COMM 454 - Accounting for Management Control and Incentives

This course is designed to help students to:

• develop a framework for understanding management control systems using the concepts of the three-legged stool, agency theory, and Merchant’s typology of controls.
• examine why there are differences in management control systems for different entities.
• understand elements of management control systems that exist in today’s businesses and how these elements inter-relate. Specific topics include performance evaluation, balanced scorecard, variance calculations and systems, budgeting, and transfer pricing.
• develop expertise in analyzing and critiquing management control system elements.

Learning objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will have the knowledge and skills to:

• define, calculate, and analyze common tools used in management control systems including variances, return on investment, residual income, economic value added, balanced scorecard, and transfer pricing.
• provide well-reasoned assessments of a particular management control system making use of frameworks and vocabulary associated with agency theory, Merchant’s typology of controls and the organizational three legged stool.
• recommend changes to management control systems and provide a logical basis for these recommendations.
• analyze a “real” management control system identified from a situation that the student is familiar with in the form of a written and oral report.

Prerequisite: COMM 294.