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This study explores how Canadian CPAs (Chartered Professional Accountants) are trained in sustainability. The main research questions are: What place should sustainability take in the accounting program? What place does sustainability occupy in the CPA accounting program? And, over time, has sustainability gained or lost ground within the Canadian professional accounting education program?

Content analysis and interviews.

We find that sustainability is not a key component of the CPA education program since its sustainability content has shrunk over the years. We believe that the groupthink phenomenon may have influenced the selection of CPA Competency Map participants (whose backgrounds reveal a lack of sustainability expertise) as well as the participants’ discussions. Additionally, a lack of consideration for society as a key stakeholder may have also influenced the shortage of sustainability content. Finally, power dynamics might have contributed to the financial accounting and reporting competencies dominating the new map.

We did not have access to the live meetings when the Map was created, although we conducted interviews with representatives involved in the process. This research is bound by a confidentiality agreement that limits us from providing sensitive details. However, we do not consider that these limitations undermine our contribution or reduce the relevance of our research.

Our research contributes to the under-researched domain of sustainability education and to understanding how groupthink, stakeholder theory and power dynamics may have contributed to the dearth of sustainability coverage in the new Canadian CPA program.

Despite the accounting profession having a long history of promoting ethical behaviour globally, with a robust Code of Ethics and formal International Education Standards which include training in professional values, ethics, and attitudes, the accounting profession still regularly features as the lead villain in many corporate failures. Training in ethics has been a core topic in Australian accounting undergraduate degrees now for many years, but the responsibility for teaching ethics still largely falls on faculty from within the business and accounting schools. Although these academics have a strong moral compass and know right from wrong, most do not have ethics-related research experience or professional ethics training. When ethics is taught by academics with little or no formal philosophical ethics training, our students will continue to have limited opportunities to cultivate and deeply internalise the professional values, ethics, and attitudes required of professional accountants in a multicultural world before embarking on their careers.

This study explores auditors’ professional attitudes and behaviours. It tests the influence of public interest commitment, independence enforcement beliefs and organisational ethical culture on auditors’ acceptance of and engagement in practices that compromise their objectivity. The study is based on survey responses of 122 Spanish auditors. To analyse the combined effect of the variables under study, variance-based structural equation modelling (partial least squares, PLS) was employed. The results suggest that the regulatory efforts to improve auditors’ behaviours by enforcing independence rules have been internalised by auditors. The results also reinforce the need to instil the societal responsibilities of professional auditors, since auditors’ public interest commitment is related to their ethical decision making. Furthermore, this study reveals that firms’ ethical cultures influence auditors’ commitment to the public interest, as well as their ethical decision making. The study raises practical implications for auditing professionals, regulators and audit firms. Understanding auditors’ beliefs and behavioural patterns is critical to proposing mechanisms that enhance their ethical behaviours, which could ultimately enhance audit quality. The chapter contributes to the field by analysing the combined effect of the regulatory framework and organisational context on auditors’ professional values and behaviours.