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2017/2018  KAN-CIMMO1066U  Management Accounting

English Title
Management Accounting

Course information
Language English
Course ECTS 7.5 ECTS
Type Mandatory
Level Full Degree Master
Duration One Semester
Start time of the course Autumn
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
Study Board for MSc in Economics and Business Administration
Course coordinator
  • Tamas Vamosi - Department of Operations Management (OM)
Main academic disciplines
  • Accounting
  • Economics
Last updated on 30-05-2017

Relevant links
Learning objectives
To achieve the grade 12, students should meet the following learning objectives with no or only minor mistakes or errors: The purpose of this course is to understand, discuss and be able to implement Management Accounting concepts and tools to manage organizational operations in the short and the long run.
  • Describe and understand the notion of opportunity cost and organizational architecture and explain how they together constitute a framework for analyzing Management Accounting systems in a decision making and a control perspective.
  • Describe and understand different Management Accounting theories and discuss their strengths and limitations from a decision making as well as a control perspective.
  • Use terms, models, perspectives and theories on specific cases to identify Management Accounting problems.
  • Analyze the cost of improving accounting systems decision making ability and effectiveness as a control device and reflect upon the trade-off between the use of accounting for different purposes.
  • Critically reflect on the value and relevance of specific Management Accounting systems in a particular organizational setting.
Examination
Management Accounting:
Exam ECTS 7,5
Examination form Written sit-in exam on CBS' computers
Individual or group exam Individual exam
Assignment type Written assignment
Duration 4 hours
Grading scale 7-step scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Winter
Aids Limited aids, see the list below:
The student is allowed to bring
  • Non-programmable, financial calculators: HP10bll+ or Texas BA II Plus
  • Language dictionaries in paper format
The student will have access to
  • Advanced IT application package
At all written sit-in exams the student has access to the basic IT application package (Microsoft Office (minus Excel), digital pen and paper, 7-zip file manager, Adobe Acrobat, Texlive, VLC player, Windows Media Player). PLEASE NOTE: Students are not allowed to communicate with others during the exam : Read more about exam aids and IT application packages here
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
If the number of registered candidates for the make-up examination/re-take examination warrants that it may most appropriately be held as an oral examination, the programme office will inform the students that the make-up examination/re-take examination will be held as an oral examination instead.
Description of the exam procedure

The pedagogic team expect students confer to the CBS code of honor in this request!
Course content and structure

The aim of Management Accounting is to give the students knowledge about how companies are using Management Accounting as a tool for decision making and control. The control dimension of Management Accounting is using information about costs, prices, benefits, resources etc. to make decisions on a local or central level to secure the best possible result for the company. 

 

More specific, Management Accounting will address planning and organizing of companies, with focus on calculations, design and implementation of performance goals, measuring and reporting, and interpretation of the achieved results and performances. This gives opportunity to handle practical tasks at the operational level (e.g. by the use of budgets) and further to discuss and evaluate these practical tasks in a more overall, strategic perspective.

 

During the course, we will discuss:

  • The nature of costs and cost allocation
  • Opportunity cost
  • Organizational architecture
  • Transfer pricing
  • Budgets
  • Absorption cost and standard cost
  • Variances 

 
Teaching methods
The course is organized in lectures and exercises; the dialog between the class and the lecturer is considered crucial. A high degree of activity from the students is required in order to achieve the best result. The lectures will not necessarily cover all aspects in the literature, but the main problems will be discussed and supported by a number of exercises, which the students are expected to solve before the lectures in class. The purpose of these problems and exercises is to illustrate the theory and to bring a more applied dimension into the course. Therefor there will not be a very distinct demarcation between lectures and exercises.

The cases – marked with a “C” in the teaching plan – must be solved beforehand in small groups and presented to the class by the groups.

LEARN will be used for distribution of documents to and from the students.
Feedback during the teaching period
During the course the students will have feedback from the lecturer through the topics and exercises discussed.
Student workload
Lectures (11 * 2) 22 hours
Preparation for lectures 55 hours
Exercises (10 * 2) 20 hours
Preparation for exercises 63 hours
Preparation for exam 46 hours
Expected literature
  • Zimmerman: Accounting for Decision Making and Control 9th. ed., McGraw-Hill, app. 670 pages.
  • Jensen, 2003: Paying people to lie: The truth about the budgeting process European Financial Management, 9, (3) 379-406), 27 pages.
  • Kaplan & Norton: Transforming the Balanced Scorecard from Performance Measurement to Strategic Management, Accounting Horizon, 2001, 35 pages.
  • Ittner & Larcker: Coming Up Short On Nonfinancial Performance Measurement, Harvard Business Review, 2003, app. 20 pages.

 

App. pages (total): 750
Last updated on 30-05-2017