Measuring and Delivering Performances

Course Overview

This course covers the measurement of organizational performances for communication with external stakeholders (e.g. capital market investors, loan providers, potential takeover acquirers, materials and parts suppliers, and customers) in financial reporting, and the delivery of superb performances by leading internal stakeholders (e.g. top and middle management and shop-floor employees in different business functions) in management accounting and control. Performance measurement are the cornerstone of the strategy implementation cycle of plan-do-check-action; without the performance measurement, it is impossible to assess how effectively the organization implements its strategy and how well the strategy functions in the real businesses.

Because the course focuses on the use of accounting information rather than its production, the course does not cover the detailed mechanics to generate accounting information. The course, therefore, is not designed to prepare the students to become professional accountants. Instead, it offers fundamental knowledge and skills to interpret the accounting information that facilitates and guides the stakeholders’ decisions.

Course Structure

The course consists of two modules: Communicating with External Stakeholders, and Leading the Internal Stakeholders. The first module addresses the performance measurement of organizational performances in financial reporting. The second module lays out the process to translate the organization’s strategy into actions through management accounting and control.

Each class is split into two parts: lecture and case discussion. In the first part, the facilitating professor lectures on accounting concepts, frameworks and mechanics but with an interactive pedagogy, soliciting questions and taking comments from the students. In the second part, the facilitating professor leads the discussion of the assigned case that sheds light on the lecture content. The cases help the students absorb the relevant accounting concepts, terms and mechanics and applying them to the real businesses.