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Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California
Landale PLC
Teaching Note
Purpose of Case
This case was written to illustrate some personnel controls used in the finance and accounting
organization of a consumer products company. It focuses on a thoughtful job rotation program
Suggested Assignment Questions
1. Evaluate the Landale Finance and Accounting Development Program. What changes would
you make to the program, if any?
2. How should the FAST Committee address the issues that had arisen?
3. Why should the finance and accounting functions of Landale have a development program
when none of the other functional areas within Landale has one?
Case Analysis
The Finance and Accounting Development Program is a formal personnel development
program. Its primary stated purpose is to develop new controllers internally. The program is
built on the belief that to be successful controllers you need five types of experiences: general
accounting, cost accounting, forecasting, financial analysis, and internal auditing.
Merchant & Van der Stede, Management Control Systems, 3rd edition, Instructors Manual
as with virtually all management initiatives, the program involved trade-offs, and some people
thought the program could be improved.
Here are some of the criticisms of the program and issues raised:
2. New hires had no influence on their assignments in their first 5 years with the company.
3. The personnel development goals of the program, which necessitated job movements,
sometimes conflicted with various organizationss staffing needs and desires to retain their
employees longer. The treasurer refused to participate in the program because he did not
like the quick rotational assignments through his area.
How long should each assignment be? The faster the rotation, presumably the more rapid
4. What types of job experiences are really necessary? Issues were raised about assignments in
5. How many people should be in the program, almost all finance and accounting hires, or just
a few stars?
6. What should be the input to the rotation program and, more generally, the finance and
accounting functions? The desired recruiting mix for 2002 was 60% college graduates, 20%
7. Should the program involve more than job rotations (e.g., formal training)?
8. What, really, is the purpose of the program? Should it be to train division controllers,
general managers, and/or technical specialists of various types?
Why does Landale have a development program for finance and accounting personnel but not
personnel in other functional areas? This seems just to be largely an historical accident. Lan-
dales CFO in 1990 saw a need for such a program, and he had a model in mind, which he
learned from a previous employer. The heads of other functional areas did not have the same
inspiration. Is there anything unique about finance and accounting that lend them better to this
type of development program than other functional areas? We dont think so. Personnel in
Merchant & Van der Stede, Management Control Systems, 3rd edition, Instructors Manual
407
Pedagogy
Instructors can teach this case in any of a number of ways. One is to allow the students to
discuss the case in an unstructured manner. Most students will readily share ideas because they
have a sense as to how they would like their own careers developed.
Another possibility is to start with a firm assumption that the purpose of the program is to
develop division controllers. This will necessarily lead into a discussion as to what division con-
trollers need to know. A number of works have described different controllership models.50 The
