Financial Resources and Performance Management

Learning Outcomes

1. Either: Evaluate the impact of the decision on the organisation’s financial statements and the relevance  of this impact on the decision (1.1).  Or: Consider the limitations of the impact on the financial statements and the potential for manipulation in  order to achieve a desired outcome (1.2).
2. Either: Evaluate the different methodologies and approaches to identifying appropriate cost information  to support the decision and control expenditure (2.1, 2.2). Or: Critically analyse the role and limitations of budgets in managing and controlling expenditure. Approaches to driving value through better budgeting (2.3).  

3. Appraise the role of activity based approaches and strategic management accounting in analysing the  decision (3.1, 3.2, 3.3).  
4. Either Critically assess the management and allocation of resources and gaps between needs and  availability resulting from the decision (4.1; 4.2).  Or: Assess the potential for and use of best-in-class benchmarking to support the decision process (4.3).  

5. Either: Consider the tensions between financial objectives, stakeholder expectations and agency issues  (5.1). Or: Appraise the role of treasury management in supporting the decision (5.3).  Or: Identify and evaluate the impact of alternative financing available and appropriate to the decision (5.2).  

6. Identify and evaluate international aspects of the decision including risk, additional complexities and  financing (7.1, 7.2, 7.3). 
7. Evaluate the sources and consequences of risk associated with the decision and how these risks may be  managed (8.1, 8.2, 8.3).

Task :

Critical evaluation and application of the additional five chosen learning outcomes  0-50 marks (0 up to 12 marks for each Learning Outcome within the 50 marks) are allocated for a  theoretical and research based evaluation of the financial resource or performance issue in the context of  the strategic decision being considered in the assignment. In all cases the application of the issue to the  decision needs to be included. The marks will be allocated approximately equally as follows:  

• Relevant theory.  
• Research based evaluation of data.  
• Application to the decision.  
• Conclusions.  

Conclusions and recommendations from the study [marks 0-20] 

• Integration of the research covered in the study.  
• Strengths and weaknesses in the organisation’s strategic decision-making process.  • Conclusions and final evaluation of the success or failure of the process.  
• Recommendations on how the organisation can improve its strategic decision-making process. 

The word count for this assignment is 3,500 words. A tolerance of +/- 10% is allowed where no penalty is  incurred. 

What does the assignment require?  

The requirements for this assignment need to be read in conjunction with the syllabus and assessment  criterion for the subject.  

For a named organisation of their choice, candidates are required to identify an actual, or potential, major  strategic decision which impacts, or has impacted, on significant financial resources and organisational  performance

Reference Style : Harvard Style