The MCASIDSS Project is One of the ENLIGHT 2025 Call Winners!

We are excited to announce that the MCASIDSS Project, with a team from the UG in participation, has been selected as one of the 2025 ENLIGHT Call winners! This project aims to design and deliver a new pilot postgraduate summer school for students that will explore how management control practices motivate sustainable success. Find out more about MCASIDSS and the people behind it below!

What is the main goal of the project? Who are your collaborative partners?

This project involves the design and delivery of a new pilot postgraduate summer school for students that will explore how management control practices motivate sustainable success. The two main goals of the project are to first, equip students with the knowledge and tools to evaluate and design management control practices for diverse work environments. It will enable students to comprehend and critique key management control theories and understand how management control practices influence behaviours. Second, the project also aims to foster communication, collaboration, and intercultural skills through co-learning and team-based challenges in international teams.

What inspired this project idea?

The motivational effects of control are still not well understood, and this can lead to weak or unsuitable control combinations and serious consequences for individuals, organisations and society. With its focus on the motivational implications of management control, the project addresses a critical management control issue.

Why is this international collaboration essential to your work?

This innovative project will have a distinct impact by equipping future professionals and researchers with the knowledge and skills to design and implement inclusive, motivational management control practices for diverse organisational contexts. Through the experience of challenge-based learning, participants build practical problem-solving and intercultural competencies transferrable to their future roles. The initiative also deepens collaboration across three ENLIGHT institutions and creates reusable teaching resources. The positive academic and societal impacts are in line with ENLIGHT’s vision of education that is collaborative, transformative, and future-focused.

How did this collaboration come together?

The group already had connections. Prior to this project, we collaborated with the same three partner universities on teaching management control. Students from the three universities attended virtual lectures and guest talks, and worked on case studies in inter-university teams.

What impact do you expect this project will have for the University of Groningen and the ENLIGHT network?

The pilot summer school provides a scalable ENLIGHT model that supports shared curricula, mobility, and long-term capacity building. The initiative also deepens collaboration across three ENLIGHT institutions and creates reusable teaching resources. The positive academic and societal impacts are in line with ENLIGHT’s vision of education that is collaborative, transformative, and future-focused.

What's next?

When this project is finished, we may wish to consider future collaborative endeavors. We could organize the summer school more often, and/or use the obtained insights in our collaboration on teaching management control in regular courses.

The team at the UG:

• Prof. Paula Dirks, Professor of Management Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Business
• MSc Sander Tiggelaar, Lecturer and PhD student in Accounting, Faculty of Economics and Business