PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS

Digital business is offering new business designs by blurring the digital and physical worlds. The digitalization of business offers new opportunities and creates new needs regarding performance measurement systems. Management accounting is the discipline concerned with ensuring that managers have the information they need to plan and control the direction of their organization. Within this context, the course aims to introduce the topic of management accounting focusing first on the new needs developed by the business digitalization. The course aims to both developed analytical understanding of management control system, with a focus on cases of wrong design and provide a good understanding of different issues in the design of advanced strategically oriented management control systems. In addition, the course aims to incorporate explicitly management control into the larger framework of business management in which issues like business planning and Information technology are included. Additionally, the topic focuses on the need of better understanding how management and control systems can support the business digitalization. Traditional and more innovative approaches on management control and business planning are analyzed.

1 KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The students of the course PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT CONTROL SYSTEM will understand main topics of management accounting. Additionally, students will better understand how digital (r)evolution is affecting the management accounting systems of traditional firms and offers new business opportunities for firms operating in the ICT sector. At the end of this course, students will know and understand:
- structure of the costs and cost classification;
- the cost volume and profit analysis;
- the management accounting systems devoted to cost accounting analysis;
- the budget and business plan;
- the strategic management accounting systems
- the sustanibability reporting
2 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
The students of the course in PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT CONTROL SYSTEMS must be able to contextualize their knowledge and apply it to concrete situations through the analysis and processing of accounting data. At the end of this teaching course, the students will be able:
- to develop break even and profit-volume analysis;
- to project management control systems based on different cost configurations: full costing, direct costing, etc.
- to develop management control systems based on different approaches: ABC
- to develop budgets and business plans of traditional and digital firms
- to identify main challenges and opportunities coming from the digital (r)evolution
The course contributes to the educational objectives of the Bachelor's Degree Programme, which aims to provide a complete training in the management field.

Since this course provides advanced knowledge about management accounting deepening the effects of the digital (r)evolution, students must have acquired the notions and the basics provided in INTRODUCTION TO DIGITAL MANAGEMENT - 1 AND 2.

Main topics of the course are:
• The digitalization of business and its impact on accouting
• Cost and benefit classification
• Cost volume and profit analysis
• Full costing
• Cost accounting in different competitive environments. The role of digitalization
• Business Plans and budgets
• Management Accounting Strategy
• Sustainability reporting

Details about the text book will be given during classes and will be available on Moodle.

The learning assessment methods will be divided into two parts.
A first part will refer to the development of a written test aimed at evaluating the understanding of the theoretical concepts exposed during the course. The grade of the written test has a weight of 70% of the total grade.
The test consists of 30 questions distributed across the various topics of the course. The questions can be: multiple choice, open questions or development of exercises. Each question has a weight of 1 if answered correctly. There is a penalty of 0.25 for each incorrect multiple answer.
A second part will require the development of a business case aimed at evaluating the student's ability to apply the skills acquired at a theoretical level. The assignment grade has a weight of 30% of the total grade.
The assignment involves the development of a business case. Students will be evaluated on the basis of their ability to correctly develop the case, familiarity with the typical problems that allow them to put into practice the theoretical concepts acquired during the lessons.
The student can choose to replace group work with an additional oral exam.
To pass the exam, students must obtain a passing grade in both tests.

Regarding grade grading (mode by which grades will be assigned), regardless of attending or non-attending mode:
A. scores in the 18-22 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- sufficient knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- limited ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- sufficient communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the economic operation of companies with particular reference to management accounting and planning issues;
B. scores in the 23-26 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- discrete knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the syllabus;
- discrete ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- fair communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the economic operation of companies with particular reference to management accounting and planning issues;
C. scores in the 27-30 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- good or very good knowledge and applied comprehension skills with reference to the program;
- good or excellent ability to collect and/or interpret data, making independent judgments;
- fully appropriate communication skills, especially in relation to the use of specific language pertaining to the economic operation of companies with particular reference to management accounting and planning issues.
D. honors will be awarded in the presence of knowledge and applied understanding with reference to the syllabus; excellent judgment and communication skills.

The teaching method will include frontal lessons, case studies and guest lectures from experts in the field.
The course aims to have a hands-on approach. Students will have to develop their assignments through various software and databases. In particular, tools such as Excel will be used: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/excel , tools dedicated to market analyzes such as CRModel: https://www.crmodel.studio/ , databases for the analysis of sector data such as: https://www.marketresearch.com/ .
Students will also use AI tools to refine their ideas such as OpenAI's ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/auth/login

English

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Circular economy, innovation, work" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development