Management Control - Audit

In the United Kingdom, more than 700 Post Office workers were wrongfully convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting between 2000 and 2014. That was the result of a fault in Horizon, a Fujitsu computer system used by the UK Post Office. How can AI solutions be developed to detect and prevent such intelligent anomalies? To answer these questions and more we have turned to HEC Professor of Accounting and Management Control, Aluna Wang. She is also chairholder at Hi! PARIS Center on Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence.

Schneider Electric’s pay-as-you-go solar home systems fund in Kenya case, written by HEC Paris Professor Luc Paugam and Sookyoung Lee of HEC Paris S&O Institute has just been released on the Case Centre platform. This case study explores the concept of hybrid organization, which blurs traditional boundaries between nonprofit and for-profit organizations, reconciling profit motives with community needs. 

A year after the EU’s Court of Justice ruled that none of its member states can outlaw the sale of the non-psychotic compound cannabidiol (CBD), France’s highest appeals court overturned a decision banning its sale on French territory. Associate Professor Daniel Martinez analyses the June 26 decision in the light of his long research on cannabis-related questions in Colorado.

The year 2015 marked a cesura in Europe’s recent history to “the largest migration movement of people that Europe has seen since 1945” (Financial Times, 2015). Private citizens quickly and efficiently organized to assist the settling of 20,000 of refugees crossing borders every day in Germany, compensating for the state’s initial inability to handle the situation (The Economist, 2015). Researchers have investigated the early organization that led to the quick response of those citizens to manage a crisis. In this interview, David Twardowski Crvelin, Assistant Professor of Accounting and Management Control at HEC Paris, discusses the conditions that help the inclusion of migrants in business and society.

Most international development agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have some experience planning and evaluating projects using the Logical Framework matrix. Professors of Accounting Daniel Martinez (HEC Paris) and David Cooper (University of Alberta) traced the managerial traditions that informed this visual instrument and the implications this has for international development.

HEC Paris Professor Hélène Löning shares insights on disruption in the way the four well-known auditing and consulting firms, or "Big 4", perform auditing, recruit and manage careers. In her view, the Big 4 and other consulting firms will have to take account of the new generations' expectations to find the skills and talents needed to add value and bring solutions to their clients.

Trust plays a key role both in investors’ and entrepreneurs’ performances. It is built among others on a shared vision of entrepreneurship, as well as shared networks. In this interview, HEC Paris Professor Hélène Löning shares her expertise based on research and several studies about entrepreneurial ecosystems conducted with her students. She introduces the different relationship stages between investors and entrepreneurs, explains the consequences of shared images of entrepreneurship, and the business schools’ key role in building this relationship and its ability to innovate. To conclude, she emphasizes the notion of trust by explaining how it applies to investors and entrepreneurs.

What we are experiencing is similar to an earthquake of strong magnitude. Everyone agrees that there will be a before and after Covid-19. Whilst this earthquake assails us all, we do have control of the choices and decisions to be made. These will determine how crippled or strengthened we will be by the end... As always in times of crisis there are losers and winners, the cards are redealt.

Today's coronavirus crisis has driven down our economy. Such a pause has a negative impact on world trade and economic growth; its social implications (loss of income and employment, increased inequality…) will have explosive consequences. In this context, there are many calls for a model change: let's not just press the "pause" button to restart the existing model, let's use this opportunity to reinvent it!