You are currently viewing “Learning Business by Doing Business“ Course by Prof. Dr. Christopher Hossfeld and Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Zilberberg

Prof. Dr. Hossfeld has been an Associate Professor in the Financial Reporting and Audit department at ESCP Europe Paris Campus since 2001. He is also Scientific Director of the Specialized Master ” – Business Performance Management” – , and in charge of different courses. Previously, he worked at Saarland University as an assistant professor for the Chair of Banking, in the banking industry as an auditor and as a lecturer in business administration at Paris III-Sorbonne Nouvelle University.
His fields of expertise include financial accounting, international accounting, bank accounting and regulation. His research focuses especially on aspects of international accounting harmonization.

Prof. Dr. Zilberberg teaches Accounting at the ESCP Business School and is responsible for an elective course on “Pricing and Margin Optimization”. As a consultant, he conducts audits of the pricing policies, help managers to clarify what they expect from their pricing policies (strategic intentions) and align the strategic targets with their operating price-volume decisions. He develops and implements scorecards, compensation systems and training sessions for senior management and sales force.
His fields of expertise includes Management Accounting and Pricing, Pedagogical Innovation and Digital Interactions.

The course “Learning Business by Doing Business” teaches the knowledge on topics from the financial sector, such as the basics of accounting. In addition, the students are to be enabled to include cost concepts in their strategic thinking and to facilitate the dialogue with controlling. By working on case studies, the knowledge gained is consolidated.

 

M3-2 Learning Business by Doing Business

The course is designed for participants without any background in Financial Accounting. It is a foundation course in financial accounting & reporting teaching basics of accounting techniques. The different elements of financial statements will be examined in terms of content, presentation and analysis. The Management Accounting part relies on financial accounting by reorganizing the information produced to calculate costs, margins and profits. These calculations do not only concern the products and/or services provided by the company, but can relate to a function, an entity, a process, etc. This optional and internal accounting offers a double dimension, accounting and management. It contributes to the valuation of certain elements in the balance sheet and the income statement and it also allows managerial decisions in relation to conservation, subcontracting, discontinuation of activities, maximization under constraint, pricing, capacity management, etc. The course is not oriented towards calculation. It aims at developing critical thinking by questioning any cost calculation which always represents an opinion about how resources are consumed by a cost object. It wants to help participants to integrate cost concepts in their (strategic) thinking and facilitate their dialog with management accountants.

 

Student´s voice:
“I liked the concept of contribution margin and managerial accounting.” (ST 2019)