This module is designed to build on the 1st Year module ‘Managing financial Resources’ and the 2nd Year Module ‘Accounting, Management and Accountability’, and extend both the breadth of students’ technical competence and the depth of their critical and contextual understanding of accounting.
The course entails an in-depth exploration of management control and performance measurement systems. It focuses on designing management accounting systems that are tailored to a range of contexts and potential behavioural consequences. It does so by reflecting on the role of management accounting in different settings, such as: the public sector, non-governmental organisations, financial crises, and in addressing contemporary global challenges. Academic journal articles provide both the conceptual basis for the module as well as case studies of specific management accounting techniques in action.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the module students should be able to:
Discuss how management accounting and the role of management accountants is changing due to globalisation and automation.
Evaluate the suitability and likely dysfunctional consequences of performance measurement and incentive systems, and design improved alternative systems.
Use conceptual frameworks to examine complex case studies, and use this analysis to recommend improvements.
Compare and contrast theoretical understandings of the role of accounting in modern organisations, and evaluate their insight into the evolution of management accounting.
Select and apply suitable quantitative methods for analysing particular cases and situations, and provide advice on how to use that analysis as well as its limitations.
Design management accounting systems that inform and operationalise business strategy.
