CIA-1 - Ethics and Professionalism (20% of the exam) - Section B.1
Demonstrate integrity, including applying honesty and professional courage when confronted with ethical dilemmas and practising legal and professional behaviour in all situations.
Apply integrity as the first principle of the internal auditor's ethics: act with honesty, exercise professional courage to raise difficult findings, and behave legally and professionally regardless of pressure. Recognise that integrity underpins the trust stakeholders place in the function's work and cannot be traded away for expediency or a comfortable relationship with the auditee.
IntegrityEthical dilemmaProfessional courage
Practice question for this objective
lock_openFree sampleEthics and Professionalismeasy
A newly qualified internal auditor is asked which idea sits at the heart of the IIA Code of Ethics principle of integrity. Which statement best captures that principle?
AIt requires the auditor to maintain an unbiased mental attitude and to avoid any conflict of interest that could sway a professional judgement.
BIt requires the auditor to safeguard the information gathered during an engagement and to withhold it from anyone who lacks proper authority to receive it.
CIt requires the auditor to apply the knowledge, skills, and experience that the assigned engagement genuinely demands to a suitable professional standard.
DIt requires the auditor to be honest, to show professional courage, and to behave lawfully and professionally, which establishes trust in the auditor's judgement.check_circle Correct
Integrity is the Code of Ethics principle of honesty, professional courage, and lawful conduct that establishes trust in the auditor. In the IIA Code of Ethics, integrity requires auditors to be honest, to act with professional courage, and to conduct themselves lawfully and professionally; this conduct builds the trust that lets stakeholders rely on their work, which is distinct from objectivity, confidentiality, and competency.
Why A is wrong: This is tempting because it sounds like a core ethical duty, but an unbiased mental attitude and avoiding conflicts describe objectivity, not integrity, so it labels the wrong principle.
Why B is wrong: Safeguarding engagement information and controlling its disclosure describes the confidentiality principle, so a candidate who picks this has confused confidentiality with integrity.
Why C is wrong: Applying the knowledge, skills, and experience the work needs describes the competency principle, so this reading mislabels competency as integrity and is incorrect.
Why D is correct: Integrity is built on honesty, professional courage, and lawful and professional conduct, and this trust is the basis on which stakeholders rely on the auditor's judgement.
Answers that look right on this material and are not. Each one is a distractor from a different question in the CIA-1 bank for this domain.
Professional courage is the diligence a prudent auditor applies to the work, while due professional care is the willingness to raise an uncomfortable finding despite pressure.
errorWhy it is wrong: This reverses the two ideas, because diligence describes due professional care and the willingness to raise hard findings describes professional courage, so the labels are swapped.
Objectivity, which turns on maintaining an unbiased mental attitude and avoiding the conflicts of interest that could distort a professional judgement.
errorWhy it is wrong: Objectivity concerns freedom from bias rather than the courage to speak up, so attaching professional courage to objectivity confuses two separate principles.
Omit the breach from the working papers so no record exists that could later be used against the auditor, while quietly monitoring whether operations corrects the problem on its own.
errorWhy it is wrong: Self-protection is understandable, but destroying the record of a real breach is dishonest and abandons the professional courage integrity demands.