Ethical Compliance for Accountants

Ethical compliance is not a process that can be imposed on an organisation, nor should overt compliance be used as a fig leaf to cover dysfunctional acts. Instead, ethical compliance should be incorporated into the culture of an organisation. 
Senior management must set the tone and lead by example. What is expected of employees must be clearly expressed and the messages reinforced. Employees must be allowed to contribute to the development and monitoring of ethical compliance and managers must institute mechanisms to enable them to do so.

This course allows learners to work through activities, share their learning with peers, and gain the knowledge and skills that will enable them to incorporate ethical compliance in their working lives.

Ethical Compliance enables the learner to:

• Understand their organisational climate
• Gain an understanding of how ethical behaviour affects business objectives
• Identify the indicators of unethical behaviour
• Understand how to report on ethical compliance
• Know how to deal with whistleblowers
• Understand the role of internal audits and management reviews

Corporate culture
• What is dysfunctional behaviour?
• What is corporate culture?
• How can we analyse corporate culture?
• What are subcultures?
• What are countercultures?
• What is organisational climate?
• How is internal behaviour affected by external factors?

Ethical behaviour
• How does ethical behaviour affect business objectives?
• What is a corporate citizen?
• What is tone at the top?
• What makes good people go bad?
• Are there indicators of unethical behaviour?

Managing ethical compliance
• What is management’s role in preventing unethical behaviour?
• What is the role of HR?
• What should our company policies cover?
• How do we know what’s really going on?
• Can a boss get to know their people?
• How should reporting take place?
• What is “back to basics”?
• How should we deal with whistleblowers?
• How can we deal with subcultures in remote locations?

Auditing ethical compliance
• How can we audit ethical compliance?
• How can we gather evidence?
• What is the role of internal audit and management review?
• What are the external perceptions of the organisation?

This course is designed to appeal to people working in the accounting and finance industry at all levels.

John Taylor specialises in teaching auditing on ACCA professional courses and Forensic Accounting at Masters Level at Leeds Metropolitan University. He is a Chartered Accountant who spent many years advising small and medium sized businesses across the North of England.