ABSTRACT
The emergence of a profit-sharing scheme in the Hans Renold company in 1920 with its particular emphasis on accounting numbers and principles and the managerial desire to raise the visibility of such concepts for the conduct of industrial relations would appear to have had some of its roots embedded in the very early years of the Company's history. Moreover, events and pressures which occurred in the 5 years or so preceding the scheme's introduction can also be identified as factors contributing to both its inception and its unusual format and mode of operation. However, whilst it is possible and indeed important to locate the origins of the scheme within a framework of organisational and environmental requirements with the scheme being conceptualised as the product of a managerial strategy to confront Company problems, there is a danger of constructing a scenario which concludes with the scheme as an inevitable and natural consequence of a linear chain of events. In addition, the corollary to such an approach could then lead to a position whereby the very intertwining of accounting and industrial relations itself takes on the characteristic of a similar inevibility. It is important to stress, therefore, that although one can distinguish a series of strands of influence which together did impinge upon the managerial decision to introduce the scheme, and indeed enhanced the attraction of such an exercise to management, there nevertheless remains the scope to identify very real areas of managerial discretion which could have resulted in alternative strategies being constructed and which would have necessitated no automatic forging of an accounting-industrial relations association.At the very start of the company's operations Hans Renold had commenced his administration of the enterprise with a “book-keeper” (Tripp, 1956,p125). As argued in Section 2.2, the choice of such an employee when the Company would have been confronted by a whole range of production and marketing problems, and when cost accounting was still a relatively minority managerial interest demands consideration. Although one does not know the origins of Hans Renold's interest in accounting, one can identify his engineering background and his often commented upon concern with precision workmanship as related characteristics. Moreover, his visits to America and early involvement with the scientific management movement would appear to have led to a position whereby the Company had by 1900 installed a reasonably comprehensive accounting infrastructure (Renold, 1950). In addition, the contributions of C.G. Renold over the next 10 years or so when, after a period of education in America and considerable exposure to the workings of scientific management, he introduced into the Company job evaluation, merit rating and a management information system, all served to consolidate an impression of the organisation as one operating within well defined decision-making structures and processes (Urwick and wrech, 1946). So, for example, during World War I by utilising the profit potential available from munitions contracts, the Company operated a payment by results scheme which was employed as a means of maintaining the continuity of production during the most disruptive of conditions (Ministry of Munitions, 1922). There is, therefore, throughout the period from the Company's inception up to the time that a profit-sharing scheme was introduced by management, a consistent and quite tangible element of accounting and scientific management techniques and principles at work in the organisation. Operating in parallel with these forces is, however, another recurring theme in the Company's operations which relates to an undercurrent of managerial interest in the welfare of their employees. Whether this was based on a general religious ideology which seemed to underpin Hans Renold's personality (Tripp, 1956), or on a more specific notion of a sense of workplace equity, one cannot be certain. Nevertheless, there existed within the Company not only an infrastructure of physically oriented welfare measures (for example, a well ventilated factory, medical care, a canteen, a social union, etc.) but also a managerial philosophy which sought a personal proximity and familiarity with the worforce. As such, when during the War the factory had been flooded by an influx of new personnel, management had taken steps with the construction of a Welfare Committee to formally explore ways of re-establishing amaaagement-labour association and dialogue (Renold, 1950).
