Teaching management accounting in a competencies-based fashion

Abstract

Traditionally, management accounting has been regarded as a monodisciplinary field of study that mainly focuses on calculating costs and prices. Today, it is seen that the field encompasses an ever-increasing number of knowledge domains including, for example, economics, sociology, psychology, and ethics. Modern-day management accountants have to be able to apply elements from all of these domains when solving concrete, real-life problems. The Open University of the Netherlands has therefore tried to construct a competencies-based management accounting curriculum that uses the well-known case method and integrates issues from various knowledge domains. In the curriculum, a unique problem-solving strategy is introduced that helps students to tackle as management accountants problems they may encounter during their studies, as well as the decision-making in their daily practice. This paper aims to give an overview of one of the courses in this curriculum, highlighting the use of the aforementioned problem-solving strategy.

Keywords:

• management accounting education
• curriculum development
• competencies
• problem-solving
• teaching innovation

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank three anonymous referees for their comments. The usual caveats apply.

Notes

¹Far transfer occurs when a learning event acts as a stimulus to a real-life problem or real-life learning situation which is not completely identical to it.

²That is, as far as the present definition of competencies is concerned. See first section.

³The larger part of the cases stem from the Harvard Business School and books like Rotch et al. (1995), as well as from well-known management accounting texts like Anthony and Govindarajan (1998).

⁴The solution procedure that is contained in the general questionnaire is partly founded on Kolb's learning cycle (Kolb, 1984) and Revans' system gamma (Revans, 1971). When solving a problem, both authors think that managers never know all the details concerning the problem that arises, as they only know their own perception of it based on the facts they gather, which may well be incomplete or coloured by those who provide these. Kolb and Revans feel that a combination of action, reflection and learning is highly relevant for any business professional. The general questionnaire is a direct outgrowth of their ideas.

⁵Baird (1986) thinks that such a responsibility is crucial in order to prepare oneself for the problems that will be faced and the decisions that need to be made in practice. However, it is often lacking in teaching programmes, particularly when students do their courses in a classroom setting.

⁶The website is in Dutch. Interested readers can receive the corresponding hyperlink upon request.

⁷Which is typical for students at the Open University.

⁸Which, since these specific students were part of a test group, may have induced a certain (more open and constructive) type of behaviour.