Description:

This course introduces you to the need for management control and how management control is enacted in practice by addressing productive and counterproductive effects of management control systems. Further, it focuses on financial result controls and thus on the management control practices frequently used to measure and incentivize financial performance in firms. The course critically reflects on the advantages, but also on the limitations of financial result controls, asks about what needs to change when profit maximization is not the (only) firm goal, and what it means to control a firm in a responsible manner. 

The course combines practically-relevant insights with cutting-edge theoretical and empirical research on performance measurement and management control. For this reason, the course is organized as a lecture with integrated seminar. It includes the discussion of theoretical concepts, business cases, and research papers.

Learning Targets:

Students:

• can put performance measurement and management control practices in the broader context of management, strategy execution, and societal transformation;
• are able to identify and critically assess the principles for designing and using key practices of performance measurement and management control;
• are capable of applying these practices appropriately to different management control problems in different organizational settings;
• can relate these practices to one another and critically question their limitations;
• are able to establish the relationships of the individual practices within the context of management control systems;  
• possess the ability to design and critically assess such management control systems;
• are able to understand research studies on performance measurement and management control accurately, to critically evaluate them, and relate them to each other; and
• can communicate and debate topics of the course in an effective way

Methods of Assessment:

Written exam (60%) and additional a research paper presentation with discussion (40%)

Formalities:

You do not need a registration for the course itself. However, if you want to participate in the seminar component of the examination (research paper presentation), you will need to register through the Chair’s website. The registration for the seminar component of the examination opens on Monday, October 19 at 6 pm and closes on Tuesday, October 20 at 5.59 pm. The registration form will be available at that time. All students who register within this period will be accepted into the seminar component; failure to register or to deliver the assigned presentation at the assigned date will result in zero points for the seminar component. Receiving zero points for the seminar component does not preclude students from participating in the written examination and, mathematically, from passing the whole course. 

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Material:

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