Management Audit today becomes a vital element for management, allowing executives to know how well they solve the economic, social and ecological problems that arise at this level, generating in the company a healthy dynamism that leads it successfully. towards the proposed goals.
This audit is closely related to the structural and functional characteristics of the object of study, which is why its execution requires a guide that adapts to existing conditions and that, without limiting the auditor's independence and creativity, allows it to achieve a systematic and order that will get you the best results in the shortest possible time.
Within the Cuban economy, the agricultural and tourist sector are called to play a fundamental role and, therefore, they are required to achieve their objectives with a rational use of resources. The objective of this work is to determine the barriers that the management audit faces and to design, based on these, a guide in prioritized sectors. For its best development, a very easy access website is designed.
All of the aforementioned leads to present in this work a summary of the investigations carried out and which shows the opinion of the author, after a long investigation of the barriers that the management audit faces today. Hotel facilities, transport facilities have been mainly distinguished for tourism and agriculture of the territory where a guide already applied is proposed, to execute the management audit in these places, based on the characteristics of the management in each entity. Areas to be audited, tools to be used, working papers to be developed are described.
Introduction
The integral evaluation is a new approach within the modern administrative culture that consists of implanting, using and developing methods and techniques that objectively reflect the real level of the administration and the situation of the company. Many works, methods, techniques, and procedures can be found in books and manuals for diagnosing problems and their causes. Not unrelated to this development and derived from a horizontal and vertical integration, the Audit of Management has emerged in the field of auditing, still little applied practically in Cuban conditions.
The work presented gathers vital elements for the country's economy: Tourism, Agriculture and Management Audit. The tourist industry in recent years has presented a vertiginous development. Agriculture, on the other hand, demands a strong development that allows satisfying the needs of our population. Along with the aforementioned, a qualitative leap in control is imposed, which allows achieving the desired goals with the required quality. The analyzes carried out give reason to assert that this new quality has not yet been achieved in its desired stage; it is evident that there is a problem: Insufficient comprehensive control of the executives over the management object.
Therefore, an investigation was carried out on the current control system used, which constitutes the object of study of this work. Investigations carried out in the last 6 years in entities of the tourism and agricultural sector allow us to point out as one of the main causes, the absence of Management Audit as an element of self-control that allows an accurate, timely and systematic diagnosis of the entity as a whole.
It is evident to characterize the barriers that this activity faces today and to apply a guide for the Management Audit in activities related to tourism and agriculture due to its high incidence in the country. This is the objective of this work that has Management Audit as a field of action as an integrating element of self-control and continuous diagnosis.
It is based on the hypothesis that designing and applying a management audit group in the aforementioned activities will allow:
- Integrally elevate the control of human, financial and material resources in a sustainable development. Promote the advance towards the goals of these vital sectors in the development of the population. Encourage senior management to dedicate their time to functions that by their nature are non-delegable..Promote the development of management audits in our society.
To carry out the fulfillment of this hypothesis, different tasks were carried out, among them the main ones were: Evaluation of the current situation of this type of audit in the territory. Information gathering, analysis and synthesis.
In this way, even the most objective ways of applying the audit in the aforementioned sectors were sought, to subsequently design the guides and apply them in four hotels, the Citrus, Tobacco and Potato Agricultural Company.
This type of audit is defined as:
“The examination carried out in an entity to establish the degree of economy, efficiency and in the planning, control and use of its resources and to verify compliance with the pertinent provisions, with the aim of verifying the most rational use of resources and improve the primary activities examined ”
You are in the presence of an audit that evaluates economic, social and ecological objectives and therefore its design corresponds to a specific activity, generally it cannot be used in its entirety in another different entity.
From this follows the fundamental contradiction: It occurs in general established by the Guidelines of the Ministry of Finance and Prices and currently the Ministry of Audit and Control on Management Audit and the particularity given in the characteristics of a specific activity.
Therefore, it is necessary to design a methodological guide that responds to the structural and functional characteristics of the entities under investigation. In this way, there will be an essential tool to increase the levels of economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the entities already mentioned in sustainable development. The management that is carried out in the planning, control and use of resources will be evaluated and compliance with the pertinent provisions will be verified to verify their rational use and contribute to improving the activities and subjects examined. Achieve, through it, that executives evaluate the effectiveness of the procedures followed and whether they are aimed at meeting the objectives set.
All the aforementioned is synthesized in the design of a methodological guide to carry out this type of Audit adapted to the specificities of the hotel, transport and agriculture activity. In the case of agriculture, it is analyzed by crops, showing in the case of stationary crops such as potatoes and tobacco and permanent crops such as citrus.
Development:
In Cuba, the Management Audit begins to have a boom in the early 90s as a result of social development, technological advance and productive practice, which contributes to the opening of our relations to a world until then little explored in the country and In which it has become necessary to act, workshops and other means of dissemination have been promoted from here to then and promote this work.
All this supports an activity taking, of course, a general character, but in this audit there is a contradiction that is essential: the general that is established by the competent bodies, to be able to function in this field and the particular that these must have. audits based on the structural and functional characteristics of each research object.
Based on the foregoing, the Management Audits that are carried out are still insufficient. The directors of the companies do not recognize in this audit an ally in the achievement of the economic, social and environmental objectives that they must meet. Auditors see and are seen as the "fraud and error seekers" of old paradigms. It is evident that there is a time lag between the economic - social changes that are promoted and the development of the Management Audit. For six years investigating in the territory of Cienfuegos and analyzing different sectors of the territorial economy, the author of this work considers the fundamental causes:
1. Lack of knowledge of the executives about this audit and its advantages.
The most modern management styles, in which Cuba is immersed, seek the shortest possible distance between top management and the base. This implies a high level of disaggregation and it is here that Management Audit helps executives, ensuring compliance with economic, social and ecological objectives so that management dedicates its time to non-delegable tasks. However, there is a divorce between those management styles and the Management Audit. The first is taken and the second is discarded. As a result, executives are overloaded with work, which prevents them from achieving the expected results.
2. Little methodological support.
Although Management Audit is dynamic, it needs a conceptual framework in which the auditor can work. There is still insufficient information or guidelines that allow the auditor, based on them, to carry out their work in a creative but systematic and orderly manner. In our research and considering the importance of certain organisms in the territory, whether due to their impact on foreign exchange earnings, tourism, or the population, agriculture, work guides have been developed to promote the transfer of these novel technologies. to promote change that modifies the current situation and contributes to a better understanding of this audit, both by auditors and by all the personnel who benefit from it.
3. Insufficiency of auditors to break their paradigms.
It is known to all that scientific knowledge constitutes the high-level support of all impetuous development. It is very difficult for it to be carried out by people who do not master its characteristics and properties and who in turn provide improvements and improvements. Human resources are a key factor in technological development. Auditors are not fully prepared for change, they are overwhelmed by the traditional audit routine.
4. Inability of teamwork to achieve high scientific productivity.
In Management Audit, as already explained, several disciplines are needed to obtain a description and understanding of the object to be studied.
Interdisciplinarity rests on the material unity of the world and responds to a need for scientific activity linked to social practice. In the case of this type of audit, it becomes an essential requirement where organic cooperation between team members must be achieved.. In many of the audits carried out in the territory this is not achieved, and the auditor is sometimes limited to consulting with other specialists.
Based on this situation, the methodological guide is drawn up that brings together the essential aspects to be considered in the Management Audit of some activities related to tourism and agriculture. Questionnaires, surveys, indexes, interviews and work papers are proposed.
In addition, as a help to the auditors, a simulation is prepared based on a hotel for the interested party to carry out the audit, an answer is given at the author's discretion with the corresponding work papers.
Conclusions
The business improvement process that takes place in our country, undoubtedly achieves the takeoff that is essential in the economic field. In the economic resolution of the V Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, the decision is made to extend this improvement to all entities in an integral, orderly and scheduled manner, always taking as a starting point the characteristics of each activity.
An essential element in this scenario is a successful control that has its best expression in the Management Audit as an advisor to senior management to ensure timely leadership towards the proposed goals in a changing environment.
This guide constitutes, a path, a tool that leads the auditor through a systematic and orderly path, without limiting his creativity, in the execution of the Management Audit in the hotel, transport and in the case of potato crops, tobacco and citrus, based on their structural and functional characteristics.
The dizzying scientific development allows the use of computers, which in this case is used to get managers, auditors and scholars in general to investigate and deepen it. This work fulfills several purposes: To guide senior management in the advantages and use of Management Audit. Show the auditors how to execute it through the methodology and the demonstrative example. Provide undergraduate and graduate students with the knowledge that will allow them to advance on this path. With this guide, extend the Management Audit to entities similar to those studied here.
All this will contribute to promoting the development of the Cuban socialist company, making the management of the business system productive, commercial and economical, with the agility necessary to quickly adapt to market conditions. This work has been applied in various facilities, demonstrating its flexibility and discovering inefficiencies.
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