RESEARCH IN MANAGEMENT CONTROL 277
managerial thought is well rehearsed. Less well known, but providing an excel-
lent example of the classical management theorists, is the contribution of Mary
Parker Follett, described by Parker (1986) as providing almost all of the ideas
of modern control theory. Follett saw that the manager controlled not single
elements but complex interrelationships and argued that the basis for control lay
in self-regulating, self-directing individuals and groups who recognized common
interests and objectives. It may be that Follett was an idealist in her search for
unity in organizations for she sought a control that was
‘fact control’ not ‘man control’, and ‘correlated control’ rather than ‘super-
imposed control’.Further she saw coordination as the reciprocal relating of all factors in a setting
that involved direct contact of all people concerned. The application of these
‘fundamental principles of organisation’was the control activity itself, for the whole point of her principles was to ensure
predictable performance for the organization.
Scientific management, another important root of management control, is
frequently associated with the work of F. W. Taylor (Miller and O’Leary, 1987),
although there were earlier contributors to this movement. For example, Babbage
(1832) was concerned with improving manufacture and systems and analysed
operations, the skills involved, the expense of each process and suggested paths
for improvement. In 1874 Fink (seeWren, 1994) developed a cost accounting system
that used information flows, classification of costs and statistical control devices;
innovations which led directly to 20th century processes of management control.
What seems to characterize these theorists is an attention to real problems, a
scientific approach which centred upon understanding and conceptual analysis,
and a wish to solve problems. Their contribution to management control lay in their
attention to authority and accountability, an awareness of the need for analytical
and budgetary models for control, forging the link between cost and operational
activities, and the separation of cost accounting from financial accounting, with
the former being a precursor of management accounting and control. However,
these practical theorists may have pursued rationality of economic action and the
search for universal solutions too far, although their ideas are still current and
form the basis for much work in the field, many being echoed in the work of Robert
Anthony. The ideas of the common purpose of social organizations along with
a concern for the relationship between effectiveness and efficiency foreshadow
the concept of autopoeis (the view that systems can have a ‘life of their own’)
developed by cyberneticians. These will be examined in the next section.
Evolution of the management control literature
As previously noted, Parker (1986) argued that developments in accounting control
have followed and lagged developments in management theory. Developments