Accounting for Corporate Performance

Learning Outcomes

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• identify the key concepts and theories in corporate governance audit and accountability; discuss the development of major corporate governance initiatives;
• critically evaluate the role of corporate governance mechanisms and how accounting systems are implicated in such mechanisms (e.g. executive remuneration);
• explain and evaluate the use of corporate social reporting as a mechanism of stakeholder accountability;
• explain and evaluate the different approaches to management control;
• apply, and assess the effectiveness of, a selected number of management accounting practices aimed at supporting planning, strategy and performance evaluation activities.
• explain and evaluate the alternative conventions of income measurement and valuation and how these may influence the outputs from financial statements;

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• use appropriate communication skills.
• prepare a report;
• search and summarise information from different sources;
• work as a part of a team;

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• critically evaluate the role and effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms and the role of accounting in the corporate accountability process;
• critically assess the role of accounting information and techniques in the management of business organisations.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• identify, analyse and interpret appropriate quantitative and qualitative data in a decision making context.

• Theories and concepts of corporate governance and accountability .
• Major mechanisms of corporate governance, such as board of directors, executive incentives and compensation; shareholder activism, auditing; market for corporate control.
• Alternative conventions of income measurement and valuation.
• Latest developments and future directions in corporate governance and accountability such as research on corporate governance effectiveness, social and environment accounting, integrated reporting, global reporting initiative.
• Theories of management accounting and control.
• Role and effectiveness of budgeting and the process of budgeting.
• Divisional performance evaluation and financial measures.
• Management accounting and strategy: contemporary practices and approaches.
• Performance management frameworks e.g. Balanced Scorecard and the quantification of organisational goals, identification of perspectives and corresponding metrics.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

Lectures, formal and informal group work sessions, case studies, presentations and student led mini-debates.

Learning activities include:

• group based evaluation of governance information (e.g. corporate governance reports remuneration reports) using accounting and non-accounting data sources, requiring preparation of report and presentation.
• private study – directed reading and analytical activities.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Peter Atrill and Eddie McLaney. Management Accounting for Decision Makers. Prentice Hall.

Merchant K. A. and Van der Stede W. A.. Management Control System - Performance Measurement, Evaluation and Incentives. Prentice Hall.

Krishna G Palepu, Paul, M. Healy and Erik Peek. Business Analysis and Valuation IFRS edition. Cengage Learning.

Trevor Hopper, Deryl Northcott and Robert Scapens. Issues in Management Accounting. Prentice Hall.

Steen Thomsen and Martin Conyon. Corporate Governance: Mechanisms and Systems. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

Christopher Nobes. The Penguin Dictionary of Accounting. Penguin - www.penguincatalogue.co.uk/download.fullHtmlCatalogue?catalogueId=13.

Jill Solomon. Corporate Governance and Accountability. John Wiley & Sons.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External