IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/buhirw/v52y1978i04p490-517_04.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Management Accounting in an Early Multidivisional Organization: General Motors in the 1920s

Author

Listed:
  • Thomas Johnson, H.

Abstract

Introduction of the multidivisional enterprise, which has generally replaced the functional or departmental form of organization in the twentieth century, required management accounting techniques that provided both divisional and top management with data with which to evaluate individual managers' performance, company-wide performance, and future company policy. Professor Johnson discusses the development of these controls at General Motors, the results obtained with them in practice, and their alleged shortcomings, especially in respect to division managers' attitudes towards constructive decisions that might tend to limit in the short run the rate of return on the investment entrusted to them. He concludes with some observations on the influence that organization has had on corporate goals.

Suggested Citation

  • Thomas Johnson, H., 1978. "Management Accounting in an Early Multidivisional Organization: General Motors in the 1920s," Business History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(4), pages 490-517, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:buhirw:v:52:y:1978:i:04:p:490-517_04
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007680500048030/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erich Frese & Michael Heberer & Thomas Hurlebaus & Patrick Lehmann, 2004. "„Diagnosis Related Groups“ (DRG) und kosteneffiziente Steuerungssysteme im Krankenhaus," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 56(8), pages 737-759, December.
    2. Casadesus-Masanell, Ramon & Spulber, Daniel F, 2000. "The Fable of Fisher Body," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 43(1), pages 67-104, April.
    3. E. Grifell-Tatjé & C. Lovell, 2014. "Productivity, price recovery, capacity constraints and their financial consequences," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 3-17, February.
    4. C. A. K. Lovell, 2016. "Recent Developments in Productivity Analysis," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 417-444, October.
    5. Locke, Robert, 2009. "Managerialism and the Demise of the Big Three," MPRA Paper 18996, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Godin, Benoit, 2007. "Science, accounting and statistics: The input-output framework," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1388-1403, November.
    7. Graham White, 2024. "Competition and demand-led growth: linking different parts of the Sraffian-inspired research program," Working Papers 2024-21, University of Sydney, School of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:buhirw:v:52:y:1978:i:04:p:490-517_04. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/bhr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.