ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twentieth century the concern with efficiency promoted by the Progressive era led to a series of developments that have come to be known as ‘classical management’ techniques. These included attempts to promote the systematization of work using division of labour and standardization with a resulting justification of the role of management and control of working practices. Standardization provided the basis for control techniques such as operations management and, with the aid of accounting, standard costing (Miller and O’Leary 1987). Braverman’s (1974) influential, but debated, critique of these management approaches cannot be dismissed lightly. The relevance of Braverman’s analysis is that it highlights that the debate about the technical nature of the changes is just one thread of the complex tapestry that surrounds these issues. One of the elements that have been used to control labour is the technology of accounting, and this can be associated with classical management techniques that were developed in the context of attempts to control craft workers but whose contemporary relevance is in the control of professionals. The aim of this chapter is to seek to complement the literature that has looked at the relationship between professionals and managerialism in the broader sense (Exworthy and Halford 1999). To do this we focus on both the use of the technologies of accounting and what we call ‘accounting logic’ in the processes of management control.
