In summary, this paper focuses on the management control systems that help organizations avoid financial losses. Teach assistants’ (TA) responsibilities include a variety of duties that cannot be measured or calculated for the purpose of accurate salary calculations, such as responding to questions and emails. Hence, this paper explores the opportunities for developing and implementing a TAs’ management control system. The School of Business already has some systems in place that are designed to monitor and control the work of TAs’, such as teachers checking whether TAs’ adhere to the assignment rubric when grading students’ work. Moreover, the extra hours TAs work must be approved by the Associate Dean, and the selection process has several distinct criteria designed to check the TAs’ qualifications.
The evident weaknesses of the existing control system are the TAs’ assessing their work hours and lack of a system that would prevent them from grading the work of people they are familiar with. Moreover, the overall control of the TAs’ work is insufficient as their work is not monitored, and they are only given a 2-hour orientation. Some suggestions for improvement include the need to implement new monitoring systems, such as mandatory log-in into Brightspace. Timesheets signed at the student center can serve as an additional control measure and an alternative to Brightspace (“Brightspace community,” n.d.). Next, Preaction Reviews, such as assigning another TA to monitor the grading of the first one, can help improve the control system. Additionally, the TAs should receive feedback from the instructors regarding their work. The training of the TAs should be improved as well since a 2-hour session provides little understanding of what is expected from a TA and their work.
Reference
Brightspace community. (n.d.). Web.