Chandlerian image or mirror image? managerial and accounting control in the chemical industry: the case of Albright & Wilson, c.1892 to c.1923

Mark Matthews, Trevor Boyns and John Richard Edwards

Business History, 2003, vol. 45, issue 4, 24-52

Abstract: Using archival evidence relating to Albright & Wilson (A&W), this article challenges the validity of Chandler's view, based mainly on the study of secondary sources, that personal capitalism retarded the development of more advanced forms of managerial organisation in Britain in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While Chandler has criticised A&W for abrogating control of its North American subsidiaries to American managers, the archival evidence reveals an effective control mechanism based around an accounting information system in which there is evidence of the use of standards for purposes of monitoring and control, and a recognition of the relevance of marginal costs for purposes of decision making. The article also throws light on the relationship between family ownership, firm size, strategy, investment and innovation.

Date: 2003
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DOI: 10.1080/00076790312331270209

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