Learning objectives
The course aims to examine the main elements of corporate communication, as well as the relevant aspects of the financial statements.
In particular, the course offers the objective of giving students, the operational tools to be able to compare with a financial statement, making them able to read and critically analyze what is contained in the document.
At the end of the course the students will have acquired:
a. the basic knowledge in reference to corporate communication that must be prepared by companies in favor of the various subjects involved and interested.
b. the necessary knowledge on the financial statements in terms of civil law and national accounting standards.
c. the skills that will allow him to build, critically read and interpret the financial statements and some individual items.
d. The ability to independently perform an analysis on the financial statement document, drawing appropriate conclusions and critically commenting on the company's performance.
Prerequisites
Course unit content
The course will be organized in three parts:
after a brief general introduction to the topics of the course, the first part will deal with information and communication in the corporate area.
The second part will focus on the discipline of the financial statements with particular reference to the contents of the Civil Code and the accounting standards promoted by the Italian Accounting Body (OIC).
The final part of the course will concern the analysis of the balance sheet, both from the point of view of the reclassification of the balance sheet and the income statement, and with reference to the elaboration and commenting of some balance sheet ratios.
In detail:
- Corporate information with particular regard to companies structured as a group: recipients and type of information provided.
- The financial statements: regulations and accounting standards for the preparation of the financial statements of joint-stock companies (focus on national legislation).
- Schemes and documents that make up the financial statements.
- Analysis of some items of the financial statements and their evaluation according to what is indicated by the national accounting standards.
- Reclassification of the income statement and balance sheet according to the methods used in practice; calculation and appropriate comment on the balance sheet indices.
- Practical cases for reading and analyzing financial statements.
Full programme
Bibliography
The materials will be available weekly on line on the elly portal by consulting the teacher's page. A brief handout will be made available at the photocopy center of the Department of Economic and Business Sciences.
Reference textbook: Claudio Teodori. Analisi di Bilancio (2017). Torino - Giappichelli
Teaching methods
Alongside the lectures, the contents of the course will be proposed using active learning methods with an operational and practical approach. An optional project work will be proposed, to be carried out in groups, through which students will be able to apply what they have learned at a theoretical level.
• Acquisition of knowledge: lectures.
• Acquisition of the ability to apply the analysis methodologies: exercises.
• Acquisition of judgments: the cases proposed in the classroom and the self-developed project work will stimulate the elaboration and the critical evaluation.
• Acquisition of technical language: during the course an appropriate technical language will be proposed and students will be asked to use it.
The educational material useful for the preparation of the final exam will be weekly uploaded to Elly. Others material will also be made available at the photocopy center of the Department. In order to download the slides it is necessary to register for the online course. The slides are considered an integral part of the teaching material. Non-attending students are reminded to check the available teaching materials and the indications provided by the teacher through the Elly platform.
Assessment methods and criteria
Written test.
The assessment takes place with a written test consisting of an exercise and some open questions concerning the theoretical part addressed.
The written test lasts one and a half hours. The evaluation will take place in 30/30 and the results will be transmitted to the students through the computerized procedure in place at the Department of Economics and Business Sciences. The praise is assigned in the case of reaching the maximum score on each side to which is added the mastery of the topics covered.
Attending students have the opportunity to integrate the exam grade with a project work on a real case. During the first month of lessons, the groups will be trained and the business cases to be analyzed will be assigned. In particular, each group will be assigned a real budget to be analyzed following the indications given by the teacher in the classroom and reported in a vademecum. The participants of the project work must present the project to the teacher at the deadlines indicated in the vademecum and they have to present the results of his work in the classroom at the end of the course. Once the presentations are over, the teacher corrects the works. The Project work can assign from 0 to 3 points on the final exam grade. The score obtained in the project work is added to the score obtained in the exam. In case of exceeding 30/30 from the sum of the group work score and the individual score of the written test, the honors are awarded only in cases in which the student has obtained a score of 30/30.
Other information
