Building upon the experiences of Werner Bruggeman and Geert Scheipers as practicing consultants, the authors, together, developed an educational case on responsibility center structures and transfer pricing. Sophie Hoozée and Sophie Maussen implemented the case in the course Management Control (as part of the Master of Science in Business Economics-Accounting). Using a need-supportive teaching style, the instructors maximized students’ autonomous learning motivation and brought students’ intrinsic motivation to the fore which resulted in highly creative case presentations (as demonstrated on the picture). The case teaches students that an organization’s responsibility center structure and its transfer pricing system need to be aligned with the competitive strategy in order to maintain organizational alignment and minimize dysfunctional behavior. As such, the case also illustrates that transfer pricing is not just about tax optimization, but also has important motivational consequences.
This educational case is published in the Journal of Accounting Education’s Special Issue devoted to the BAFA AE SIG Conference, where the case was presented in 2019 in Ghent.
Hoozée, S., Maussen, S., Bruggeman, W., & Scheipers, G. (2020). Fitting responsibility center structures to strategy: Bakery Products International. Journal of Accounting Education, 53 (in press).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaccedu.2020.100692