Mr. Barry Pierce BA MSc ACMA
Teaching Associate
|
 |
Barry is passionate about learning and conveying his past experience in business into the classroom.
“Wherever practicable, I use real-world data & scenarios in my teaching so that students develop the capability to interpret context, critically examine data & opinion, and build their self-reliance. I do not believe in protecting students from the complex, indistinct, & deficient nature of knowledge that they’ll have to face in their futures.”
Barry is Programme Director for MSc Finance & Accounting and is personal tutor to many of its students. He always wears a hat.
Current teaching responsibilities
Module leader for two under-graduate modules:
- MGT302 Accounting & Accountability – theory & practice, a reflective and philosophical final year option
- MGT388 Finance & Law for engineers, which is designed to enhance their employability
Module leader for two MSc modules:
- MGT6043 Accounting & Financial Management, for non-financial managers who suffer from a phobia about accountancy
- MGT6095 Performance Management, for financial specialists, offering diverse perspectives on corporate success
Module leader for two Executive MBA modules:
- MGT6199 Corporate Finance, investment, funding, & value creation in listed companies, concentrating on the retail sector
- MGT6202 Accounting & Financial Management, part-time variant of MGT6043 involving an intensive study of a Sheffield manufacturer rather than a media company
And also lectures on:-
- MGT135 Accounting themes & perspectives, lessons from accounting scandals & financial crises
- MGT354 Advances in Management Accounting, themed this year around the limitations of conventional practice to address contemporary events and approaches necessary to address global competitiveness, risk management, & sustainability
Teaching ethos and innovation
“A hallmark of my teaching, which reflects my industrial background, is the use of real-world material, directly or contextually, in tutoring & assessment. This is not a denial of theory where, for example, in MGT302 critical perspectives and political & social philosophy are invoked, or in MGT354, where students are required to create a ‘geneology’ for a contemporary article in Management Accounting Research and explore methodological change. It is the combination of the two components in a learning exercise that is perceived by students as relevant & valuable that is important. In MGT135, I discussed real events but set a topic, the sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone, that had not been taught and required self-research, analysis, & envisioning of consequence. The accompanying self-reflections revealed general confusion & struggle, followed by enlightenment & a strong sense of achievement. In some instances, the real world goes beyond the use of publicly available data on a case company. Two cases have been developed with Sheffield organisations to support learning in management accounting – one involved investment in the Supertram network; the other, an affordable employee incentive scheme in a manufacturing SME.
Another hallmark is a cohort orientation – making the learning experience relevant & entertaining to the students themselves. This is particularly important given that 4 of my 6 module leaderships relate to non-accounting programme cohorts. For these students, the technical preparation of accounting data is much less relevant – and stimulating – than the ability to interpret and recognise the limitations of such data, to call upon the provision of information appropriate to various circumstances, and to apply financial common sense. Using published company reports, their operations, strategies, & forms of governance enable students to relate complex numeric statements to business context – the words and the numbers. Dealing with real people and real corporate cultures enable students to understand behavioural aspects of accounting and markets better than a sterile reading of the textbook. However, sometimes I resort to organising role play using a cast of characters familiar to most students in order to convey organisational behaviour - as well as having a bit of fun.
I also believe in the measured use of group assignments, where alternative perspectives formed from different educational cultures can offer greater collective insight on a problem. Groups are commonly asked to examine a market, select a company, and conduct textual & numeric analysis from which conclusions are drawn: this involves skills in research, analysis, numeracy, coordination, presentation, leadership and teamwork. You have to work with your colleagues in employment… why should you ignore them when sudying?”
Biographical review
Barry has held senior accounting roles in devolved business units in the shipping, catering, & engineering industries. His experience culminated in participation in the management buy out of a railway vehicle & component manufacture & repair facility in South Yorkshire, with whom he remained as Finance Director until conclusion of the earn-out period.
Since joining the academic world, he has managed professional & post-graduate programmes and taught a diverse portfolio of subjects. Barry has worked with Aston, Bradford, Leicester, De Montfort, & Sheffield Hallam universities, together with private sector tuition companies. Over the last five years, Barry has supervised over 90 masters’ dissertations & projects to a successful conclusion.