Course Catalogue

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This course focuses on management accounting and control mechanisms within and without organisations and explores their technical - calculative perspectives as well as social - organisational issues.

10 x 2 hour lectures and 6 hours of tutorials

Please refer to the current postgraduate prospectus at: http://www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/

None

There are no co-requisites.

ILO being assessed

The course aims to enable students to practice computational, analytical and interpretative skills with a variety of management accounting techniques, to help students gain an appreciation of management control system design choices, and management control techniques. It also encourages and stimulates discussion and critical appraisal of the existing theories and empirical literature examining the appropriateness of different forms of management control systems.

In more detail, the aims of the course are to:

1. Offer a stimulating approach to the understanding of how control systems are designed, implemented and operated in different organisational and environmental contexts.

2. Provide the students with the opportunity to develop confidence and skills in applying management control techniques and evaluate the impact of such applications on the decision making and behaviour of organisational participants.

3. Offer insights on the interplay between MCSs and other systems within the wider organisational context and the demands these related systems place on the design and implementation of MCSs in practice.

On completion of the course, students will be able to :

1. Use and apply a range of management accounting and control practices namely, costing, budgeting, and decision-making tools 

2. Explain and conceptualise the key elements of the typical management control system and their implications for human behaviour in organisations

3. Explain and critically appraise various contingency factors affecting the design of management control systems 

4. Critically evaluate why and how management accounting practices change and the relevance of new practices for different organizations 

5. Analyse management accounting studies with a view to identifying underlying issues and their implications for practices and human behaviour in different organizations.

6. Work in a group to propose a new system of management control or to analyse existing management accounting practices and their underlying issues in different organizations 

7. Demonstrate the ability of critical evaluation of the literature in the preparation of the group essay

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.