International opportunities for students

Details

Principal Lecturer: Lino Cinquini, l.cinquini [at] sssup.it;

Other Lectures: 
Andrea Tenucci a.tenucci [at] sssup.it 
Cristina Campanale c.campanale [at] santannapisa.it
Sara Giovanna Mauro g.mauro [at] santannapisa.it

Class hours: 48; 8 ECTS - Syllabus 2018-2019

Contents

The course Financial Metrics will provide students the knowledge and tools for the assessment of the overall performance and the understanding of the functioning of a business. To this aim, the basic financial and management accounting concepts and the most relevant tools adopted in a business - both for external reporting and decision making - will be explained.
The course will introduce financial statements and reporting. The key principles of the financial statements and the main techniques for their analysis and interpretation will be presented. Basic concepts of corporate governance and business ethics will complement the content. Then the variety of the different reports in corporate reporting, mandatory and voluntary, will be analysed. A special focus will be provided on Integrated Reporting.
The final part of the course will deal with basic concepts and applications of management accounting: Cost classifications and Cost-Volume-Profit analysis.

Objectives

By the end of the course the students should be able to: i) understand and interpret financial statements; ii) develop an overall assessment of financial performance of a business; iii) understand costing and calculate the cost for decision making; iv) develop capability to critically discuss; v) develop capacity to work in team.

List of topics: 

  • Introduction to Accounting
  • Recording Financial Transactions and the Principles of Accounting
  • Financial Reports and Statement Analysis
  • Corporate Governance, Ethics and Accounting
  • Introduction to Management Accounting and Cost classifications
  • Cost-Volume-Profit Analysis

Teaching method

Lectures are of four types: i) traditional lectures, where the lecturer presents topics ii) tutorials, where students can verify, supported by lecturer, their understanding of topics through exercises iii) case studies development and presentations, where students are required to present and discuss business cases, and short written assignments, where students are required to demonstrate their capability of argumentation and critical discussion of some of the topics of the course iv) learning from the experience of managers. Managers will be invited to share their experience of working in a company.

Evaluation method

50% of the final score will be assigned by individual and group assignments during the course.
The remaining 50% of the final score will be based on the written exam at the end of the course. A sufficient grade (18/30) is at minimum needed in the written exam to pass.
An additional adjustment (max + 1 point) of the final score will be possible considering individual behavior in classroom & participation at discretion of the lecturer.

Teaching material

- Collier, Accounting For Managers: Interpreting Accounting Information for Decision-Making,3rd Edition, Wiley, 2009 [Chapters 1, 2, 3].
- Alexander & Nobes, Financial Accounting 6th Edition: An International Introduction, Pearson Higher Education, 2016 [Chapters 6-7-8-9-10-11-13].
- Garrison, Noreen and Brewer, 2012, Managerial accounting, 14th edition, McGraw-Hill [Chapters 1, 2, 5].
Additional readings and materials will be assigned during the course.