Management
AccountingCornell

Certificate Program

Choosing the Right Performance Measures for Your Organization introduces managers to the basics of measuring and reporting on the performance of your organization, whether it's a for-profit business, not-for profit, or governmental organization. You will learn about the different types of reporting systems these organizations use, with a focus on performance reporting systems: the systems that lay out an organization's strategy and report on how well that strategy is being executed. You will also take a detailed look at one of the most important tools for performance reporting, the Balanced Scorecard. The ultimate goal for this course is for you to be able to implement the Balanced Scorecard in your own organization.

Performance reporting has three main aspects that managers must understand in order to implement it properly:

• 1. Managers must represent organizational strategy the way a scientist would, by identifying causes and effects and linking each cause and effect to a measure can be reported, discussed and improved upon throughout the organization.
• 2. Managers must understand the inherent errors in your measures of performance. You need to understand the nature of the errors and how best to address them.
• 3. Managers must understand how the performance measures you create will influence the behavior of others.

This online course explores the types and sources of measurement error, the use of causal models in analyzing measures of performance, and the differences between managing measures and managing performance.

Incentive compensation is one of the most powerful tools managers have to motivate and direct their employees—but like any powerful tool, it can cause great damage if not wielded carefully! This online course will help you understand how to match forms of incentive compensation to your firm's circumstances, and identify and respond to incentive-strategy mismatches.

Measuring and making sense of profit margins on an organization's different products and services requires an accurate assessment of the true costs of delivering those products and services. This online course will teach you how to analyze the true cost of products and services that rely heavily on shared resources (often called "overhead"), how common methods of reporting these costs lead to distorted decision-making, and devise reports that link reported costs to business strategy in the most effective ways.

This course provides students with an understanding of the basic tools organizations use to identify the total costs of the resources they consume, and allocate those costs to particular managers, products and services. These tools can be used to improve the overall effectiveness of the organization by:

• Evaluating margins performance more accurately.
• Charging costs to discourage the use of particularly costly resources.
• Setting prices to ensure that each individual product or service is covering its costs.
• Adjusting the mix of products and services toward those with high margins, and away from those with low margins.

The key to good managerial reporting lies in deciding which system best helps managers make better decisions, with the shortcomings that cause the fewest problems.

This online course explores one of the most challenging issues in measuring the margins created by individual managers, departments, products and services: allocating the costs that are incurred simply to provide productive capacity. You will learn the pluses and minuses of investing in capacity, the creation of surplus, and the risks associated with fixed capacity costs help you assess and plan for economic downturns or increased competition. In examining the economics of your business, you will understand which costing systems best meet your needs.

Measuring and encouraging efficiencies in different parts of an organization rely on accurately identifying and isolating the areas responsible for those efficiencies. This online course introduces you to effective techniques for setting prices for the exchange of products and services between different units in a business. The goal is to improve decision-making and to isolate each unit's responsibility for the elements of business strategy under their control.

Symposium sessions feature three days of live, highly interactive virtual Zoom sessions that will explore today’s most pressing topics. The Leadership Symposium offers you a unique opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with peers and experts from the Cornell community and beyond. Using the context of your own experiences, you will take part in reflections and small-group discussions to build on the skills and knowledge you have gained from your courses.

Join us for the next Symposium in which we’ll discuss the ways that leaders across industries have continued engaging their teams over the past two years while pivoting in strategic ways. You will support your coursework by applying your knowledge and experiences to relevant topics for leaders. Throughout this Symposium, you will examine different areas of leadership, including innovation, strategy, and engagement. By participating in relevant and engaging discussions, you will discover a variety of perspectives and build connections with your fellow participants from various industries.

Upcoming Symposium: February 11, 12 and 13, 2025 from 11am – 1pm ET

• Tuesday, February 11, 2025 11am – 1pm ET
• Wednesday, February 12, 2025 11am – 1pm ET
• Thursday, February 13, 2025 11am – 1pm ET

All sessions are held on Zoom.

Future dates are subject to change. You may participate in as many sessions as you wish. Attending Symposium sessions is not required to successfully complete any certificate program. Once enrolled in your courses, you will receive information about upcoming events. Accessibility accommodations will be available upon request.