Institute of Management Accounting and Control

Profile / specialisation in Corporate Management and Controlling (Master)

 

Whether you are studying First Management, Sustainable Management, Mathematics and Management, Management Information Systems or another interdisciplinary study/degree programme - if you want to understand how companies are strategically managed and controlled on the basis of data, our "Corporate Management and Controlling" profile offers you exciting insights, for example into questions such as:

How do companies manage to operate profitably without neglecting environmental protection, for example? How do companies need to position themselves in order to be successful not only today, but also in ten or twenty years' time? How can employees be motivated? How can undesirable developments be recognised at an early stage?

We get to the bottom of these and many other questions as part of our profile. Corporate management refers to the strategic positioning of the company as well as the planning, implementation and control of the activities required to achieve the strategic goals.

Corporate management is supported by controllingwhich in corporate practice acts primarily as a business partner to management. In controlling, data is analysed and condensed into information that shows whether the company is "on track". Controllers uncover weaknesses in the company, work out proposed solutions and develop incentive systems.

Our profile provides you with the specialist knowledge and analytical skills to prepare you as well as possible for future challenges in the field of corporate management and controlling.

Selection of courses (or specify exactly: lecture, tutorial etc.)

Applications of controlling (Prof. Dr Rouven Trapp)

How can controlling contribute to achieving the divisional goals of procurement, production and marketing? What are the objectives and instruments of controlling in the context of projects and innovations? What contributions does controlling make to risk management? What significance do the international accounting standards IFRS have for controlling?

Instruments of corporate management (with business game) (Prof. Dr Paul Wentges)

How do you make strategic and operational decisions as a board member of a company in (business game) practice? Which interrelationships should you take into account and which instruments can support you in this? How do you coordinate as a team and substitute your corporate strategies in simulated board meetings?

Coordination accounting (Prof. Dr Paul Wentges)

What are the central coordination problems in companies? How should production programme decisions be made, what significance do opportunity costs have? How can lower price limits be determined? What are the central instruments for controlling decentralised company divisions, what role does budgeting play in this? How should transfer prices be determined?

Management Control Systems (Prof. Dr Rouven Trapp)

Why do employees not always act in the interests of the organisation? What elements are available to companies to manage behaviour? Why do companies often rely on results-oriented management, what are its central elements and what problems need to be considered? What connections exist between the management elements of controlling and central elements of corporate governance?

Sustainability controlling (Prof Dr Rouven Trapp)

What significance do sustainability goals have for controlling? How can the formulation and implementation of a sustainability strategy be supported by controlling? How can the classic controlling instrument be further developed or supplemented to ensure the operationalisation and tracking of sustainability goals? How can sustainability aspects be integrated into investment decisions?

Corporate value-oriented controlling (Prof. Dr Paul Wentges)

What are the company's objectives and whose interests are to be taken into account? How are the different performance indicators related and which instruments can be used to calculate the company value? How can employees be motivated to act in line with the company's objectives? How should performance management systems be designed? What are the implications for corporate risk management?

Big Data Analytics - Methods and Applications (Prof Dr Mathias Klier)

Contents: Fundamentals of methodology, potential uses and practical applications of big data analytics.

Design of performance measures (Prof Dr Mischa Seiter)

Contents: essential quality criteria, possible dysfunctional effects and development of performance measures for complex phenomena.

Competitive strategy (Prof Dr Georg Gebhardt)

How can the tools of game theory and industrial economics be used to explain the success and failure of companies? How can we predict the effects of changes in the market environment on a company's success?

Research in the field of corporate management and controlling

How can remuneration systems help doctors to integrate cost considerations into their medical decisions? In an empirical study, Maik Lachmann, Rouven Trapp and Felix Wenger systematise performance measurement and remuneration systems in hospitals and show how these depend on the hospital's ownership structure.

Under what conditions do social steering and control mechanisms have their best effect? When can they be used simultaneously with other management tools? Alexander Ströbele and Paul Wentges show that the social capital of a company has a major influence on the effect and interaction of the respective control mechanisms and thus ultimately on the company's success.

How do team members react when there are biases in the performance evaluation, i.e. their service performances are rated disproportionately well or poorly compared to their colleagues? Irene Trapp and Rouven Trapp investigate this question as part of an experiment and analyse how biased performance evaluations affect motivation and perceived fairness and ultimately the commitment of the participants.

Does the ownership and management structure have an influence on the control and design of management control systems in companies? In an empirical study, Gerhard Speckbacher and Paul Wentges come to the conclusion that small and medium-sized family businesses are managed differently than non-family businesses and are characterised in particular by more informal management.