General provisions

The course is offered within the Bachelor's Programme in Business and Economics and as a single subject course. The course syllabus was approved by the board of the Department of Business Studies on delegation from the Faculty of Social Sciences and takes effects as of 2010-01-18.

Entry requirements

Completed 15 credits from Basic Course A in Business Studies, and registered for another 15 credits at the same level.

Learning outcomes

The course is intended to give the students basic skills in management accounting and control, plus the prerequisites for a nuanced and critical approach to concepts and methods. A rational approach is contrasted with a critical one, which means that both the methods and the ways in which they are applied and work in practice will be studied.

Upon completing the course, the student will be able to:

• explain basic management accounting and control concepts and methods
• apply those concepts and methods in practical situations
• examine methods critically
• demonstrate a basic understanding of the problems and difficulties involved in management accounting and control
• communicate their own efforts and contribute to and evaluate the work of others

Content

Management accounting and control is intended to bring the individual and the organisation together. On the one hand, managers and employees have their own personal goals, motivations and behaviours. On the other hand, organisations have their structures, routines, particular cultures and formal goals that deviate to some extent from the managers' and employees' personal goals. Different management methods are used to bring individuals and organisations together with a view to providing a sound basis for decision-making, and to motivating employees to act in such a way that the organisation achieves its overarching goals. Looking out for the owners' interests is a key element in management accounting and control, although other stakeholders are often considered to be important as well. The goals of an organisation can be profitability, customer and employee satisfaction, or the survival of the organisation. It then follows that different management methods can be relevant in achieving the goals of an organisation.

The course imparts knowledge about various control methods, such as salaries, budgets, financial accountability, investment evaluation, performance metrics, product estimates, rules and corporate cultures. The control methods can contribute to productivity and efficiency, but this is by no means always the case. Effects that are inconsistent with the intentions of the decision-makers are a common occurrence. There are no absolute solutions in terms of how such controls should be designed to ensure that an organisation will be successful. A design that proves successful in one organisation may be less suitable in another. One of the important messages in the course is that controls are significantly more complicated than many imagine, including many managers within organisations. The course is intended to make the students aware of this complexity, and to develop their ability to analyse, evaluate and design the controls in various organisations.

Instruction

The instruction takes the form of lectures, seminars, group work and independent study. During the lectures, illustrative examples are used to facilitate the students' understanding of methods and concepts. At the seminars, the students are given opportunities to apply these methods and concepts to the controls present in different kinds of organisations. The group work includes studies of practical applications, and is documented in PM report work. The independent study projects include literature studies and exercise assignments.

Assessment

The examination concerns lectures, including guest lectures, as well as the entire course literature. The course provides the most 100 Assessment Units (AU). The written exam provides 6 credits; maximum of 40 AU; to pass the course you must pass the written exam (20 AU) and individual promemorias, group promemorias and investigation together 9 credits.

Individual promemoria gives as a basis for group discussion 3 AU per promemoria; max 12 AU

group promemorias 5 AU per promemoria and discussion at the seminar, maximum 20 AU

investigation including active participation in two seminars 8-28 AU. The investigation is graded with 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 or 28 AU.

To pass the course it is required that course participants have at least 31 AU combined individual promemorias, group promemorias and investigation. The grade Pass with distinction requires a minimum of 45 AU combined individual promemorias, group promemorias and investigation and to pass the exam.

At the seminars, participants will be actively involved. They must demonstrate that they have prepared themselves and have the ability to be objective and concise. This applies to their own as well as other discussed promemorias.

Promemorias should contain references to the course literature (see above) and be written in an understandable and interesting way. It usually means that the promemorias will be better the more comparisons they contain.

The investigation will be graded against the same criteria as promemorias. It is especially important that students show that they can be critical of different - even contradictory - statements. Relevant parts of the course literature should form the basis for the work, but the investigation is generally more interesting if students supplement additional references to research results, or the current debate.

Attendance:

Attendance at lectures is optional. The written exam may contain questions drawn from the documents available after lectures and guest lectures. Seminar assignments can be directly linked to the lectures.

Course participants are presumed to participate in all seminars. Course participants who, without good reason, do not participate in a promemoria seminar lose 5 AU. For participants who are unable to attend the seminar in which the investigation is finally dealt with and discussed a specific task is added in order for the student to receive AU for the investigation.

Uppsala University takes cheating and plagiarism seriously, and disciplinary action will be taken against any student suspected of being involved in any sort of cheating and/or plagiarism. The disciplinary actions take the form of warnings and limited suspensions.

NOTE: Only completed courses can count toward a degree.

Transitional provisions

The course substitutes/overlaps among others Controlling 2FE618, Corprate Control 2FE957, Management Control 2FE204, 2FE208.