7.1 IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice

The Statement's Two Layers

The IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice governs every IMA member and CMA candidate. It has two layers. The first is a short set of overarching principles; the second is four detailed standards with specific responsibilities. Part 2 dedicates 15% of the exam to ethics, and almost every question turns on identifying which layer — and which specific standard — applies to a scenario.

Why does ethics carry such weight on a strategic financial management exam? Because management accountants sit at the intersection of data and decisions. They prepare the reports executives, lenders, and boards rely on, so their objectivity directly protects stakeholders. The IMA treats a failure to apply the standards as misconduct, and a member who ignores the Statement can be disciplined and can ultimately lose the CMA credential.

The Four Overarching Principles

IMA members commit to honesty, fairness, objectivity, and responsibility. These are aspirational values that frame the more concrete standards below. A useful way to remember the relationship: the principles tell you who to be, while the standards tell you what to do. The principles also fill gaps — when no specific standard squarely fits a novel situation, a member is still expected to act with honesty, fairness, objectivity, and responsibility.

The Four Standards (C-C-I-C)

Memorize the order with the mnemonic C-C-I-C: Competence, Confidentiality, Integrity, Credibility. Each standard carries explicit responsibilities.

Competence

Members must:

• Maintain an appropriate level of professional expertise by continually developing knowledge and skills.
• Perform duties in accordance with relevant laws, regulations, and technical standards.
• Provide decision support and recommendations that are accurate, clear, concise, and timely.
• Recognize and help manage risk.

A scenario where an accountant lacks current knowledge of a new tax rule, or issues a sloppy and late analysis, is a Competence issue — not honesty. Competence is the only standard with a clear continuing-education flavor: failing to keep skills current is itself a breach, which is why CMAs must complete annual continuing professional education (CPE).

Confidentiality

Members must:

• Keep information confidential except when disclosure is authorized or legally required.
• Inform all relevant parties about the proper use of confidential information and monitor subordinates' activities to ensure compliance.
• Refrain from using confidential information for unethical or illegal advantage (for example, trading on or leaking nonpublic data).

The trap: confidentiality is not absolute. If a law or court order requires disclosure, releasing the information is permitted — failing to do so is not a confidentiality virtue.

Integrity

Members must:

• Mitigate actual conflicts of interest and regularly communicate with business associates to avoid apparent conflicts; advise parties of any potential conflict.
• Refrain from any conduct that would prejudice carrying out duties ethically.
• Abstain from activities that might discredit the profession.

Integrity is broader than bribery. Accepting a gift from a vendor you also evaluate, or moonlighting for a competitor, is an Integrity violation even if no one is deceived.

Credibility

Members must:

• Communicate information fairly and objectively.
• Disclose all relevant information that could reasonably influence an intended user's understanding of reports, analyses, or recommendations.
• Disclose delays or deficiencies in information, timeliness, processing, or internal controls in conformance with organization policy and applicable law.

Credibility is the standard most often missed. If a controller hides a known internal-control weakness, omits a material footnote, or presents only the data that supports a favored conclusion, that is a Credibility failure — full and fair disclosure was withheld.

How the Exam Tests Violations

Most ethics MCQs are classification questions: a short vignette describes a management accountant's action, and you choose the standard most directly violated. Read for the core defect.

• Leaking a pending merger to a friend → Confidentiality.
• Signing off on a report without the skills to verify it → Competence.
• Approving a contract with a firm owned by your spouse without disclosure → Integrity.
• Burying an unfavorable variance to make results look better → Credibility.

A frequent distractor pairs two plausible standards. When deceiving the reader of a report through omission, choose Credibility; when the problem is a personal relationship or benefit, choose Integrity. Essays may ask you to name the standard and the resolution steps, so quote the standard's language precisely.

Drawing the Competence–Credibility Line

Candidates also confuse Competence with Credibility. The test: ask whether the accountant could not do the work properly (a skill or currency gap → Competence) or would not report honestly (a disclosure choice → Credibility). An analyst who genuinely did not know a new lease standard fails Competence; one who knew the correct treatment but reported the favorable version fails Credibility. Confidentiality, by contrast, is almost always signaled by the movement of information outside its authorized boundary — leaking, selling, or self-dealing on nonpublic data.