ThinkTWENTY20

In these times of rapid change, organizations and individuals need competent, trusted professionals to rely on, and the accountancy profession is transforming to continue to meet this need. This transformation requires a shift in mindset, according to a new paper on ethics and the profession developed by the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada (CPA Canada), the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). 

“In today’s world more than ever, mindset matters,” the paper states. “Ethical leadership is at the heart of the profession’s ability to drive trust and create value and at the core of ethical leadership is the appropriate application of professional competence, skills, values, ethics and attitudes.”

The publication Mindset and enabling skills of professional accountants – a competence paradigm shift outlines the need for the profession to fundamentally shift its focus to stay relevant and thrive as the world changes. It emphasizes that the profession’s evolution will be based on professional accountants building broad technology literacy, while also honing their professional and human skills that set them apart from the machines they will work collaboratively with, rather than solely emphasizing the core traditional technical areas of the accounting profession.

Mindset and enabling skills of professional accountants: A competence paradigm shift completes the series of papers on trust and ethics. “As stewards of trust in the digital age, CPAs’ technical competence will remain essential – albeit concentrated in new areas. At the same time, this paper makes the case that the accounting profession’s evolution should include broad technological literacy and finely-tuned professional and human skills. While this shift is underway in some organizations and jurisdictions, significant opportunities remain throughout the profession as a whole.”

Mindset and enabling skills of professional accountants – a competence paradigm shift completes a four-part thought leadership series stemming from a collaborative exploratory paper and global roundtable event called Ethical Leadership in an Era of Complexity and Digital Change, which CPA Canada, ICAS and IFAC jointly hosted early in 2021.  It follows three earlier publications - Complexity and the professional accountant: Practical guidance for ethical decision-making, Technology is a double-edged sword: Opportunities and challenges for the accountancy profession and Identifying and mitigating bias and mis- and disinformation.

Download the paper at Mindset and enabling skills of professional accountants (Paper 4) (cpacanada.ca).