APPLIES TO ACADEMIC YEAR 2015/2016

EXC 2122 Strategic Management Accounting

Responsible for the course
Tor Olav Nordtømme

Department
Department of Accounting - Auditing and Law

Term
According to study plan

ECTS Credits
7,5

Language of instruction
English

Introduction
Strategic management accounting focuses on defining and describing important causal relationships between factors that contribute to creating long-term values for the firm. By designing controlling systems that help us to evaluate the company’s ability to implement its overall strategies and plans, management theory, strategic planning and accounting together form a holistic framework for long-term decision-making.
The course focuses on theoretical models, various tools and techniques to support the decision-making process for management and with real-life cases and exercises.
Strategic management accounting focuses on defining and describing important causal relationships between factors that contribute to creating long-term values for the firm. By designing controlling systems that help us to evaluate the company’s ability to implement its overall strategies and plans, management theory, strategic planning and accounting together form a holistic framework for long-term decision-making.
The course focuses on theoretical models, various tools and techniques to support the decision-making process for management and with real-life cases and exercises.

Learning outcome
Acquired Knowledge
After completed course students shall have acquired knowledge about:

• The link between the various activities carried out by an organization and its consumption of costly resources
• How the design of a value chain model can be used as a tool to analyze the various activities’ contribution to value creation as well as how multi-dimensional process analyses can be used to improve process efficiency.
• Allocation of costs to various cost objects by using traditional methods as well as activity based costing techniques.
• The need to establish long-term goals and to determine critical success factors and Key Performance Indicators, as well as designing strategy maps.
• How strategic decisions may tie up the organizational resources on a long term and the link between strategies, plans and budgets.
• How the organization can measure the implementation of its current strategy plan by the use of Balanced Scorecards.
• How traditional budgeting models can be improved to better facilitate different control purposes.
• How the lean-philosophy’s continuous focus on reducing organizational waste can contribute to long-term value creation.
• Challenges of achieving success by efficiently implementing processes that require actual change in organizational behavior.

• Identify relevant cost drivers in a given organization
• Design a value chain for a given organization
• Design models for allocation of direct and indirect costs to given cost objects
• Define critical success factors, suggest relevant KPIs, design a strategy map and a scorecard as a basis for implementing Balanced Scorecard.
• Measure the efficiency of various business processes
• Design models for the measuring of value creation
• Design tools for budgeting and other financial planning
• Identify sources for organizational waste by the use of lean-philosophy methods