Accountants perform a wide variety of activities which include, but are not limited to, accounting, auditing, tax, management consulting, and financial management. However, a professional accountant’s responsibility is not exclusively to satisfy the needs of an employer or professional services client.  One of the distinguishing characteristics of the accounting profession is its acceptance of the responsibility to act in the public interest.
Offered By
Professional Responsibility and Ethics for Accountants
University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignAbout this Course
Offered by
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a world leader in research, teaching and public engagement, distinguished by the breadth of its programs, broad academic excellence, and internationally renowned faculty and alumni. Illinois serves the world by creating knowledge, preparing students for lives of impact, and finding solutions to critical societal needs.
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Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
About the Course
In this module, you will become familiar with the course, your instructor and your classmates, and our learning environment. This orientation will also help you obtain the technical skills required to navigate and be successful in this course.
Module 1 Foundations: Professional, Professions, Professional Responsibility
This module is an introduction to and exploration of three concepts: professional, professions and professional responsibility. It begins with reflections on what it means to be professional. These are followed by a discussion of why being professional is not always sufficient. The discussion introduces what a CPA is and why professions exist. The three characteristics of a profession are identified. Next, the concept of professional responsibility is introduced, followed by a discussion of the three parts of professional responsibility: identity, standards and judgment. The module concludes with a professional association website exploration exercise. The exploration introduces resources central to professional responsibility in accounting. The website exploration exercise also introduces the requirements for obtaining and maintaining CPA licensure and the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct.
Module 2 Foundations Part II: Values and Ethics
This module is an introduction to values and ethics. The module begins with reflections on values and how they can be revealed by the objects we choose to keep and what actions we choose to take. The reflections are followed by discussion of what values and norms are and the distinction between them. Next, the process of learning values and norms is described, followed by a brief discussion of why values may be influenced and changed throughout life. Then, a brief description of how most decisions about what is right and wrong are made provides the basis for understanding why it is important to build ethical capacity.
Module 3 Debate: The Purpose of Business
This module introduces the debate over what the purpose of business is. The module begins with discussion of legal liability in the three basic legal forms of business: sole proprietorship, partnership and corporation. Clips from interviews with three small business owners illustrate the work ethic they bring to managing their businesses. Next, the development of capitalism is contextualized as a response to mercantilism, the Western European economic system that was dominant when Adam Smith was his two most influential treatises. The discussion draws attention to the ethical roots of capitalism; the centrality of personal autonomy and the compassionate connotations of self-interest. More interview clips illustrate that the concerns of the three small business owners go well beyond merely earning a profit.
Module 4 Corporate Governance: Laws, Regulators, Boards of Directors, Codes of Ethics, Ethical Culture
Business generates wealth and prosperity, but hyper-norm beliefs about fairness and theories of distributive justice significantly affect how wealth is distributed throughout society. Corporate governance is the system (of rules, practices, policies, institutions and laws) that directs and controls business. Corporate governance also is one of the key mechanisms through which society determines how wealth and prosperity is distributed. This module introduces corporate governance elements that are external (laws and regulatory agencies) and internal (boards of directors, ethics and compliance programs and organizational culture) to a corporation.
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TOP REVIEWS FROM PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS FOR ACCOUNTANTS
The COURSERA is very useful and knowledge improvement of the everyday is leaning for new and I like the course
This is class is really informative and I loved the professor. Gies is an excellent business school! Thank you.
Applies the Big Idea and related course principles, theories or concepts well, incorporates case facts and provides sufficient supporting evidence for the recommendation.
i really enjoy this course but something is wrong i verified my ID and to date i have not receive my certified
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