework and to promote high ethical standards.

The Centre has announced its first biennial Symposium to be held on April 18–20, 2013 in Toronto, Canada. The theme is Accounting Ethics and Tone at the Top. Papers are invited from academe and practice addressing this theme. Possible questions include the role of boards of directors in shaping ethics policy, the audit committee’s oversight role in setting the ethical environment of an organization, the intersection of risk management, control systems and ethical practices and its impact on tone at the top. The papers from this Symposium will be considered for a Special Issue of the Journal of Business Ethics. Submission deadline is January 15, 2013. For more information, see the Call for papers and register online.

Additional resources are available at the Centre, including Members of the Centre, Ethics Teaching Cases, Published Articles,  Ethics Links and an Ethics Bibliography which can be searched by 59 subjects, such as “Ethical/Professional Values,” “Integrity” and “Professional Judgment.”