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How can RIM’s (now known as BlackBerry) problems and potential opportunities be understood? How did the ARCH go from being a Balanced Scorecard poster child to requiring its honor restored in 2007? How did steelmaker Incur sustain its success over decades in the volatile steel industry and how did the crisis of 2009 affect the company?
And what happened at Orange, the province of Notation’s air medical transport service? These and many other pertinent questions can be usefully examined from the perspective of management control. Basically, our Job as instructors in this course is to use financial accounting, management accounting, strategy, leadership, economics, racketing and other business disciplines?and also anything else that is useful and practical?to understand how management control systems and processes can be improved.
Our home discipline at the Rattan School is Accounting, so that’s an important part of our approach to management control analysis, but we’re also very interested in Leadership, Governance, Ethics, and Organizational Communication, so they are important too in helping us and participants in this course understand how, for example, ‘tone at the top’ effects management control, and vice versa, and to design a “better” MASC., or management control system for an organization.
The definition of management control provided by Robert Anthony and Visas Governance (Management Control Systems, 12th edition, McGraw-Hill/Larkin, 2007; we will use a custom textbook version of this book in this course) is as follows (like almost all definitions, this one has both strengths and weaknesses): “Management control is the process by which managers influence other members of the organization to implement the organization’s traceries” (p. ) All management students can benefit from a Management Control [MAC] course, since it focuses on fundamental issues in performance management in organizations, including: the importance of (among other things) the crucial roles of accounting, compensation incentives, leadership, language and communication in making the organization succeed (or, at times, fail! ). Risk, culture, and information technology are pervasive influences on MAC, and vice versa.
Three broad approaches to understanding integrated performance management and assortment systems have emerged (strategic performance measurement systems such as the Balanced Scorecard; levers of control; and performance management and control frameworks), while the need for re-thinking management control continues unabated. The global economic crisis of 2008-2009 appeared to be at least partly a crisis in management control, as shown by Nortek, MM, and many other companies.
RSI 422 examines management control, which may also be broadly defined as policies, tools and procedures that are employed to increase the likelihood that an organization achieves objectives. Management control under this definition involves the motivation, evaluation and rewarding of individuals constituting the organization so that they behave in ways consistent with organizational goals, which are themselves often contentious.
This course will explore the ways management attempts to motivate, evaluate and reward members of the organization. Thus, RSI 422 is a highly integrative course, drawing upon a wide range of management and allied disciplines, with core courses in managerial and financial accounting being of major importance.
The Journal Management Accounting Research published a special issue on management control in 2005 which was “motivated by the recurring concerns expressed by academics, managers, stakeholders and corporate regulators that the existing framework of management control may, in fact, be irrelevant, that the control needs of the current environment are significantly different from those developed in an earlier period and that improvements are urgently required… ” (Nixon and Burns, 2005, p. 260). 1 COURSE MATERIALS Custom Book, available at the textbook store: Robert N.
Anthony and Visas Governance, Management Control Systems, McGraw-Hill/Larkin, 12th edition, 2007 (cited as “A” in the following detailed course outline); Other materials on the instructor’s Blackboard website (accessed via Portal) and other websites. GRADING Component Due Date weight Class participation Ongoing Assignment #1 Monday October 6, 12 noon via the portal Assignment #2 Endeavourer 10, 12 noon via the portal 15 Team business presentation [maximum of six members per team] To be arranged 25 Final exam Open book, 3 hours during Arts and Sciences Final Exam Period 40 [See grading details below]
Self-study management accounting technical skills review: Access the following management accounting technical skills review material on the course portal, and work through the questions and answers: Crawford and Henry, (2000), “Budgeting and Performance Evaluation at the Berkshire Toy Company”, Issues in Accounting Education, Volt. 15, No. 2. Management accounting technical skills are important tools in MASC., as is a good understanding of financial accounting. Written assignments: Please note that spelling and grammar will be considered in the evaluation of the assignments .