Course 2026-2027 a.y.

Classes: 31 (I sem.)

Instructors:
Class 31: GIACOMO MORRI

Students are expected to be competent in Excel and are also expected to perform basic financial calculations including mortgage amortization, internal rate of return, compounding, and discounting of cash flows. Students should be comfortable with modern financial mathematics and should have taken some introductive finance course. Familiarity with computer spread sheets, concepts of net present value, and other financial formulae is required, as well as introduction to methods of financial analysis for real estate investments. Topics include valuation methods, cash flow forecasting, computer modelling, debt, leverage, and deal structures.

The success of any firm depends on its capabilities to generate winning strategic ideas, to motivate its managers and employees to implement strategies, to redirect ineffective decisions and actions, and to create stakeholders’ consensus. In these respects, performance measurement systems play a crucial role. On the one hand, through strategic planning, programming and budgeting, performance targets are set, coherently with strategic and organizational choices, and used to evaluate managers’ accountability. On the other hand, reporting systems serve to communicate actual performance to both managers and stakeholders in a way that fosters learning from experience, enables redirecting ineffective behaviors and supports the generation of stakeholders’ trust. Starting from such premises, the mission of this course is to explore the role of performance measurement and control systems (PM&CS) in implementing strategy and supporting governance processes in the Arts, Communication, Media and Entertainment companies.

The most important topics we consider during this course are the following:

 

• The design of performance measurement and control systems consistently with strategies and organizational choices.
• The preparation of profit plans and their use to control and evaluate a firm’s performance. 
• The use of strategic profitability analysis to interpret and drive organizational units’ as well as managers’ performance.
• The application of asset allocation techniques that aid making decisions on investments. 
• The use of transfer prices in managing business units of multinational companies. 
• The definition and use of non-financial performance indicators and the design of integrated reporting systems.
• The calculation and application of value-based measures. 
• The identification of the behavioural and organisational consequences of using performance measurement and performance management techniques for motivating managers and employees. 

At the end of the course student will be able to...

 

 

• Setting Performance Measurement Systems and Strategy 

• Reading performances through Financial Statements: Income Statement 

• Reading performances through Financial Statements: Balance Sheet 

• Reading performances through Financial Statements: Ratio Analysis 

• Reading Financial Statements of "for-profit organizations" (Companies) 

• Cash Flow Statement "for-profit organizations" (Companies) 

• Building a Balanced Scorecard to Evaluate Performance 

• Using of information and nature of controls 

• Linking performance measurement systems and Organization design 

• Creating a Business Plan 

• Designing Asset Allocation Systems

• Prepare a Budget 

• Aligning Performance Goals and Incentives 

At the end of the course student will be able to...

 

• Analyzing Performance Measures,  

• Setting Plans and Goals,  

• Creating a scorecard system 

• Designing incentive systems 

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Practical Exercises
• Collaborative Works / Assignments

a) In-class activities 

 

In-class activities comprise:

 

Theory sessions

Theory sessions are meant to set out the foundations for performance measurement and control. The aim of these sessions is to present concepts and approaches, i.e. a coherent body of practical theory to be applied to case discussions.

 

Case discussions (either plenary or in groups) 

This course strongly emphasizes the case method, with intense student involvement, in a seminar-like atmosphere. Students are encouraged to engage in proficient, in-depth discussions with peers and professors, using cases as applications of theory sessions material. 

 

b) Extra-class activities 

 

Extra-class activities include:

 

Individual preparation to case discussion. Students should read the cases before class. If students do not prepare the case for the day, they will not be able to follow much of the class discussion and will not be able to recoup the lost participation opportunity. This also encourages a smoothing of participants’ workload.

 

The preparation of group assignments, as announced in class and on the course e-learning section. 

 

-Assignment #1 will be introduced in class in October, the deadline will be on November 15th, 11.59 pm;

 

-Assignment #2 will be introduced in class in November, the deadline will be on December 15th, 11.59 pm.

	Continuous assessment	Partial exams	General exam
Written individual exam (traditional/online)			x
Collaborative Works / Assignment (report, exercise, presentation, project work etc.)	x
Active class participation (virtual, attendance)	x

Regularly attending students

 

The faculty team

will determine student grades by using a combination of assignments and final exam, as shown in the table below: 

Final Exam (written) 

Individual: grade 75% 

 

Group Assignment: Group grade 25% 

 

The final exam (written) will consist of essay questions, relating to class theory sessions, and cases, similar to those we analyze in class.  It will last 90 minutes and will be organized in exercises and open questions.

 

Regarding group assignments, both the formal and the substantial quality of the works provided will be evaluated. The grade will be assigned to the group as a whole with no differentiation among the single members. The grade will be maintained for the current academic year (ending on October 2027). 

Non regularly attending students 

 

Students that do not participate to group assignments are considered non regularly attending students. For these students the valuation will be based on a final written exam that will consist of essay questions, relating the whole Syllabus of the course, cases included.

 

It will last 90 minutes and will be organized in exercises and open questions. 

The main course material, for both attending and non-attending students, is:

 

R. SIMONS, Performance Measurement and Control Systems for Implementing Strategy, Pearson New International Edition. Book chapters are already available on Harvard Business School Press website (hbsp.harvard.edu) or on Case Centre (www.thecasecentre.org)

 

In addition to Simons’ textbook, slides and some other materials (articles, videos, useful links, etc.) are provided during the course. Students need to refer to the Bboard platform and the "Course Reserve" platform provided by the Library. 

The main course material, for both attending and non-attending students, is:

 

R. SIMONS, Performance Measurement and Control Systems for Implementing Strategy, Pearson New International Edition. Book chapters are already available on Harvard Business School Press website (hbsp.harvard.edu) or on Case Centre (www.thecasecentre.org)

 

In addition to Simons’ textbook, slides and some other materials (articles, videos, useful links, etc.) are provided during the course. Students need to refer to the Bboard platform and the "Course Reserve" platform provided by the Library.