Professional Ethics: Psychological Safety and Transformative Technology

Overview:

Ethics is the cornerstone of the CPA profession. It’s vital in the everyday that CPAs understand how creating an ethical environment lends itself to creating a psychologically safe environment while ensuring that new technologies can enhance professional judgement and critical thinking skills.

 This E-Learning course includes:

-        Professional Ethics – Improving Psychological Safety

-        Professional Ethics and Transformative Technology

Psychological safety is a belief that you are free to share your thoughts and not be punished for speaking your mind.  It is an important area of research in the field of organizational behaviour.  Current research has shown that organizations and teams with higher psychological safety are more productive, creative, and happier. Teams and organizations that have higher psychological safety make better ethical decisions. However, current research also shows that psychological safety is fragile within organizations and teams. Critical events such as new leadership, organizational strategy changes, and external situations (such as a pandemic) can adversely affect an organization's psychological safety. 

The first course “Professional Ethics – Improving Psychological Safety” will examine current research to better understand psychological safety for organizations and teams. We will then introduce ways to assess and improve psychological safety for both organizations and teams.

The second course “Professional Ethics and Transformative Technology” introduces the transformative technologies of Big Data, AI and Blockchain often referred to as the Big 3 and their effect on our day-to-day lives. Today, we are beginning to feel the impacts of the Big 3 transformative technologies within our society. They have the potential to help in our day-to-day lives. However, there are significant ethical implications to using these technologies for privacy, professional judgement, critical thinking and environment, social and corporate governance (ESG)The ethical implications of these technologies.

This course will both introduce these transformative technologies and help participants understand the ethical implications of using these technologies.

Course Content:

You will gain knowledge about the following topics:  

·        What is psychological safety

·        Psychological safety, ethics, and decision-making

·        Benefits of improving psychological safety in the workplace

·        Case Study - Cyberpunk 2077

·        Interview with Megan Tong

·        Psychological safety: assessment

·        Improving psychological safety in the workplace

·        Improving psychological safety in virtual meetings

·        Communication and conclusion

·        Defining transformative technologies

·        Explaining the Big 3 transformative technologies: big data, AI and Blockchain

·        Implication of the Big 3 transformative technologies in relation to privacy, professional judgement, and ESG

·        Safeguards for the ethical implications of the Big 3 

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

·        Understand what is meant by the term psychological safety

·        Understand the importance of psychological safety to decision-making and ethics

·        Identify the benefits of improving psychological safety within teams and organizations

·        Explore examples of organizations with both high and low psychological safety

·        Define the three transformative technologies discussed in the course to point out the ethical implications of each technology

·        Identify at least three ethical implications for each technology

·        Develop safeguards for at least three ethical implications for each technology

Who Will Benefit: 

This E-Learning course will benefit organizations and individuals looking to increase team productivity, creativity, and ethical decision-making by improving psychological safety and those who are interested in exploring and understanding the ethical implications of three transformative technologies: big data, artificial intelligence and Blockchain.