ABSTRACT
This chapter examines to proceed from individual case studies to an analysis of the relationship between iron industry cost management and its environmental influences. First, this pattern is intended to provide some insight into the practices observed in particular individual firms of general industry significance during the period. Second, an attempt has been made to employ traditional historical methodology in identifying and arguing probable environmental influences upon the cost management techniques observed. Certain distinct accounting usages likewise reflected iron industry regionalism both chronologically and methodologically. The chapter summarizes that the iron industry entrepreneurs were vitally affected by their resources of raw materials, labour, and capital. They demonstrated attention to the planning and control of these resources, both in operational terms and in their appreciation of input costs. Cost accounting, in its various forms, was for them an important means of responding to and surviving in their environment.
