Canadian Business Ethics

Overview:

 This course provides a detailed walkthrough of business ethics in the Canadian context. It contextualizes challenging ethical issues that CPAs and their organizations are facing across the country. Keeping the Rules of Professional Conduct in mind, it provides detailed step-by-step guidance on how to deal with unethical situations as an individual and as a business. This course will also discuss ways to promote and enforce ethical behavior in the workplace. Case studies are used to contextualize theoretical concepts and frameworks so that all CPAs feel confident tackling tough situations and cultivating ethical workplace environments.

Note that this course is a consolidation of other one-hour ethics courses, and therefore includes content also covered in Dealing with Unethical Situations in the Workplace, Preventing Unethical Behaviour in the Workplace, and the CPA Alberta Rules of Professional Conduct with Guidance.

Course Content:

In this course you will gain knowledge about the following topics:

·         Return on investment of ethical behavior

·         Role of the professional accountant in a capitalistic society

·         Ethical issues in the accounting profession

·         Structure and contents of Rules of Professional Conduct

·         Ethical decision-making framework

·         Pitfalls of complex decision-making with ethical considerations

·         Case studies

·         Threats to ethical behavior

·         Ethics risk analysis

·         High-risk behaviors and danger phrases

·         Accounting-specific and organization-wide ethical safeguards

·         Corporate culture, tone at the top, and ethical leadership

Learning Objectives:

 Upon completing this course, you should be able to:

·         Identify the returns on investment from ethical business practices

·         Describe the types of ethical situations faced by professional accountants

·         Apply a step-by-step framework to navigate ethical dilemmas

·         Apply a step-by-step framework to make complex business decisions with ethical considerations

·         Assess case studies and apply frameworks to identify the best possible course of action

·         Identify high-risk behaviors of employees that may indicate underlying ethical issues

·         Identify indicators of widespread ethical misconduct in an organization

·         Assess an organization’s strengths and weaknesses using an ethics risk analysis

·         Describe how to implement accounting-specific and organization-wide safeguards

·         Examine the structure, contents, and enforcement of the Rules of Professional Conduct

·         Describe the type of corporate culture, tone at the top, and leadership required to instill ethical values and business practices into the workplace

Who Will Benefit: 

 This course is designed for all CPAs who are looking to add to their knowledge of business ethics and receive guidance on how to deal with unethical decisions.