Latest Module Specifications
Current Academic Year 2025 - 2026
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Description The purpose of this module is to bring students' knowledge of the principles and practice of management accounting to an advanced level. It seeks to integrate the study of management accounting with the study of strategy, behavioural science, organisation theory and sustainability. It also aims to develop students' ability to interpret and communicate management accounting information, including knowledge of information technology and digitalization. The module examines, from both research and practice perspectives, issues relating to the role of management accounting in organisations, cost management, control and performance management and decision support. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Learning Outcomes 1. Critique the role of management accounting in modern organisations. 2. Ascertain current developments (research and practice) in cost management and illustrate the application of various costing approaches and techniques. 3. Examine traditional budgetary control techniques and calculate and interpret advanced variances. 4. Appraise current developments (research and practice) in control and performance management and evaluate their relevance and usefulness to modern organisations. 5. Evaluate advanced decision-making theory and tools and apply various techniques to complex scenarios. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml |
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Indicative Content and Learning Activities
The changing global environment of management accounting Multiple sources and roles of management accounting information in private, not-for-profit and public sector organisations; Changes in external and internal environments including implications for how today's information technology is changing the role of the management accountant (i.e. Data, Artificial Intelligence Cloud computing, Enterprise resource planning system, Internet of things); Criticisms of management accounting and pressures for change; conceptual foundations of management accounting and the importance of interdisciplinary; the accounting profession, professional competence, professional responsibilities and ethics. Cost management Problems with traditional cost allocation; fixed and variable cost analysis using the high/low method; activity-based analysis - ABC and ABM; value analysis; cost reduction; pricing decisions and strategies, customer profitability analysis; target costing; life cycle costing; theory of constraints and throughput accounting; total quality management and Just-in-time techniques; learning curve application; environmental management accounting. Management control and performance management Budgetary Control - the role of budgets, budget setting and preparation (i.e. budget types: master, functional, fixed, flexible, zero-based, activity based, incremental, top-down, bottom-up), criticisms of budgets; Standard costing and variance analysis - criticisms of standard costing, calculation of advanced variances (e.g. mix/yield variances for materials and labour, sales mix and sales quantity/yield variances, market share and market size variances, planning and operational variances and reconciliation from actual to budget) interpretation, disposition and investigation of variances, opportunity cost approach; Management control frameworks - designing control systems, contingency theory; Behavioural issues - motivation theories, use of quantified targets, dysfunctional behaviour, style of evaluation, target difficulty, participation; Performance management (i.e. linking strategy to performance management) within private, not-for-profit and public sector organisations - non-financial factors, KPIs and the balanced scorecard, the beyond budgeting debate, interpreting conflicting performance measures. Consideration of the impact of external factors on performance management i.e. stakeholders, competitors and market environment. Decision making Short-term decision-making techniques and scenarios i.e. relevant cost and revenue analysis, cost volume profit analysis (CVP), make or buy decisions and limiting factors including consideration of scarce resources using linear programming; uncertainty and risk, decision tree analysis, expected value of perfect and imperfect information, utility functions, maximin, maximax, minimax and regret criteria; Qualitative factors in decision making; Divisional performance, responsibility centres and performance evaluation, centralisation versus decentralisation of decision making, accounting measures and alternative measures of performance, including use of return on investment, residual income and economic value added; varying scenarios and dealing with conflict; Transfer pricing - context, issues, methods/approaches of calculating transfer prices, varying scenarios and dealing with conflict. Future of Management Accounting Future roles of management accountants as value-adding members of organisations; sustainable development, big data and data analytics issues (i.e. purpose, characteristics; challenges and potential conflicts). | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Indicative Reading List Books:
Articles:
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Other Resources None | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||