Undergraduate

Accounting for strategy implementation

On this page

• What you will study
• Entry
• If you have a disability or additional requirement
• Study materials
• Teaching and assessment
• Students also studied
• Future availability

This course will help you to understand organisations. It will enable you to evaluate and interpret how accounting concepts and applications, particularly those of a strategy-implementation nature – like organising for performance, using diagnostic and interactive control systems, achieving profit goals and strategies – figure in organisations. It will encourage independent and inquisitive learning and prepare you for future study and lifelong learning more generally. You will be able to draw on the expertise of accountants, and apply academic research and scholarship concepts.

Course facts

Register for the course

This course is available for study in the countries shown. Fees and financial support may vary by country.

What you will study

Accounting for strategy implementation is an excellent means to improve your ability as an autonomous learner. It can provide you with the confidence in a field of knowledge not only vital to your career but that also contributes to your private persona. The course team want you to pass with a top grade reflecting the knowledge and understanding, cognitive abilities, key skills, and practical and professional abilities you will acquire by learning in an unusually active way throughout the course period.

You will learn to interpret and evaluate how accounting concepts and applications, particularly those of a strategy-implementation nature as listed below, figure in organisations both within and beyond your experience. These include:

• organising for performance
• information for performance measurement and control
• performance measurement systems
• using diagnostic and interactive control systems
• aligning performance goals and incentives
• strategic risk
• achieving profit goals and strategies.

You will learn to demonstrate that you can approach case study and ‘real life’ situations inquisitively, laterally and critically; and to discuss and apply concepts and applications of a strategy implementation nature to such a level that you may draw on the expertise of academic research and scholarship. You will learn to gather, process and utilise quantitative and qualitative data about organisational situations to improve performance in these situations; and to demonstrate that you can continue to develop analytical, reflective and decision-making aptitudes alone and through further study. You will learn to discuss and apply concepts and applications of a strategy-implementation nature to such a level that you may draw on the expertise of accounting specialists.

Aspects of the course are that the learning method expected of you tends to be problem-based. Usually, you’ll encounter a short or long case-study and be expected to apply your existing knowledge and any new knowledge you can gather from the supplied textbooks, journal articles, electronic sources and course participants to make sense of, discuss, analyse, synthesise and evaluate issues and possibilities in the case study. The knowledge you will expand during the course may be liberally labelled accounting, financial management, strategy implementation, management control and performance measurement. It will comprise both facts, ideas, concepts abilities competencies and skills. The way you are assessed and what you will be assessed on will mirror how you learn and what you learn; the assessment will constitute part of the learning.

Vocational relevance

The course is of equal relevance to aspiring accountants and students of business studies particularly interested in management control and strategy implementation, with a quantitative bias, but a qualitative one as well.

Entry

This is a Level 3 course. Level 3 courses build on study skills and subject knowledge acquired from previous studies at Levels 1 and 2. They are only intended for students with recent experience of higher education in a related subject.

We recommend you study either Financial accounting (B291) and Management accounting (B292) or Business functions in context (B203) before this Level 3 course.

If you have any doubt about the suitability of the course, please contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service.

Outside the UK

Mainstream ideas from both sides of the north Atlantic and further afield underlie the course. Additionally, the course includes coverage of case studies spread around Europe, North America and the South Pacific. Thus, the course should have wide appeal outside of as well as throughout Europe.

If you have a disability or additional requirement

The study materials are available in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). Some Adobe PDF components may not be available or fully accessible using a screen reader and mathematical, scientific, and foreign language materials may be particularly difficult to read in this way. Our Services for disabled students website has the latest information about availability.

If you are a new student, or new to courses using a computer or the internet, you will need to inform us of your particular needs as soon as possible, as some of our support services may take several weeks to arrange. Details of how to do this and our range of support services are described in our publication Meeting Your Needs.

You can also find information about accessible study materials, financial support and the Disabled Students' Allowance, equipment and other services, on our Services for disabled students website. It also includes our contact details for advice and support both before you register and while you are studying.

Study materials

What's included

Course guides, textbooks, case studies, journal article prints, website and online forums.

Computing requirements

This course includes online computer activities – you can access these using a web browser that can play Flash and Shockwave. 

You will need internet access and a computer. If you have purchased a new Windows computer since 2005 it should meet your course computing requirements. Check our Technical Requirements section if your computer is older than this or is otherwise unusual. Please note that you cannot use an Apple Mac or Linux computer unless it is running Windows using Boot Camp or similar dual-boot system.

You will need a headset, with a microphone and earphones, to talk to your tutor and other students online during some of the course activities.

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

You will have a tutor who will help you with the study material and mark and comment on your written work, and whom you can ask for advice and guidance. You will be able to take part in real-time audio conferencing group tutorials that you are encouraged, but not obliged, to join. 

Contact our Student Registration & Enquiry Service if you want to know more about study with The Open University before you register.

Assessment

The assessment details for this course can be found in the facts box above.

You will be expected to submit your tutor-marked assignments (TMAs) online through the eTMA system unless there are some difficulties which prevent you from doing so. In these circumstances, you must negotiate with your tutor to get their agreement to submit your assignment on paper.

Students also studied

Students who studied this course also studied at some time:

• Business functions in context (B203)
• Business organisations and their environments (B201)
• Making sense of strategy (B301)
• An introduction to business studies (B120)
• Investigating entrepreneurial opportunities (B322)

Future availability

The details given here are for the course that starts in November 2012. We expect it to be available once a year.

Fees 2012

See fees and funding options for study from September 2012.

Study explained

Financial support

- find out if you qualify for support with your fees with our eligibility checker.

Study explained

- all you need to know about distance learning with the OU.

Your questions

We may have already answered it in our frequently asked questions.

Or contact an adviser in our Student Registration & Enquiry Service Email or call +44(0) 845 300 60 90+44(0) 845 366 60 35

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