Management Accounting Information in the News

How is management accounting information & tools visible in practice – that is the news?

Based on the lectures and themes covered in the literature and during the lecture, you are required to
do a reality check. This means that the you will watch/read the news and try to identify how
management accounting is covered in the news.
Some examples of areas that can be found in the news are:
• Management accounting and decision-making
• Performance measurement
• Planning & control
• Cost of products or services
• Sustainability and accounting
The above mentioned themes are to be considered as examples of areas that can be found –
feel free to find your own. This part of the assignment is supposed to give students practice
in news spotting and practise their ability to analyse.
Structure of the reality-check report:
The overall question for you to answer is: How is management accounting information &
tools visible in practice – that is the news? To answer this question, you need to watch /read
the news and try to identify news/discussion about your suggested themes/areas. Below are
some suggested guidelines.
Description (500 – 1000 words)
• How is the news presented?
o Type of media. Focus of the news?
• What is the news about?
o Describe the news.
o What themes and discussions are covered?
Analysis & Conclusion (1000 – 2000 words)
• How are your themes/areas you are interested seen in the news? o (E.g., topic, focus area,
problem discussed)
o How are they relevant?
• How are ideas and assumptions presented in the news connected to the literature? o Are they
clearly stated or are they latent?
• How are the conclusions in the news supported and summarised? o Are the used sources clear
stated? Can you trace them?
Formal requirements:
Number of words for the assignment: 2000 – 3000 words (approx. 4 – 6 A4). Use Times New
Roman, size 12 and 1,5 spacing. Write your name, surname in the heading of the text.
Grading the reality-check report:
The analyses will be presented as a written reflection report. The reflection report will be graded
based on your ability to identify news and relate them to the themes /discussions covered in the
literature. The reflections reports will be graded based on the language and organisation (15%),
content (70%) and the correct use of references (15%).