SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

The course aims to contribute to the educational goals of the Master’s degree course in Economia e gestione delle aziende, intended to provide broad economic and managerial knowledge with particular attention to the creation of value in the long term. To respond to the challenges of the current competitive environment, the integration of sustainability concerns into strategies is becoming increasingly necessary for companies. The literature has highlighted that management control and performance measurement systems may shape actors’ practices and support strategy, and, if used appropriately, push organizations in the direction of sustainability. The course aims to focus on the topic of performance measurement under a sustainability perspective.

The active participation to the activities of the course (lectures, case discussions and project work) has the purpose to obtain the following results:

1. Knowledge acquisition and application
- To gain knowledge of the specific characteristics and main issues of management control under a sustainability perspective, based on academic literature and business practice;
- to gain knowledge of the devices and tools useful to address sustainability management control issues;
- ability to identify a balanced set of measures to evaluate the sustainability performances of a specific business.

2. Judgment skills
- To be able to evaluate the congruence of a set of management control systems with an entity's specificities, its operational context and sustainability objectives;
- to be able to communicate effectively the suitability of a set of management control systems to tackle specific sustainability issues.

3. Learning skills
- To be able to face complex business problems with incomplete information and time constraints;
- to be able to collect information both in the literature and in case repositories to address business cases.

Lectures require familiarity with accounting terminology and knowledge of management control basic concepts.

- Performance and sustainability: basic concept
- Sustainability and management control systems
- Results control
- Performance measures for sustainability: the triple P approach and ESG performance
- The sustainability balanced scorecard
- The EU rules on corporate sustainability reporting
- Corporate sustainability reporting standards
- ESG ratings

- Mio, C. (2013). Programmazione e controllo delle vendite. Una prospettiva di sostenibilità. Milano: Egea. (Chapters will be communicated at the beginning of the course)
- Merchant, K.A., Van der Stede, W.A., Zoni, L. (2014). Sistemi di controllo di gestione. Misure di performance, valutazione e incentivi. Milano: Pearson. (Chapters will be communicated at the beginning of the course)

Materials for case study analysis and supplementary readings may be provided during the lectures.

Attending students
Written exam consisting of four open-ended questions (time: 60 minutes)
Group work: case study preparation and discussion

Non-attending students
Written exam consisting of four open-ended questions (time: 60 minutes)
Preparation of an individual short essay (students are invited to contact the teacher to get information)

Both traditional lectures and case study presentations and discussions.

Italian

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