Relevance Lost: The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting

289 Pages·1987·11.23 MB·English

by  H. Thomas Johnson

RELEVANCE
LOST
The Rise and Fall of
Management Accounting
7
H.Tliomas Johnson
Robert S.Kaplan
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RELEVANCE LOST
.Relevance
lost
The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting
H. THOMAS JOHNSON
Pacific Lutheran University
and
ROBERT S. KAPLAN
Harvard Business School and
Carnegie-Mellon University
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PRESS
Boston, Massachusetts
Harvard Business School Press, Boston, Massachusetts 02163
© 1987 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
90 89 88 5
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Johnson, H. Thomas, 1938-
Relevance lost.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Managerial accounting—History. 2. Managerial
accounting—United States—History. I. Kaplan, Robert S.
II. Title.
HF5605.J64 1987 658.r511'09 86-29474
ISBN 0-87584-138-4
Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason d high ...
in wand'ring mazes lost.
Milton, Paradise Lost

Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Nineteenth-Century Cost Management Systems
Efficiency, Profit, and Scientific Management: 1880-1910
Controlling the Vertically Integrated
Firm: The Du Pont Powder Company to 1914
viii Relevance Lost
Controlling the Multidivisional Organization:
General Motors in the 1920s
From Cost Management to Cost Accounting:
Relevance Lost
Cost Accounting and Decision Making:
Academics Strive for Relevance
The 1980s: The Obsolescence of Management
Accounting Systems
9
The New Global Competition
10
New Systems for Process Control and Product Costing
Performance Measurement Systems for the Future
Index 264
To Our Wives, Elaine and Ellen