Strategic Management Control for Sustainability and Innovation

Strategic management control concerns the set of methods, frameworks and technologies that allow the organisation to execute all activities and processes necessary for goal achievement. These strategic goals are set outside the discipline of controlling: management control focuses on execution. This focus is systematic, transparent, dynamic and involves all members of the organisation. Each of these members have their own responsibilities and contribute in their own specific way (depending on their expertise, role and function) to the success of the organisation. The strategic management control system, therefore, has the important objective of aligning all these individual contributions, such that coherence and consistency is safeguarded (goal congruence).
Thus, management control makes sure that strategies are implemented and executed in the most efficient and effective way possible. This is organisational performance and organisational performance is more than just the sum of all individual performance. Management control indeed focuses on the added value of the organisation as such. This is the second most important objective of our discipline: how to go from high-performance individual contributions to overall organisational performance? In other words, how do we add structural, organisational capital to individual and human capital?
A lot of important decisions must be made to get there … and management control helps provide the necessary information for optimal decision making. This is the third important contribution of controlling to management: analysing and synthesizing all relevant information and making sure this information is shared with and understood by all parties involved. In short, optimal decision making is focused on efficient and effective goal achievement in a controlled way.
This course will focus on sustainability and innovation. How do we move towards sustainable business? How do we innovate in a controlled way, i.e. in function of our strategic goals? Why is control so important for really including sustainability and innovation into the business performance management systems? Why is inclusive, critical thinking so important? How does diversity add value to organisational capitals? What if we use the wrong controls? What if we do not include the right controls?
All these questions, and more, will come to the floor in a structured, consistent and coherent way. That is what strategic management control is all about. It is more of an art than a hard science, but scientific insights and empirical learnings play, of course, a major role. It is about evidence-based management, no?

1. Students demonstrate the capability of applying knowledge, insight and problem-solving skills to semi-structured or unstructured management control challenges and problems.
2. Students have the capability to integrate various perspectives when encountering complex problems in the field of managerial control with a focus on innovation, change, sustainability and inclusive decision making.
3. Students possess insights and skills to critically reflect on developments and proposed solutions to the above-mentioned challenges and problems.
4. Students possess intercultural skills and can operate in an international/global business setting.
5. Students are capable of self-directed learning and critical reflection and demonstrate a professional attitude (competitive collaboration, open-mindedness, performance-driven resilience & perseverance).

During the course, and after an introduction of the topics (Sustainability; Innovation & Change; Inclusive Decision Making), students study academic articles, present these articles, give examples, lead a discussion and give formal feedback (peer learning assessment).
The academic articles are related, but it is the students´ contribution to present them in a structured way and analyse complex problems by using the (diverse) insights in an interactive and participative learning process.
A critical opinion is necessary, both in assessing the course literature, the discussion thereof, as well as in delivering a feasible solution.
We strive to mix the subgroups of students in such a way that this will form intercultural teams that can deal with the complexity of different cultural background.

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

No formal pre-requisites: in general, an introductory course management accounting (often part of a general accounting course), is (more than) sufficient. accounting,
This course will give a concise, non-specialist overview of the most used, very intuitive management accounting methods and instruments; which will be more than enough of a start for the discussions, exercises and project work.
The project work is meant to help students discover themselves accounting logic and methodologie and will lead to students identifying themselves their needs for further knowledge. This need will be addressed in class (discussion classes) as follow-up of the extensive project work (SOCO case study).

The course consists of two parts. The first part will introduce some contemporary management control models like, e.g. Robert Simon’s “Levers of Control” framework. In part two, will use this controlling framework to adapt and extend it with respect to sustainability and innovation. The second part will consist of (interactive) key overview lectures, after which the students themselves take the floor with presentations and (structured) discussions. The lecturer will provide the students with mandatory reading material to be used for these presentations and discussions. A precise course schedule will be announced in due time

The meetings will be a mixture of:
- the first lectures are focused on knowledge transfer: the professor introduces the foundations and basics
- exercises in class to make students familiar with the instruments and methods of managerial (or management) accounting
- an extensive project (group work) will focus on "peer learning": students will help each other and co-educate each other as peers while working through the case (40-60 hours)
- discussions, open Q&A related not only to the project, but also to the topics of the course
- the individual work focuses on "critical thinking" and as the students will receive (to be decides and dependent on number of students) (a) a "blind" copy of one of their peers, also on the competence to give structured feedback. Part of the final grade of the individual work will thus depend on the grade given by a fellow student or (b) will be asked to give feedback to the project work presentations of the other groups in class.   

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

Class 1:
20VC with Harry Stebbings. (2025, February 12). Fabien Pinckaers, CEO @Odoo: The Billionaire Founder Who Doesn’t Care About Money | E1259 [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/vgvbRRVreHI
Class 2:
●    Draghi, M. The future of European competitiveness - A competitiveness strategy for Europe, September 2024.
●    Into Europe. (2024, September 16). Mario Draghi's Plan to Fix the EU's Economy [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/Fh6eAiD3INI
Class 3:
●    (2015). Chapter 15: The Essentials of Control. In Principles of Management.    https://biz.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Management/Principles_of_Management/15%3A_The_Essentials_of_Control
●    ASQ (2024). The 7 Basic Quality Tools for Process Improvement. https://asq.org/quality-resources/seven-basic-quality-tools
Class 4:
●    Pettis, M. (2025) What’s New about Involution? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. https://carnegieendowment.org/posts/2025/08/whats-new-about-involution?lang=en
●    Case discussion: Rotor DC https://rotordc.com
●    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation
o    Consider theories of innovation, types, process innovation, diffusion, sources, and counter narratives.
Class 5: 
●    Rizos, V., Righetti, E., & Kassab, A. (2024). Understanding the barriers to recycling critical raw materials for the energy transition: The case of rare earth permanent magnets. Energy Reports, 12, 1673–1682. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2024.07.022
●    CFAI The Sustainability Story: Corporate Governance and due diligence in the EU: a step in the right direction? (Podcast April 7, 2024) https://link.chtbl.com/tss
Class 6: 
●    OECD (2024), Bridging Talent Shortages in Tech: Skills-first Hiring, Micro-credentials and Inclusive Outreach, Getting Skills Right, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/f35da44f-en.
●    Auditor General of Canada. (2023). Reports of the Auditor General of Canada to the Parliament of Canada. Report 5 Inclusion in the Workplace for Racialized Employees. https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_202310_05_e_44338.html
Class 7: 
●    CNBC. (2024, September 25). Why Automakers' EV Factory Investments Aren't Paying Off In The U.S. [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/ODG59UjBiGg
●    Bigazzi, A., & Berjisian, E. (2021). Modeling the impacts of electric bicycle purchase incentive program designs. Transportation Planning and Technology, 44(7), 679–694. https://doi.org/10.1080/03081060.2021.1956806
Class 8: 
●    Khaslavskaya, A., Roso, V., Sanchez-Diaz, I., & Altuntas Vural, C. (2021). Value-Added Services at Dry Ports: Balancing the Perspectives of Different Stakeholders. Transportation Journal, 60(4), 406–438. https://doi.org/10.5325/transportationj.60.4.0406
●    Chonko, L. (2012). Ethical Theories. https://dsef.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/EthicalTheories.pdf
Class 10: 
●    Morris, J. (2019). Part 5 Business-level Strategy. Strategic Management, Oregon State University. https://open.oregonstate.education/strategicmanagement/
●    Sleeboom-Faulkner, M. (2019). Regulatory brokerage: Competitive advantage and regulation in the field of regenerative medicine. Social Studies of Science, 49(3), 355–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312719850628
Class 12: 
●    Drucker, P. (1969). The Effective Decision. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/1967/01/the-effective-decision
●    Silverman, D. (2021). Decision-making under uncertainty. Imperial College London. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/stories/decision-making
Other
●    The Economist - Espresso application. https://subscribenow.economist.com/student

Course notes

• Université virtuelle

Additional information

Class   Date                       Topic

1               Sep 15, 2026.        Introduction

2               Sep 22                   European productivity – Demographic and economic challenges

3               Sep 29                   Control frameworks

4               Oct 6                      Innovation + In-class Assignment 1

5               Oct 13                   Sustainability – Environmental

6               Oct 20                   Sustainability – Social

Oct 27 - NO CLASS

7               Nov 3                      Change Management

Nov 10 - NO CLASS

8               Nov 17                   Balancing Stakeholders

9               Nov 24                   Present – Case Studies

10            Dec 1                     Sustainability and Strategy + In-class Assignment 2

11            Dec 8                     Present – Case Studies

12            Dec 15                  Making Decisions under Uncertainty

Contacts

Neil Irvine
neil.irvine@ulb.be

Campus

Solbosch

Method(s) of evaluation

• Personal work
• Project
• Continuous assessment
• Group work

Personal work

Project

Continuous assessment

Group work

Evaluation items	Value	Due Date	Individual/Group
Participation	25%	In-class assignments (x2)	Group
Personal Reflection Papers x3	40%	Oct 7, 2025 20h Oct 21, 2025 20h Nov 18, 2025 20h	Individual
Case Study (group presentation)	35%	Nov 25, 2025 in class Dec 9, 2025 in class	Group
Total	100%

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

See evaluation methods.

Language(s) of evaluation

• english