Management Control

Introduction

The objective of this course is to introduce participants to approaches of both conventional management control and contemporary management control. Conventional management control refers to asset-intensive businesses in which obtaining a return on the financial resource plays a dominant role. Contemporary management control refers to knowledge-based businesses in which intangible knowledge resources are dominant. The locus of control in knowledge-based businesses is on value created in collaborative networks, which assign a similar weight to sharing as to transacting. 　

Main proposition is that the object of control has moved over time from the financial resource to the knowledge resource. This transition includes a changeover in control from singularly defined functional domains to networked domains in which businesses and industries operate. The traditional responsibility for resource utilization as expressed by the efficiency and effectiveness of performance thus extends with accountability for the outcome of resource utilization within connected networks. Practically speaking, this comes down how to rebalance the mix of technology-based management information and control systems with the human-based behavioural and decision-making patterns of network members.

Course content

This interactive course consists of (guest) lectures and classroom discussion. Lectures introduce the indicated topics conceptually, and explore it in terms of managerial implications and the links to other areas of management as well as modes of organization. Course substance is categorized into three topical areas: 　

• Conventional management control and performance measurement (responsibility centres, accounting performance measurement, budgeting, results control, closed-loop financial logic)
• Non-financial performance measurement advances (Balanced Scorecard, Key Performance Indicators)
• Peer-to-peer and collaboration-based control systems to enhance innovation and learning within and by the networked knowledge-based firm (interactive control systems, Beyond Budgeting, social network analysis).