ABSTRACT
Gordon Shillinglaw’s work as a consultant for Joel Dean in a rich variety of assignments strongly influenced his subsequent academic career. Shillinglaw’s own discounted-cash-flow (DCF) proselytizing commenced only shortly afterwards with an article in a professional publication followed by three articles in scholarly outlets. In relation to divisional performance his initial contribution examined “internal guides to profit measurement,” basically arguing that performance measures should be congruent with the nature of decisions or assessments for which the information was required. In Shillinglaw he drew on basic accounting postulates to examine how accounting theory might be developed for “internal income measurement for segments of the enterprise,” which he saw as a gap in extant accounting theory. Familiarity with real-world problems was evident in his coverage of nonmanufacturing costs, notably for research and development, which emphasized budgetary rather than project reporting aspects.
