Management Accounting and Control

• Planning and Budgeting (5 ECTS)
• Methods in Management Accounting Research (10 ECTS)
• Strategic and Organisational Concepts for Management Control (5 ECTS)
• Cost Management: Theories, Models and Technologies (10 ECTS)

• Performance Management (10 ECTS)
• Accounting Information Systems (5 ECTS)
• International Financial Accounting I (5 ECTS)
• International Financial Accounting II (5 ECTS)
• Practice Project in Management Accounting (5 ECTS)

• Elective Courses (30 ECTS)

• Master's Thesis (30 ECTS)

PREREQUISITE COURSES

Foundation of Management Accounting Research

The Management Accounting discipline is grounded in different philosophical assumptions about knowledge, the empirical world, and the relationship between theory and practice. In this course, we introduce three perspectives – positivistic, interpretive, and critical – and their underlying assumptions concerning the generation of scientific knowledge and its impact on our lives. We emphasise the relevance of these foundations of research when addressing real-life managerial problems and/or when conducting management accounting research. Similarly, we accentuate how the ‘same’ problem can be approached differently depending on the underlying assumptions.

Cost Management: Theories, Models and Technologies

Cost Management is the backbone of financial and management accounting. Without a deep-rooted understanding of the financial situation of the company and the financial implications of future events, the company is likely to lose orientation and reduce the room for maneuvering. Within the management board, the cost manager is responsible for bringing the financial information into the decision process. Education of people who potentially heads for this kind of positions hence requires that these people are equipped with sufficient skills to understand costing in various business contexts and to communicate this understanding to all people within an organisation. The course aims at providing the students with knowledge about Danish and international cost management traditions, in order to create a thorough conceptual understanding of the fundamental techniques in cost accounting. Specifically, the students should come to master contemporary costing techniques and develop skills in communicating information obtainable from these techniques.

Strategic and Organizational Concepts for Management Control

The aim of this course is to give the students a solid foundation of knowledge of the different strategic schools and organisational concepts that form contemporary management control. The aim of the course is furthermore to make the students develop an understanding of how different strategic schools and organisational concepts can be used to frame an understanding among managers of the current situation of an organisation, and the possibilities that this situation provides for the organisation.

Very often, the reality of the organisation is nuanced. Therefore, the understanding of a certain situation calls for a combination of different strategic schools and organisational concepts in order to be fully expressed. Focus on how and to what extent such combinations can be made is crucial for conducting management control properly. For this reason, the course ultimately aims at enabling the students to reach a nuanced understanding of the organisational situation and to produce valid arguments for the outcome of the analysis.

Planning and Budgeting

Budgeting plays a central role in planning and structuring organisations strategies. In all management accounting models, budgeting is integrated to some extent. Budgeting coordinates the organisations strategies and business units. It is used as a tool for structuring and creating guidelines for activities and to allocate resources and responsibilities. Furthermore, budgeting enables the organisation to follow up on planned activities and thereby illustrating the variances there may exist in the achieved performance. Budgeting is closely linked to performance measurements and it contributes to a specific focus on the organisations strategic goals.

SPECIALISATION COURSES

Accounting Information Systems

AIS gives you an outline of the different types of administrative programmers, their designs, application, implementation and security. In recent years, there has been a rapid development in the use of information technology in the accounting departments of companies. Today, the majority of companies to some extent employ information technology for accounts and management accounting purposes. Some companies use simple accounting systems with just a few functionalities, whereas others, typically larger companies, have integrated their accounting systems into a larger system complex containing modules for e.g. production management, human resource administration and purchasing (ERP systems).

Performance Management

Performance management plays an increasingly important role in all type of organisations. Performance management is defined broadly to include everything that managers do to help ensure that the organisation’s strategies are sustainable constructed and implemented. It comprises various control tools such as result control, action control, interactive control, personnel and social control. Different management approaches can be adopted in using these tools to exercise management control. However, different control tools and the way they are applied are not equally feasible for solving management control problems in various types of organisational units, businesses and social contexts. The focus of the course is the various approaches and principles of performance management and how these will cohere with different types of organisations and organisational activity operating in various business environments. Emphasis will not only be on the appropriate choice of tools and approach for the specific context, but also on the business reality they create, i.e. their impact on human and social behaviour, and hence their strategic implications.

International Financial Accounting I

After attending the course the student should, at an intermediate level, understand the requirements for recognition in the published yearly report and be able to critically discuss the assumptions and concepts on which the figures are based.

International Financial Accounting II

The aim of this course is to develop an understanding of the importance of the quality of accounting information for decision making. The focus of the course will be on the reliability of the different accounting statements from a qualified user perspective.

Practice Project in Management Accounting

This course is a practical application of the prerequisite course “Foundations of Management Accounting Research” (or any other course on research methods). Students are supposed to identify a specific problem in management accounting in a field study. The goal of the course is to enable students to plan, investigate and compose a group-report on a management accounting problem in practice, and to reflect on their findings as a group in an expert conversation. Proficiency of these capabilities matters for both project-related work in a professional career as well as for writing a stringent Master's thesis.

In the third semester, you can choose elective courses within your areas of interest. The courses can be taken either at Aarhus BSS during the semester, at the AU Summer University or at one of our more than 300 partner universities abroad. You can also participate in internship programmes either in Denmark or abroad.

The fourth semester is devoted to the Master's thesis. You may freely choose the topic of the thesis and thereby get a chance to concentrate on and specialise in a specific field of interest. The thesis may be written in collaboration with another student or it may be the result of your individual effort. When the thesis has been submitted, it is defended before the academic advisor as well as an external examiner.