“Oh This Learning, What a Thing It Is!”—Putting Sustainability First in Teaching Techniques and in Content
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Methodology
3. Theoretical Foundations of Sustainability
Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs […] Development involves a progressive transformation of economy and society […] But physical sustainability cannot be secured unless development policies pay attention to such considerations as changes in access to resources and in the distribution of costs and benefits. Even the narrow notion of physical sustainability implies a concern for social equity between generations, a concern that must logically be extended to equity within each generation.[13]
- environmentally and socially induced financial impacts;
- ecological and social impacts of a defined economic system (e.g., the company, production site etc.); and
- the interactions and linkages between social, environmental, and economic issues constituting the dimensions of sustainability.
3.1. Sustainable University
“We integrate sustainability and responsible behavior consequently in our teaching, research, and administration. We believe that through cooperation between our students, staff, and other leading partners in sustainability, the university can have a true impact in creating a circular economy and a sustainable society”.
- Integrate sustainability in teaching curricula.
- Improve communication with staff and students on the theme of sustainability by promoting and supporting events, symposia, lectures, and courses relating to this theme.
- Encourage staff to maintain their employability and continuously develop their talents (each year, twenty-five percent of all employees use the services of Talent Travel and the Corporate Academy).
3.2. Sustainable Learning
- Learning is a continuous non-linear process, without a definite end or beginning. Even if something is learned and becomes a skill, it is temporary; as the variables change, the skill needs to be continuously reviewed and altered.
- Learning resembles a breathing process, an interaction between inside and outside. What is outside (exhale) in one loop, is inside (inhaling) in the other, and vice versa.
- The result of the way of knowing/learning lies in me (new insights), while making choices lies outside of me (the world changes, when I execute my decisions). During the learning process, the observed facts are always outside me, while the thinking process that searches for the relevant concepts takes place within me.
- SENSING: encountering the problem to be tackled, evoking lively interest in the problem and its context; the student has to say “yes” within him/herself to what s/he meets
- CONNECTING: developing own unique relationship to the problem, disassembling the problem matter in a variety of ways; researching it, studying theoretical models, course book scientific literature on the subject
- PROCESSING: developing unique individual solution strategy to the research question, implementing student’s own working method
- APPROPRIATING: awakens in his/her actions or approach, discovering the ability to solve the problem inside yourself, arriving at the choice of a solution
- PRACTICING: practicing until the sensed strategy “how” is forgotten, prototyping and reflecting, discussing the choices made, presenting arguments
- APPLYING: solving the problem, answering the question, practiced solution becoming the instrument that can be used in the wider world
- CREATING: the solution is fully at the service of the student, dealing it with freely, becoming an expert in the field
4. Sustainable Advanced Management Accounting Course Set-Up
4.1. Evolution from Traditional to Sustainable Course Set-Up
4.1.1. Case Assignment in the Course as a Collection of Problems to Address
4.1.2. Learning Approach in the Course
5. Conclusions and Future Developments
Supplementary Materials
Author Contributions
Funding
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. Course Case Text
- Effect of the uncertainty in decision making: How are you going to cope with uncertainty? We do not know whether Julia is an optimist or a pessimist. Show where the Hurwicz Alpha point would be, which would decide whether to take more or less risky options in financial planning or investment (you can check your life optimism ratio using the LOT (Life Orientation Test) survey to visualize the results). Use this for a decision on investment in solar energy and its effect on company profit.
- The rooms in the hotel are currently standard rooms. Julia is considering giving the rooms an upgrade to better reflect the awareness of body and mind that she aims for. These upgrades would cost XXX (This is up to your consideration. We publish additional file “Cost-Estimating-Guide.pdf” with overview of the renovation costs—you may make your own team selection of it.) euro per room, and the price of the room would be raised by 10%. Julia expects occupancy rates for the new rooms to be the same in the first year, but these may change in the following years. Prepare scenario analysis for two options with two different room types, highlighting changing cells.
- Financial planning: Make a financial planning for the first five years of the hotel’s operations.
- Demand and price sensitivity: Prepare a sensitivity analysis for different levels of marketing expenses, room prices, and demand for hotel rooms (use a 20% threshold).
- Classify and estimate costs: Prepare a cost overview with the cost classification. Discuss the functional form of the cost function and the best suited cost estimation technique, and show the cost model for learning.
- ABB budget: Prepare a budget using the activity based budgeting (ABB) technique. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this technique in this case.
- Performance management system: Prepare a multidimensional performance chart (include performance chart here) that Julia could use to manage the hotel’s results—specify leading and lagging indicators when using BSc or Nests for Tableau du Board.
- Internalize externality costs: Make an overview of the full cost approach (including the externalities)—conceptual and numerical. How does incorporating the full cost approach influence the competitiveness of the hotel. What would be your advice? Suggest and provide concrete arguments to match Julia’s specific vision and ambitions in the hospitality industry. Develop sustainable key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor and accomplish that ambition.
- Transfer price (TP): After a successful start in Poland, Julia wants to expand her activities across the border and she aims at setting up a chain of hotels according to the same concept, starting with hotels in two other countries in Europe. She has found useful properties in Czech Republic, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Germany. In which two countries would you advise her to start, and, once realized, would the transfer price concept be applicable in this case? Describe arguments and inform about the conditions and challenges for TP to apply. Consider, for example, aspects such as tax rate, intercompany services, management fee, use of intangibles, and arm’s length aspects. Illustrate this with an example calculation.
- Assignment based on Chapters 11 and 12: As you are aware by now, the book repeatedly points out the limitations of management accounting in relation to bounded rationality of decision makers, imperfect information, and uncertainty or even ambiguity of future conditions or outcomes. Near the end of the book, these limitations become more profound. Therefore, in the next section of the case assignment, you will have to deal with a decision of Julia, which will force you to deal with these uncertainties. After establishing and consolidating her chain of hotels in Europe, Julia seeks to further expand by exploring the Caribbean market. Julia remembers from her university days in Groningen, that a few small islands in the Caribbean are part of the Dutch kingdom, where they speak Dutch, and she decides that the tourist island of Curaçao might be the perfect stepping stone for further expansion in this region. She asks you to present a plan on how to enter the Curaçaoan market, which inter-organizational management controls to apply, and how to set up an effective incentive system. Use approximately 1500 words to report on Julia’s request, and rather than merely reproducing theory, make sure that you apply the theory of Chapters 11 and 12 to the specific context and business case (note: these 1500 words are part of the total of 5000).
- You work the assignments out in Word. The interpretation and the calculations are under each point.
- This is an open book assignment. You can use any source of information; the literature in the course book and articles are compulsory.
- You are advised to use additional literature or data sources if it enriches your advice (it will positively contribute to the final grade).
- Mention all the sources and literature in the reference list.
- We expect the Word file to be approximately 5000 words.
- Mention your personal data (name, address, student number, and so on, and the time that you committed to finish the report) at the end of the report, after the literature and other references.
- For this report, you can acquire a maximum of 80 points (the criteria for points are explained):
- 20 points for the lay-out (e.g., neat edition, complete references, both parts comprehensive and readable, no mistakes)
- 30 points for the Word report (e.g., the quality of the advice; the strength and to the point argumentation supported by the literature, i.e., course book, course articles or others; concise answers organized in easily understandable (for the reader) manner; comprehensiveness of the solution in the report)
- 30 points for the Excel calculation part (e.g., correctness of the use of the accounting techniques, application of the Excel tools, formulas, additional analysis suggested and performed correctly).
Appendix B
Case Team | Previous (Undergraduate) Education (Expertise) | Current Master Program | Country of Origin | Team Role 2 First | Team Role Second | Team Role Third | Gender |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Premaster Business Economics | MSc BA OMC 1 | The Netherlands | Explorer | Team player | Driver | M |
1 | BSc Business Management | MSc BA OMC | The Netherlands | Executive | Analyst | Driver | M |
1 | Premaster Accountancy | MSc BA Controlling | The Netherlands | Driver | Executive | Analysts | F |
1 | BSc Applied Physics | MSc Applied Psychics | The Netherlands | Explorer | Innovator | Driver | M |
2 | BSC Business Administration | MSc BA OMC | Curacao | Team player | Executive | Explorer | F |
2 | BSc Economics and Business | MSc BA OMC | The Netherlands | Completer | Executive | Analysts | M |
2 | BSc Business Management | Accountancy and Controlling | The Netherlands | Analysts | Chairman | Explorer | M |
2 | BSc Business Psychology/Internship | MSc BA OMC | Germany | Analysts | Executive | Chairman | F |
3 | BSc minor Controlling | MSc BA OMC | Vietnam | Executive | Explorer | Analyst | F |
3 | premaster HBO IB & Arts (Philology) | MSc BA OMC | The Netherlands | Driver | Executive | Analysts | F |
3 | BSc BM/Accountancy & Controlling (double track) | MSc BA Controlling | The Netherlands | Expert | Executive | Innovator | M |
3 | BSc Accountancy & Controlling BSc Psychology | MSc BA OMC | The Netherlands | Innovator | Analyst | Team player | M |
4 | Premaster Accountancy | MSc BA Controlling | The Netherlands | Executive | Innovator | Chairman | M |
4 | Master Energy Engineering | MSc BA OMC | Germany | Team player | Chairman | Executive | M |
4 | BSc Business Management | MSc BA OMC | The Netherlands | Analysts | Driver | Chairman | M |
4 | BSc Accountancy & Controlling | MSc BA OMC | The Netherlands | Innovator | Team player | Executive | F |
Appendix C. Management Accounting Techniques—Reflection Survey
- This course helped to increase my insight in applying theory to practical situations.
- It was clear what your tasks were in the case assignment
- How interesting was the case assignment to you before you started working on it (after the introduction)?
- How interesting was the case assignment to you after you completed it?
- How do you rate the feasibility of the case assignment in general?
- How useful was the literature (course book, literature, tools)?
- How useful were the instructors’ assistance?
- How useful was the support from other student teams during the sessions?
- How well do you rate the cooperation and the quality of work in your case team?
- How useful would you consider the application and practice based approach that we chose for this course?
- Look back on the case assignment and the course; what did you like in particular about the course and the case assignment? (max 300 words)
- How many hours (approximate estimation) did you spend on making the case assignment (individually)? (excluding all other time you spend on learning such as weekly assignments for bonus)
- Please enter your student number s-number.
- Do you have any other remarks? (max 100 words)
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Gusc, J.; Heijes, C. “Oh This Learning, What a Thing It Is!”—Putting Sustainability First in Teaching Techniques and in Content. Sustainability 2018, 10, 2803. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10082803
Gusc J, Heijes C. “Oh This Learning, What a Thing It Is!”—Putting Sustainability First in Teaching Techniques and in Content. Sustainability. 2018; 10(8):2803. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10082803
Chicago/Turabian StyleGusc, Joanna, and Coen Heijes. 2018. "“Oh This Learning, What a Thing It Is!”—Putting Sustainability First in Teaching Techniques and in Content" Sustainability 10, no. 8: 2803. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10082803
APA StyleGusc, J., & Heijes, C. (2018). “Oh This Learning, What a Thing It Is!”—Putting Sustainability First in Teaching Techniques and in Content. Sustainability, 10(8), 2803. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10082803