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Course module: USEMMCS
USEMMCS
Management Control Systems
Course info
Course codeUSEMMCS
EC5
Content
Please note the prerequisites for this course at the bottom of the course description.

This course aims at providing students with a thorough understanding of the field of management accounting and management control. Managing organisations consists of two main functions, i.e., the decision making function and the decision control function. Decision making refers to management activities of deciding which goals should be pursued, which strategies to adopt, which departments and employees should be involved in executing the strategies, etc., for a certain time period. Decision control refers to management activities focused on stimulating employees to act in such a way that organisational goals will be achieved in an effective and efficient manner.
 
This course deals with methods and techniques that can be used to encourage employees to act in the desired manner, e.g., by awarding financial responsibilities to organisational units (responsibility centers); by setting targets for employees (target setting); through the use of direct supervision, employee selection, shared norms and values, and performance measures as alternative control mechanisms; by linking monetary rewards to performance measure outcomes (i.e., the provision of incentives); and so on. All topics will be looked at from a management control perspective, i.e., how can each topic contribute to the challenge of aligning the interests of an employee with the overall organisational objectives.

Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student is able to:
  • Have an understanding of the role of management control within organisations, and the relationships of management control with corporate governance, and so on.
  • Have an understanding of the potential contribution of management control perspectives for the overall management control within a firm (i.e., the potential advantages and disadvantages of management control elements).
  • Be able to apply management control perspectives to a real-life business setting, where a firm faces certain management control challenges.
  • Be able to extract the main findings from scientific articles on the field of management control, and to provide a basic assessment of the strength of these findings.
  • Have an understanding of the current mainstream management control research. 
Format
This course typically has 2 hours of lectures and 2 hours of seminars (except for the first week where there are 4 hours of lectures). In the lectures, the most relevant topics will be theoretically explained and illustrated through stylised examples. The seminars enable a more in-depth examination of the most relevant topics. Amongst other things selected articles and cases will be presented and discussed in class.
 
Assessment method
  • Final exam (70%, individual);
  • Group work (30%).
Prerequisites
Course is eligible to all students. It is assumed that the student has prior knowledge about basic finance and accounting concepts (as taught in any bachelor course in finance and accounting).

In case online access is required for this course and you are not in the position to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN number. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.
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Kies de Nederlandse taal