Accounting OrganizationsandSociety,Vol. 12,No. 3,pp. 235-265, 1987.
Printed in Great Britain
0361-3682187$3.00+.00
Pergamon Journals Ltd.
ACCOUNTING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE GOVERNABLE PERSON*
PETER MILLER
Division of Economic Studies,Universityof Sheffield
and
TED O’LEARY
Department ofAccounting, UniversityCollege, Cork
Abstract
The concern of the paper is historical. It addresses one familiar event within the literature of the history of
accounting-the construction of theories of standard costing and budgeting in the first three decades of
the twentieth century. A different interpretation of this event is offered from that commonly found. This is
seen to have significant implications for the relevance of historical investigation to the understanding of
contemporary accounting practices. Instead of an interpretation of standard costing and budgeting as one
stage in the advance in accuracy and refinement of accounting concepts and techniques, it is viewed as an
important calculative practice which is part of a much wider modern apparatus of power which emerges
conspicuously in the early years of this century. The concern of this form of power is seen to be the construction of the individual person as a more manageable and efficient entity. This argument is explored
through an examination of the connections of standard costing and budgeting with scientitic management
and industrial psychology. These knowledges are then related to others which, more or less simultaneously,
were emerging beyond the contines of the firm to address questions of the efficiency and manageability of
the Individual. The more general aim of the paper is to suggest some elements of a theoretical understanding of accounting which would locate it in its interrelation with other projects for the social and organisational management of individual lives.
Accounting has remained remarkably insulated
from important theoretical and historical
debates which have traversed the social sciences. Accounting history, for example, is a context in which one can begin to substantiate this
lack of a problematisation of the roles of
accounting. A standard concept which guides
accounting history is one that sees accounting as
essentially having functional roles in society,
albeit ones which can change (American
Accounting Association, 1970). Little or no suspicion seems to surface that different
methodological starting points could be entertained, which could lead to rather different
understandings of accounting’s history.
There are ripples, however. Recently there
l Earlier drafts of this paper were presented at the Symposium of the Roles of Accounting in Organizations and Society, University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S.A.,July 1984, and at the Accounting Workshop of the European Institute for Advanced
Studies in Management, Brussels, Belgium, December 1984. We are obliged to the participants at both gatherings for very
helpful comments.
We express our thanks especially to Anthony Hopwood for ideas and encouragement, and for suggesting this collaboration.
Ted O’Leary Is grateful for the financial support of the Management Fund and the Development Fund, University College,
Cork We are both grateful to the Symposium Organizers, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for their financial contributions
towards travel costs.
235
236 PETERMILLERand TED O’LEARY
have b e e n attempts to indicate the directions
w h i c h a fully social interpretation of accounting
might follow (Burchell et aL, 1979, 1980).
These seem to us to be very useful first steps.
O u r c o n c e r n in this p a p e r can be designated
historical. W e are c o n c e r n e d with the
e m e r g e n c e of standard costing and b u d g e t i n g in
the early decades of this century and the w a y this
can be related to o t h e r social practices. To identify o u r c o n c e r n as historical is, however, to beg
the question as to the meaning and significance
of historical analysis. Care is n e e d e d in formulating an appeal to an historical viewpoint from
w h i c h to u n d e r s t a n d changes in accounting
thought and practice. T h e r e are a n u m b e r of
quite different ways in w h i c h to understand the
c o n t r i b u t i o n of an historical perspective. One
request voiced from time to time is for m o r e histories (see e.g. Parker, 1981, p. 290; Solomons,
1968, p. 17). These would, it is suggested,
u n c o v e r the h o w and the what of accounting.
What, for instance, was actually a c c o u n t e d for in
a particular firm in the early nineteenth century?
It is t e m p t i n g to rally a r o u n d this call. It has an
innocent appeal and w o u l d appear to have undeniable force.
In one sense w e have no o b j e c t i o n to the call
for m o r e facts. However, the simplicity of the
request can be misleading. W e w o u l d like to
p r o p o s e a different agenda for the interpretation
of accounting’s past, one w h i c h casts a different
light on the understanding of accounting practices. This is one w h i c h w e feel has considerable
relevance for understanding accounting today,
and w h i c h enables us to d e v e l o p a theoretical
understanding of accounting as a social and
organisational practice.
O n e c o n c e p t i o n of accounting history, w h i c h
appears to have a significant level of a c c e p t a n c e
at the p r e s e n t time, is one w h i c h sees accounting
as changing, or capable of being changed, in
response to d e m a n d s e x p r e s s e d or implied by a
changing environment. It is a notion of account-”
ing history in w h i c h references to the m e t a p h o r
of evolution are not infrequent (American
Accounting Association, 1970; Chatfield, 1977;
Littleton & Zimmerman, 1962; Lee & Parker,
1979; Kaplan, 1984). What is here r e q u i r e d of
accounting history, it w o u l d seem, is that
( p u r e l y aesthetic consideration apart) it should
seek to elucidate:
the evolution in accounting thought, practices and
institutions in response to changes in the environment
and societalneeds. It also (should consider).., the effect
that this evolution has worked on the environment
(AmericanAccounting Association, 1970, p. 53).
The utility of accounting history, its potential in
relation to current theoretical and practical concerns, is that through elucidating the resolution
of past incongruities of accounting with its environment, it c o u l d facilitate the m o r e effective
resolution of such issues in the present. The
image to be gained is that accounting can
e n m e s h with its c o n t e x t in ways that are inevitable, given s o m e o v e r w h e l m i n g environmental
shift, and that may even be socially desirable. W e
do not find such an interpretation of accounting’s history to be persuasive. In particular, the
functional tone of the very language in w h i c h
accounting history is defined significantly obliterates the possibility of accounting’s location,
along with a range of other social practices, in
relation to m o d e s of o p e r a t i o n of power.
O n e w a y of countering such an a p p r o a c h is to
invert the perspective. Accounting w o u l d then
no longer b e v i e w e d as becoming, or as having
capacity to b e c o m e , an increasingly refined
technical apparatus. It w o u l d also no longer be
v i e w e d as neutral but rather seen, once the veils
of current m i s p e r c e p t i o n have b e e n d r a w n back,
to clearly reflect and to serve certain e c o n o m i c
or political interests. Such an a p p r o a c h has
achieved considerable c u r r e n c y w h e n applied
to disciplines other than accounting (see, e.g.
Baritz, 1960; Scull, 1979; StedmanoJones, 1971 ).
W e are not p e r s u a d e d b y this line of argument
either. Central to it is a notion that there is a
m o r e or less direct and u n p r o b l e m a t i c relation
b e t w e e n e c o n o m i c and/or political interests,
and the knowledges and techniques w h i c h are
held to r e p r e s e n t such interests. The terms and
categories through w h i c h such interests are repr e s e n t e d are seen to have no effects. W h e t h e r it
is a thesis c e n t e r e d on a notion of k n o w l e d g e as
a “servant of p o w e r ” (Baritz, 1960) or know
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 237
ledge v i e w e d as r e p r e s e n t i n g class interests, the
difficulties remain. The notion of c o n t r o l in such
a view c o m e s to substitute for notions of progress or evolution in standard histories. Whereas
the latter see accounting as progressing in terms
of an u n p r o b l e m a t i c social utility, the former see
history as the elaboration of b e t t e r and m o r e
subtle forms of control.
It seems to us that there is a very real n e e d to
d e v e l o p an understanding of accounting and its
past w h i c h is distinct from these two
approaches. This is the thrust of our attempt in
this paper, u n d e r t a k e n through a discussion of
the e m e r g e n c e of standard costing and budgeting within the a c c o u n t i n g literature, and the
relation b e t w e e n these and a n u m b e r of o t h e r
related social and organisational practices. O u r
c o n c e r n is with a particular episode in the history o f accounting w h i c h w e see as crucial, and
its relevance and implications for u n d e r s t a n d i n g
c o n t e m p o r a r y accounting.
If o u r c o n c e r n in this p a p e r can be called historical, it entails an u n d e r s t a n d i n g of historical
processes w h i c h is unfamiliar in the accounting
literature. It may be useful to refer to one or two
landmarks in relation to w h i c h the c o n c e r n s of
this p a p e r may be identified.
The i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of historical p r o c e s s e s w e
have utilized takes m u c h of its inspiration from
the w o r k of Michel Foucault and his associates
(Castel et al., 1982; Donzelot, 1979; Foucault,
1973, 1977, 1981). In no sense w o u l d w e wish
to suggest that such studies offer a p a n a c e a for
thinking about accounting. In any case they do
not directly address a c c o u n t i n g or for that matter e c o n o m i c processes. But despite the difference in the field of study w e feel that t h e r e is
s o m e t h i n g distinctive in such an a p p r o a c h
w h i c h is useful in an a t t e m p t to u n d e r s t a n d
accounting as a social and organisational practice. Clearly w e can do no m o r e here than p o i n t
to w h a t w e see to be s o m e i m p o r t a n t themes. A
n u m b e r of r e c e n t studies address these issues in
m u c h greater d e p t h (Sheridan, 1980; Cousins &
Hussain, 1984; Burchell et al., forthcoming; Miller, forthcoming).
O v e r a p e r i o d of s o m e t w e n t y years Michel
Foucault has w o r k e d on w h a t can be called a
series of histories of the e m e r g e n c e of the
h u m a n sciences. His studies have c o v e r e d
m e d i c i n e (Foucault, 1973), the e m e r g e n c e of
psychiatry (Foucault, 1967), and the prison
(Foucault, 1977) to name just s o m e of the m o r e
important. The historical focus for these has generally b e e n on the p e r i o d a r o u n d 1800 w h i c h he
sees as a crucial point in the formation of the
m o d e r n era. O t h e r writers in a similar vein have
e x p l o r e d the p e r i o d closer to the p r e s e n t day
(Donzelot, 1979; Castel et al., 1982). Alongside
the historical studies a n u m b e r of methodological issues c o n c e r n i n g the u n d e r s t a n d i n g of historical processes have b e e n addressed
(Foucault, 1972, 1981). In the m o r e r e c e n t
studies an explicit c o n c e r n with the issue of
p o w e r has emerged.
There are three issues w e w o u l d like to single
out for o u r p u r p o s e s here from this vast and still
growing b o d y of material. These c o n c e r n what
can be called a “genealogical” question concerning the role of historical investigation; an “archaeological” question c o n c e r n i n g the way one
goes about doing history; and a thesis concerning the i n t e r d e p e n d e n c e of bodies of k n o w l e d g e
and relations of power.
The notion of genealogy is d e c e p t i v e l y simple.
It c o n c e r n s centrally a questioning of our cont e m p o r a r i l y r e c e i v e d notions by a demonstra-.
tion of their historical emergence. The p o i n t of
history in this sense is to make intelligible the
w a y in w h i c h w e think today by r e m i n d i n g us of
its conditions of formation. W h e t h e r the terms
be efficiency, rationality or motivation,
genealogical analysis helps us to appreciate their
e p h e m e r a l character. But genealogy is not just a
matter of de-bunking, a valuable enough enterprise in its o w n right. It c o n c e r n s also a particular a p p r o a c h to the tracing of the e m e r g e n c e of
our frequently u n q u e s t i o n e d c o n t e m p o r a r y
rationales. This is one w h i c h does not entail
looking for a single p o i n t in history w h i c h w o u l d
be the p o i n t of origin of o u r current practices.
The e m e r g e n c e of o u r c o n t e m p o r a r y beliefs is
v i e w e d rather by reference to a c o m p l e x of disp e r s e d events. Genealogy does not lead us to
solid foundations; rather, it fragments and disturbs what w e might like to see as the basis of o u r
238 PETERMILLERand TEDO’LEARY
current ideas and practices. Applied to accounting it means questioning a search for the origins
of accounting in the invention of techniques,
whether in recent centuries or in antiquity.
Other types of events, such as the political objectives of states, but also historical contingency,
particular national conditions and the developm e n t of related disciplines, all enter into the
explanation. Genealogy opens out into a m u c h
less certain field than the standard histories of
accounting would lead us to believe.
The archaeological question is historical also.
Its focus is on our most legitimated forms of contemporary discourse, and the real historical conditions which have led to their emergence. It
concerns the more sociological aspects of the
emergence and functioning of discourses as well
as their internal conceptual features. The status
of our most legitimated forms of discourse (law
and medicine, for example, but also economics
and accounting) are seen to depend, amongst
other things, on institutional and legal criteria as
well as on pedagogical norms for their functioning. Archaeology directs our attention to these
features of discourse. It also has an epistemological aspect. This concerns the relationship betw e e n discourses and the objects to which they
refer. Again there is an element of de-bunking.
Applied to our concerns in this paper one could
for instance say that there is no obvious reason
why we should have come to talk in terms of efficiency and standards. Such notions do not exist
in the object itself or in limbo waiting to be discovered. They are seen rather to have b e e n
formed in a complex of relations established betw e e n a heterogeneous range of discourses and
practices. This is why we talk below of the standard costing and budgeting complex, and relate
it to a range of other discourses and practices
which share a c o m m o n vocabulary and set of
objectives. Standard costing is, we suggest,
intertwined with other attempts within the
enterprise and outside it to embark on a vast project of standardisation and normalisation of the
lives of individuals. It is, we argue, to this web of
relations established between, for example,
basic technical requirements and adjustments,
and elaborate forms of philosophical discourse,
that one should look in trying to understand
redefinitions of the practice of accounting. It is
the positive conditions of a complex group of
relations within which accounting exists that we
should address.
The third aspect of Foucault’s work of relevance to this paper concerns the relationship
b e t w e e n knowledge and power. Foucault’s arguments on this question are distinctive. He
suggests that we can understand the developm e n t of m o d e r n societies in terms of power, and
the shift in its mode of exercise. The broadest
shift he refers to is one which he suggests took
place around 1800 and is from what he calls
sovereign power to disciplinary power.
Sovereign power is identified as a diminished
form of power. Its ultimate recourse is s e i z u r e – –
of things, of bodies and ultimately of life. Disciplinary power is m u c h richer and entails penetrating into the very web of social life through a vast
series of regulations and tools for the administration of entire populations and of the minutae of
people’s lives. The calculated management of
social life is one way of designating the form of
operation of disciplinary power. It can be witnessed, Foucault suggests, in the fields of public
health, housing, concerns with longevity, but
also in the schools, workshops, barracks and
prisons.
Foucault’s arguments c o n c e r n i n g power are
closely linked to his investigation of the
emergence of the h u m a n sciences (Foucault,
1970). The shift he identifies from sovereign to
disciplinary power is intimately c o n n e c t e d with
changes in our forms of knowledge. His argum e n t is expressed in the formula “power/knowledge” and the constitutive i n t e r d e p e n d e n c e of
the two terms of the equation m the operation of
the h u m a n sciences should be understood in
relation to the elaboration of a range of
techniques for the supervision, administration
and disciplining of populations of h u m a n individuals. This is seen to take place in particular
institutions and in social relations in a wider
sense. This is not to suggest that all institutions
are h o m o g e n e o u s and coterminous with the
type of administration which occurs in society at
large. Viewed in terms of power and at the level
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 239
of certain general principles for its o p e r a t i o n
there is nonetheless held to be an i m p o r t a n t
inter-relation b e t w e e n a diverse range of practices.
O u r a t t e m p t in this p a p e r to u n d e r s t a n d o n e
particular i m p o r t a n t p e r i o d in accounting’s history has b e e n influenced b y these t h r e e b r o a d
themes. H o w e v e r the historical p e r i o d
Foucault’s researches address, the institutions
they concern, and the a b s e n c e of a clearly identifiable ” m e t h o d ” m e a n that w e cannot claim to be
testing a m e t h o d b y transposing its field of application. W e have studied a different period,
namely that a r o u n d the year 1900, and a different discipline, n a m e l y accounting. In o u r preliminary investigations w e w e r e led to formulate
a n u m b e r of w o r k i n g propositions, and it is these
w h i c h directly inform the paper. These c o n c e r n
general m e t h o d o l o g i c a l principles, an attempt
to locate a c c o u n t i n g within a w i d e r set of calculative techniques, and s o m e reflections on the
level of o u r analysis and what w e see to be its significance. It may b e useful to briefly c o m m e n t on
the most i m p o r t a n t of these concerns.
A first and general m e t h o d o l o g i c a l postulate
can be called “constructivist”. By this w e m e a n
that w e have b e e n c o n c e r n e d with the w a y
accounting, in c o n j u n c t i o n with o t h e r practices,
serves to c o n s t r u c t a particular field of visibility.
Rather than view accounting as a neutral tool of
observation w e have a t t e m p t e d to e x a m i n e h o w
a c c o u n t i n g assists in r e n d e r i n g visible certain
crucial aspects of the functioning of the enterprise. Questions of wastage and efficiency are
e x a m p l e s w h i c h w e address in the paper.
A s e c o n d p o i n t w h i c h e m e r g e d in our reading
of the literature was that this p r o c e s s of rendering visible alighted on the individual person.
More particularly it did so by s u r r o u n d i n g the
individual at w o r k b y a series of n o r m s and standards. Through such n o r m s and standards the
inefficiencies of the p e r s o n w e r e r e n d e r e d
clearly visible. This was a novel step for accounting. It is significant also in relation to the issue of
p o w e r identified above. At the risk of being misu n d e r s t o o d w e shall be highly schematic to
register w h a t w e see to b e the significant change
b r o u g h t about b y the e m e r g e n c e of standard
costing and b u d g e t i n g and their alliance with
scientific management, topics w h i c h w e address
in detail below. In the n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y discipline within the enterprise t o o k the form of direct
confrontations b e t w e e n the w o r k e r and the
boss. In the early t w e n t i e t h century, and through
the changes w e will be referring to, the
e m p l o y e e c o m e s to be s u r r o u n d e d by calculat i r e n o r m s and standards, interposing b e t w e e n
him and the boss a w h o l e range of i n t e r m e d i a r y
mechanisms. With this shift discipline c o m e s to
be seen to reside not in the will of the boss but in
the e c o n o m i c m a c h i n e itself, in the n o r m s and
standards from w h i c h the w o r k e r can be seen to
depart. Accounting is, w e argue, an important
aspect of this d e v e l o p m e n t of a range of calculative p r o g r a m m e s and techniques w h i c h c o m e to
regulate the lives of individuals at w o r k in the
early twentieth century. It is for this reason that
w e talk of standard costing as being located
within a significant reorientation of the exercise
of p o w e r within the enterprise.
A third issue w e w a n t e d to address is the
w i d e r f r a m e w o r k within w h i c h changes in
accounting took place. O u r c o n c e r n in the p a p e r
is with the enterprise and the nation, viewing
these as distinct levels for the elaboration of a
range of techniques of supervision and administration of individual lives. Extending our view
b e y o n d the enterprise and b e y o n d accounting it
b e c a m e clear to us that an i m p o r t a n t redefinition of the tasks and objectives of g o v e r n m e n t
took place a r o u n d the early years of this century.
Central to this redefinition was the e m e r g e n c e
of the social sciences, in particular p s y c h o l o g y
and sociology. In c o n j u n c t i o n with a changed
c o n c e p t i o n of the role of the state, the social sciences w e r e able to e n t e r an alliance with the
state and to u n d e r t a k e a quite novel form of
administration and surveillance of individual
lives. Central to this p r o j e c t was the possibility
of c o m p a r i n g the capacities of individuals
(health, intelligence, longevity) against specific
standards. It is our c o n t e n t i o n that one can
u n d e r s t a n d the e m e r g e n c e of standard costing
and b u d g e t i n g in the early years of the twentieth
c e n t u r y by situating it within this m o r e general
shift in the form of administration of social life
240 PETERMILLERand TED O’LEARY
w h i c h occurs a r o u n d the turn of the century.
A fourth and final issue c o n c e r n s the level of
analysis w e have u n d e r t a k e n here. W e have
p l a c e d greatest emphasis on what w e might call
p r o g r a m m a t i c discourses as o p p o s e d to
accounting as it was practised in particular firms.
This is not because w e regard the latter as unimportant. Nor is it because w e view our c o n c e r n s
as entirely i n d e p e n d e n t from this m o r e technical level of analysis. To clarify our views it may
help to identify what w e see to be two distinct
orders of events and the interrelation b e t w e e n
them. The one w e have c o n c e n t r a t e d on in this
p a p e r can be called the discursive p r o g r a m m e s
for the administration and calculation of
activities within the enterprise and in society as
a whole. The o t h e r w e w o u l d call technological
and c o n c e r n s the actual operation of accounting
practices, their elaboration through particular
p r o c e d u r e s and techniques. O u r point is that
these two levels are distinct, yet crucially
interdependent. A discursive p r o g r a m m e (for
the calculation of individual inefficiences, say)
only fulfils its vocation w h e n it has as its counterpart an adequate technology. What the progr a m m e contributes to the t e c h n o l o g y is a m o r e
general r e n d e r i n g of reality in a form such that it
can be known, a r e n d e r i n g visible of certain
activities in a way w h i c h is intelligible by virtue
of certain general categories. A p r o g r a m m e is
also the space for the articulation of problems,
negotiation and conflict over interests. There is,
of course, considerable play in the m e c h a n i s m
w h i c h links the p r o g r a m m a t i c level with the
technological. Yet it is precisely the looseness of
the linkage w h i c h makes it important to recall its
existence.
These are the principle themes w h i c h inform
our thinking in this paper. If they have validity
for the understanding of accounting as an organisational and social practice the implications are
significant. Accounting can no longer be regarded as a neutral and objective process. It
c o m e s rather to be v i e w e d as an important part
of a n e t w o r k of p o w e r relations w h i c h are built
into the very fabric of organisational and social
life. It is a constitutive e l e m e n t in a form of normalising socio-political m a n a g e m e n t w h o s e
c o n c e r n is with r e n d e r i n g visible all forms of activity of the individual in view of their contribution to the efficient o p e r a t i o n of the enterprise
and of society.
STANDARD COSTING AND BUDGETING
B e t w e e n 1900 and 1930 there appears in the
accounting literature an initial delineation of
theories of standard costing and budgeting. This
is a novel event within accounting. At a p u r e l y
technical level the innovation brought about
was nothing less than an entire re-casting of the
definition of cost accounting. Its primary concern w o u l d henceforth no longer be the ascertainment of only the actual costs (Nicholson,
1913; Church, 1917; Epstein, 1978, pp. 9 0 –
120), of p r o d u c t i o n or of activities. There w o u l d
be an expansion of d o m a i n to p e r m i t a c o n c e r n
for the future as well as for the past.
The virtue of these novel practices lay in their
capacity to routinely raise questions of waste
and efficiency in the e m p l o y m e n t of resources,
w h e t h e r human, financial or material, at as many
levels of analysis as required. O n e could, for
example, routinely point to, and analyse, variances of actual from standard or plan at the level
of the profit of the total firm, or at the level of
material or labour use in p r o d u c t i o n or, indeed,
at the level of every a c c o u n t a b l e p e r s o n within
the firm.
The existing histories note the i m p o r t a n c e of
the i n t r o d u c t i o n of standard costing. For Sowell
( 1 9 7 3 ) standard costing entailed the developm e n t of a set of techniques and a theoretical
rationale for the “scientific” p r e d e t e r m i n a t i o n of
the costs of raw material, labour and overhead,
as well as for the analysis of the variance of such
costs from the actual or historical costs. Solo m o n s ( 1 9 6 8 ) identifies similar t h e m e s across a
range of writers, in particular Harrington Emerson ( 1 9 1 9 ) and Charter Harrison (1930).
What interests us h e r e is the way the existing
histories construe the d e v e l o p m e n t of standard
costing. They tend to narrate the e m e r g e n c e of
standard costing and b u d g e t i n g according to
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOFTHEGOVERNABLEPERSON 241
two distinct criteria. O n e of these consists in a
careful and detailed exposition of the ideas and
techniques in the terms of those who, at the
time, had developed or articulated them. Such
an approach is taken by Sowell ( 1 9 7 3 ) who
declares his task as that of presenting “in
chronological succession, those related events,
forces, individuals, and ideas that have contributed to and/or have developed into” (p. 2) a
theoretical and technical complex called standard costing. That achieved, through an
i m m e n s e wealth of source material consulted
and described, Sowell ends his work. A second
approach, which Solomons ( 1 9 6 8 ) adopts, is to
construe these novel practices through the lens
of progress, to outline the difficult and often
error-prone paths w h e r e b y costing has progressed to its current level of sophistication. Thus,
for example, he points to “weaknesses” in one of
the early outlines of a standard costing, that of
Emerson, indicating its failures in analytic p o w e r
and in clarity of thought relative to writing
which follows it in time.
We wish in this paper to place a different
interpretation on the e m e r g e n c e of standard
costing. We do not view the development of
standard costing and budgeting as part of the
unfolding of a socially useful theoretical-technical complex, whose underlying logic is one of
progress. We wish to locate it rather as an important c o n t r i b u t i o n to a complex of practices
which consist in a form of socio-political management whose c o n c e r n is with individual persons and their efficient functioning.
Standard costing and budgeting provided
quite novel theorisation and technique which
served to r e n d e r visible the inefficiencies of the
individual person within the enterprise. In
routinely raising questions of waste and inefficiency in the e m p l o y m e n t of human, financial
and material resources, they s u p p l e m e n t e d the
traditional concerns of accounting with the
fidelity or honesty of the person. Cost accounting could n o w embrace also the individual person and make them accountable by reference to
prescribed standards of performance. With this
step accounting significantly e x t e n d e d its
domain, enmeshing the person within a web of
calculative practices aimed not only at stewardship but efficiency also.
We can identify the shift entailed in the
emergence of standard costing during the
period 1900 and 1930 across a n u m b e r of central texts of that period. Garcke & Fells ( 1911 )
make the following statement c o n c e r n i n g the
role of systematic cost accounts and their relevance for managerial action:
it is only by means of systematic records that leakage,
waste, and fraud can be prevented, and that employers
can know the cost ofanyarticle oftheir manufacture,and
be able to determine accurately and scientifically,not
merely approximately and by hap-hazard,the actual profit they make or loss they sustain, not only on the aggregate transactions during a given period, but also upon
each individualtransaction (Garcke &Fells,1911,pp. 3-
5).
In a similar m a n n e r A. L. Dickinson ( 1908, cited
in Garcke & Fells, 1911, pp. 7–8), states the principal objects of a m o d e m cost system. They
should comprise:
( 1) Ascertainingthe cost of the same product at different periods in the same mill,or at the sameperiod indifferent mills, and so to remedy inequalities in cost by
reducing all to the results shown by the best.
(2) The provision of an accurate, running book of
inventories on hand, so facilitating reduction in stocks
and capital invested to the lowest state consistent with
efficiency.
(3) The preparation of statistical information as to
costs ofparts, quantity,and varietyofoutput, relative efficiency ofdifferent classesof labour, and relative costs of
labour andmaterial,betweendifferentmillsandperiods.
(4) The preparation of periodical statements of profit
and loss in a condensed form, readily givingdirectors all
material information as to the results of the business.
These statements are admirable in their
rigour. It is, however, what is missing from them
which is significant for our purposes here. Missing from both is a clear statement of the purposes that might be fulfilled by standard or pred e t e r m i n e d costs. Missing, as a consequence, are
materials dealing with how a routine technology
of standard or p r e d e t e r m i n e d costs might operate.
By 1930 there had b e e n a clear establishment,
in texts on both sides of the Atlantic, of several
242 PETER MILLER and TED O’LEARY
n e w p r o m i n e n t additions to the vocabulary of
costs accounts keeping. These are “the standard
cost”, “the variance analysis”, “the budget”,
“budgetary control”. This is the r u p t u r e with
w h i c h w e are c o n c e r n e d and its implications.
O n e w a y of designating the change w o u l d b e
from the “registration of costs of p r o d u c t i o n ” to
“the rendering of all activities capable of suspicion as to their costliness”.
Charter Harrison ( 1 9 3 0 ) expresses most
clearly the dissatisfaction with the old system
and the p r o m i s e of the new:
The most serious defect of the job-order cost plan was
that it failed, most utterly and dismally to achieve what
should be the primary purpose of any cost system,
namely, to bring promptly to the attention of the management the existence of preventable inefficiencies so that
steps could be taken to eliminate these at the earliest possible moment (Harrison, 1930, p. 8).
And again:
one of the primary advantages of standard costs.., is that
the clerical work involved in the operating of a properly
designed standard cost system is very much less than that
required to operate any complete job-order cost plan.
That this is so is evident when it is considered that with
standard costs we are dealing with the principle o f
exceptions, that is to say with variations f r o m the standards (Harrison, 1930, p. 12, emphasis added).
For our c o n c e r n s in this p a p e r there is one crucial dimension to this innovation. The principle
of standard costs made it possible to attach to
every individual within the firm n o r m s and standards of behaviour. Everyone, in relation to all
activities w h i c h they directly carried out or
directed, could be r e n d e r e d susceptible to a
continual process of judgment. This implanting
of norms m o r e o v e r c o n c e r n e d not just norms of
physiological behavior for the w o r k e r at the
bench, but also the mental activity on the part of
the executive. Witness Charter Harrison again:
We have increased the efficiency of the average man
because we have applied the principles of scientific management to his work – – instead of letting him proceed
haphazardly we have set before him carefully determined
standards of accomplishment rendered possible by standardization of conditions, and have given him scientific
training supplemented by an efficiency reward. We have
combined mechanical sciences and psychology, with the
result that today every man, woman, and child in this
country is reaping the harvest (Harrison, 1930, pp. 2 7 –
28).
With this step the possibility of a k n o w l e d g e of
every individual within the enterprise was established. A visibility and an allocation of responsibility could be attached to the individual. The
p e r s o n ‘ s activities w e r e at last r e n d e r e d knowable according to p r e s c r i b e d standards and deviations from the norm. Standard costing and
b u d g e t i n g made possible a pinpointing of
responsibilities for p r e v e n t a b l e inefficiencies at
the level of the very individual from w h o m they
derived. The h u m a n e l e m e n t in production, and
most importantly the individual person, c o u l d
n o w b e k n o w n according to their c o n t r i b u t i o n
to the efficiency of the enterprise.
The significance of standard costing and
b u d g e t i n g as an innovation, however, is not only
internal to accounting and the organisation and
m a n a g e m e n t of the enterprise. W e suggest that it
should be located alongside the e m e r g e n c e of a
range of discourses and practices which, in both
Britain and the U.S.A. in the early years of this
century, c o n c e r n e d themselves with the physical and mental health of the population. In their
c o n c e r n with efficiency these practices have a
macro- and a micro-level concern. They t o o k as
their o b j e c t both the health and efficiency of the
nations as a whole, and detailed questions concerning the habits, life-styles and activities of the
individual. The underlying p r e o c c u p a t i o n was
with ways in w h i c h modifications in the latter
might enrich the former, an overtly political
c o n c e r n in w h i c h the health and o u t p u t of the
individual was related to that of the collectivity.
Standard costing can, w e argue, be r e g a r d e d as
an important aspect of this b r o a d e r c o n c e r n
with extablishing norms and standards for the
activities of individuals and their implications for
efficiency. At the level of the enterprise standard
costing and b u d g e t i n g contributed, w e suggest,
a facilitative t e c h n o l o g y w h i c h enabled a w h o l e
range of activites of the p e r s o n to be r e n d e r e d
visible and accountable. Within the enterprise,
one c o u l d at last literally make all individuals
accountable.
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 243
The vagueness as to w h e t h e r the n o t i o n of
standard in the initial formulations of standard
costing m e a n t an ideal o r an attainable standard,
and the question of the possibility of actually
locating the source of wastes (Solomons, 1968,
p. 41 ) are not crucial for our purposes. For it is
neither the truth-value of standard costing nor
its practical utility w h i c h w e are seeking to
evaluate. Rather, w e are c o n c e r n e d to locate
such a practice as a form of social p o w e r , an
i m p o r t a n t e l e m e n t of w h i c h is an ability to subject the individual to an increasingly detailed
form of observation and scrutiny. In its p u r e s t
form, such a type of p o w e r consists in the individual attending to his or her o w n deficiencies. It
is a form of p o w e r in w h i c h the individual
b e c o m e s an auto-regulated entity, but o n e for
w h o m the standards a c c o r d i n g to w h i c h they
judge their lives have b e e n established for them.
Standard costing and b u d g e t i n g is, w e suggest,
central to such a process.
THE EFFICIENT NATION AND THE EFFICIENT
INDIVIDUAL
be the m o r e i m p o r t a n t of these c o n c e r n s and
practices. These can be l o c a t e d at a n u m b e r of
distinct levels. One of these is what w e call, following others (Searle, 1970; Hays, 1959; Haber,
1964), a discourse of national efficiency. This
had an existence through p o p u l a r political vocabulary, journalistic writings, as well as the state
and g o v e r n m e n t a l apparatuses. A s e c o n d concerns philosophical and sociological writings,
and the e m e r g e n c e in t h e m of a notion that one
c o u l d actively intervene within society and
within the lives of indivuals. The general aim to
w h i c h such writings saw this as c o n t r i b u t i n g was
the rational adminisu’ation of the social and
the active p r o m o t i o n of progress. The state was
to play a central role in such a p r o g r a m m e . A
third level is that of the actual practices of sociopolitical m a n a g e m e n t (eugenics, mental
hygiene, mental testing) in relation to w h i c h
such s c h e m e s operated. As n o t e d above w e do
not view such practices as the simple implementation of the first two levels identified. It seems
to us, however, that they can be v i e w e d in terms
of and as related to these m o r e general sets of
concerns.
Standard costing and b u d g e t i n g p r o v i d e d a
w a y of expressing in m o n e y terms the contribution of individuals to the collective efficiency of
the enterprise. This allowed deviations from the
n o r m to b e l o c a t e d at the level of the individual.
The collective efficiency of the nation during
this p e r i o d was e x p r e s s e d in different terms and
with different objectives in mind. Nonetheless
surprising parallels e m e r g e in the attribution of a
visibility to the individual (his health, intellig e n c e ) through w h i c h their c o n t r i b u t i o n to collective efficiency c o u l d be detected. T h e r e is a
similarity also in the m a n n e r in w h i c h such
d e t e c t i o n was to be achieved. Statistical deviations from a n o r m w e r e central to this task of the
individualisation of difference. And a p l e t h o r a of
techniques o f socio-political m a n a g e m e n t w e r e
d e v e l o p e d w h i c h allowed observation to penetrate to the minutiae o f the e v e r y d a y lives of individuals (Armstrong, 1983) in an a t t e m p t to correct d e p a r t u r e s from the norm.
W e want to identify h e r e w h a t s e e m to us to
The discourse of national efficiency
A n u m b e r of writers have argued forcefully
(Searle, 1970; Hays, 1959; Haber, 1964), that the
n o t i o n of efficiency emerges in the early years of
this c e n t u r y as a ” c o n v e n i e n t label” u n d e r w h i c h
c o u l d be g r o u p e d a range of assumptions, beliefs
and d e m a n d s c o n c e r n i n g government, industry
and social organisation. Whilst being careful not
to think that this notion of efficiency is used in
the same w a y by all c o m m e n t a t o r s , nor that it
p r e s u p p o s e s a g r e e m e n t on matters of social or
industrial policy, it does seem to be a very comm o n t h e m e in the early years of this century. Of
course, it is a notion w h i c h varies not just from
one field of application to another, but from one
national c o n t e x t to another.
O n e can begin to substantiate the existence of
a discourse of national efficiency through journalistic writings, the arguments of politicians, as
well as medical and paca-medical writings. Thus
the British w r i t e r Arnold W h i t e (1901 ) in his
rather d e m a g o g i c b o o k Efficiency and Empire,
244 PETERMILLERand TEDO’LEARY
most of the material of which had first appeared
in newspaper articles the previous year, proclaimed the need for a thoroughgoing reappraisal
of the nation’s political and moral values. White
was a polemicist, yet in a Britain which was
stumbling through the successive revelations
and disasters of the Boer War such arguments
were not out of place.
Inefficiency was considered by White to
derive from both physical and moral deterioration. The middle classes had, he argued, become
largely “a class of pleasure-seekers” whilst the
working classes “artificially restrict their labour”
(p.310). Meanwhile drink exercised its
despotism over all social groups. The result was
a softening of the fibre of the ruled and the rulers
alike. But the first element of efficiency, according to White, was health (p.95). Here the problem was seen to be most acute. “Our species”, he
proclaimed dramatically, “is being propagated
and continued increasingly from undersized,
street-bred people”. (p.lO0). White was referring here to “Spectacled school-children, hungry, strumous, and epileptic” who “grow into
consumptive bridegrooms and scrofulous brides
•..” (pp. 101-102)• Outside certain institutions
such as the Army, the Navy and the police, the
population was seen to consist mainly in “hospital out-patients, enfeebled with bad air, sedentary lives, drink, and disease.” (pp. 107-108). In
short, the nation was rapidly deteriorating and
the State was doing virtually nothing to prevent
this deterioration.
White was only one of many journalists to
suggest the need for a new political alignment,
which would give expression to a programme of
“national efficiency”. Such themes, moreover,
were not absent from the arguments and statements of politicians. Whilst an astute politician
such as Roseberry shied away from White’s journalistic excesses, he admitted, however, to being
in “substantial agreement” with White’s opinions (Searle, 1970, p.54). The question of
national efficiency was, at heart, one which concerned social organisation. Central here was the
utilisation of Germany and Japan as models or
exemplars of a form of social organisation which
promoted efficiency through the incorporation
of science in the art of politics.
The improvement of the national physique
was one element of a programme of efficiency.
The need for this was seen to be highlighted by
the physical unfitness of those who came forward for recruitment for the Boer War. Thus in
Manchester in 1900, 8000 out of 11,000 wouldbe volunteers had to be turned away on grounds
of ill-health, and of the remainder 2000 were
declared fit only for the militia (Searle, 1970;
Winter, 1980).
The mood that developed around the question of physical health was one of pessimism
which at times shifted to hysteria. The concern
was that Britain was breeding a race of degenerates, and that this became more acute the further
one went down the social scale. White had
suggested restrictions on marriage to alleviate
the problem ( 1901, p. 111 ). The eugenic movement was the more extreme version of such
arguments with demands for “the sterilization of
the unfit” gaining ground and appearing in political debate. This was, moreover, not a matter of
party politics, eugenics appealing to Fabian
socialists and Conservatives alike. The sick had
to be taken in hand both for their own good and
for the efficient functioning of society.
Efficiency was a key-word also in relation to
the machinery of government, education, and
the role of the scientific expert in government.
The purpose of the State was to promote the
“good life” of its citizens and to develop the
moral nature of man (Dyson, 1980, p.192). To
achieve this the application of scientific knowledge and training was deemed necessary. It is
not altogether clear whether this meant leaving
key decisions in the hands of experts, or making
politics and public administration itself a science. Both lines of argument clearly existed, the
latter finding its institutional form in the founding of the London School of Economics by the
Webbs at the very end of the nineteenth century.
The principle at work here was that “social
reconstructions require as much specialized
training and sustained study as the building of
bridges and railways, the interpretation of the
law, or technical improvements in machinery
and mechanical processes” (quoted in Searle,
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 245
1970, p.85). Again this was a t h e m e w h i c h cut
across party politics. Roseberry, the leader of the
“Liberal Imperialists” called for g o v e r n m e n t b y
“scientific methods”. Asquith, for his part,
suggested that social reform should b e carried
out “not as a moral q u e s t i o n . . , but as a question
of social and imperial efficiency” ( q u o t e d in
Collini, 1979, pp. 83–84).
This of course is no m o r e than a suggestive
glance at the literature w h i c h w o u l d enable one
to substantiate the e x i s t e n c e and d e p t h of a discourse of national efficiency in Britain in the
early years of this century. W e feel it is enough,
h o w e v e r , to s u p p o r t o u r arguments that the
term efficiency p r o v i d e d a d e g r e e of c o h e r e n c e
to the identification and expression of a diverse
range of national concerns. If it is the case that
this entitles us to talk of an ideology of efficiency
in Britain during this p e r i o d was this true also of
the United States? It w o u l d appear that this can
b e a n s w e r e d in the affirmative, as long as one
bears in m i n d the different socio-political context of A m e r i c a n society. The progressive era, as
o n e author has e x p r e s s e d it, “is almost m a d e to
o r d e r for the study of Americans in love with effic i e n c y “(Haber, 1964, p.ix; Hays, 1959). The “efficiency craze” of the progressive era consisted
in “an o u t p o u r i n g of ideas and e m o t i o n s in
w h i c h a gospel of efficiency was p r e a c h e d without e m b a r a s s m e n t to businessmen, workers,
doctors, housewives and t e a c h e r s . . . ” (Haber,
1964, p.ix). Efficiency in this sense referred to a
p e r s o n a l attribute, to a mechanical principle of
the o u t p u t – i n p u t ratio of a machine, to a commercial efficiency in the form of profit, and to
efficiency c o n c e i v e d as a relationship b e t w e e n
men. In this last, and possibly for o u r p u r p o s e s
h e r e most i m p o r t a n t sense, efficiency m e a n t
social efficiency, w h i c h in turn m e a n t social
organisation.
If o n e can speak here of a “politics of efficiency”, it was a r o u n d the issues of d e m o c r a c y
and expertise that this politics centred. Scientific w i s d o m was to be used to advance the cause
of ” g o o d government”, w h e t h e r at the level of
the municipality or the factory. ” D e m o c r a c y ”
was to mean g o v e r n m e n t for the p e o p l e based
increasingly on questions o f fact, a partnership
b e t w e e n the e x p e r t and the citizen w h i c h was
essential to g o o d g o v e r n m e n t (Haber, 1964,
p. 110). Efficient g o v e r n m e n t was to be achieved
through e x p e r t g o v e r n m e n t officials acting in
the interests of citizens, since the latter c o u l d no
longer realistically achieve the level of e x p e r t i s e
required:
Citizens of larger cities must frankly recognize the need
for professional service on behalfof citizen interests…
Even efficient private citizens cannot deal helpfully with
expert governmental questions. Efficient citizens will
evidence their efficiency by supporting constructive
efforts for governmental betterment (quoted in Haber,
1964, p.112).
The utilisation of notions of efficiency in relation to the business of g o v e r n m e n t can be seen
in such b o d i e s as the Presidential Commission
on E c o n o m y and Efficiency w h i c h was r e p l a c e d
by a Bureau of Efficiency w h e n the Wilson administration t o o k office (Haber, 1964, p. 1 1 3 –
114). This was not simply federal concern, the
states soon setting up their o w n efficiency commissions. W i n c o n s i n began in 1911, and b y 1917
at least sixteen states had f o r m e d such commissions. The achievements of such commissions
seem to have consisted principally in consolidating state agencies, improving cost
a c c o u n t i n g techniques, and in granting m o r e
p o w e r to the g o v e r n o r (Haber, 1964, p. 115 ).
The great merit of the n o t i o n of efficiency was,
however, its pliability, or at least its ability to
supply a p o i n t of focus for arguments covering a
vast range of issues. It was not only social effic i e n c y that was of c o n c e r n in the early years of
this century. The efficient utilisation of natural
resources a r o u n d the principle of conservation
was central also. The notion of conservation, to
be achieved t h r o u g h p l a n n e d and efficient utilisation of natural resources, applied to such
issues as w a t e r r e s o u r c e m a n a g e m e n t and the
conservation o f forests (Hays, 1959). And the
elasticity of the t e r m “conservation” allowed it
to e x t e n d back to the question of the conservation of h u m a n health. The National Conservation
Congress o f 1910 had organized a standing committee on “vital resources” w h i c h c o n c e r n e d
itself with public health as well as having units
246 PETERMILLERand TED O’LEARY
on forests, lands, waters and minerals. Two years
later, the Congress devoted the entirety of its
annual session to “the conservation of h u m a n
life” (Hays, 1959, p.176). And in 1909 the
National Conservation Congress had included
speeches on the conservation of the morals of
youth, the conservation of children’s lives
through the elimination of child labour, the conservation of civic beauty, the elimination of
waste in education and war, the conservation of
manhood, and the conservation of the AngloSaxon race.
Philosophical and sociological conceptions of
a rationally administered social
These were the most forceful and readily identifiable forms in which the notion of national efficiency appeared in the U.S. Again we feel they
provide support to our argument that the term
efficiency was a significant one in the sociopolitical debates of the time. We would like n o w
to shift the perspective to the philosophical and
sociological debates of the same period. At this
level we argue that the emergence in the early
decades of the twentieth century of a particular
sociological and philosophical form of argument
added legitimacy to, and provided a broad
rationale for, the project of national efficiency.
In particular it contributed a theoretical principle for an art of g o v e r n m e n t founded on two
central notions. The first of these was the affirmation of the possibility of a rationally administered and managed social order, something
which was to be undertaken with the aid of a
neutral and objective knowledge. The second
was a specific conception of the nature of the
social relations which linked the individual to
society. The image here was of the individual as
a part of a social machine conceived as an
organism.
The sociologist Spencer ( 1 8 7 8 ) had proposed
a scientific study of society whose purpose
would be “not to guide the conscious control of
societal evolution, but rather to show that such
control is an absolute impossibility, and that
the best that organized knowledge can do is to
teach m e n to submit more readily to the
dynamic factors in progress” (Hofstadter, 1955,
pp.43–44). In the period we have b e e n addressing here such a resigned submission to social
laws was being repudiated in sociological and
philosophical debates. The literature of pragmatism was central to this repudiation. As one
author has expressed it:
Spencer’s outlook had been the congenial expression of
a period that looked to automatic progress and laissez
faire for its salvation;pragmatismwas absorbed into the
national culture when men were thinking of manipulationand control•Spencerianismhad beenthe philosophy
of inevitability; pragmatism became the philosophy of
possibility(Hofstadter, 1955,p.123).
Pragmatism offered philosophical legitimacy
to a period that was b e c o m i n g increasingly concerned with the rational, purposeful direction
and control of social affairs. Particularly in the
writings of James pragmatism sought to assert:
• . . the fundamental idea of an open universe in which
uncertainty, choice, hypotheses, novelties and possibilities are naturalized . . . (John Dewey, cited in
Hofstadter, 1955,p.123).
In seeking to naturalize these concepts, the
hope was permitted that there was a space
within which h u m a n rationality could actively
shape and reform the social organization.
Pragmatism was primarily an American
p h e n o m e n o n . In Britain a similar theme
emerged through philosophers of what would
b e c o m e the New Liberalism in politics
(Freeden, 1978). Here, one finds Hobhouse
arguing that the h u m a n m i n d must itself be seen
to lie within the overall process of evolution. In
so far as mind has evolved to a complex rationality, then it is only fitting that this c o n s e q u e n c e of
the evolutionary process should influence
further evolution. H u m a n rationality, in its distinctively scientific form, had provided humanity with: “the vastly increased power of controlling the conditions, external and internal, of
life c o . . . ” (Hobhouse, 1911, p.156). For Hobhouse:
the turning-point in the evolution of thought . . . is
reached when the conception of the development of
humanity enters into explicit consciousness as the
ACCOUNTING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 247
directing principle of human endeavour… (Hobhouse,
1911, p.155).
Social s c i e n c e c o n c e i v e d in t h i s m a n n e r c o u l d
b e c o m e a n i n s t r u m e n t w h i c h w o u l d c o n t r i b u t e
t o t h e b e t t e r c o n t r o l a n d d i r e c t i n g o f h u m a n
p r o g r e s s . Social s c i e n c e c o u l d s e r v e h u m a n
n e e d s as n a t u r a l s c i e n c e d o e s , t h r o u g h b e i n g
c o n s c i o u s l y a d a p t e d a n d h a r n e s s e d t o t h e p u r –
p o s e f u l a c h i e v e m e n t o f e n d s . A c c o r d i n g t o t h e
A m e r i c a n s o c i o l o g i s t , L e s t e r W a r d :
It is only through the artificial control of natural phenmomena that science is made to minister to human
needs; and if social laws are really analogous to physical
laws, there is no reason why social science may not receive practical applications such as have been given to
physical science (Ward, 1918, p.352; cited in Hofstadter,
1955).
T h e i n t r o d u c t i o n o f a s p a c e for r a t i o n a l c h o i c e
e n t a i l e d t h e p o s s i b i l i t y for a n a p p l i e d s o c i a l scie n c e . K n o w l e d g e c o u l d localise. Its f u n c t i o n
c o u l d b e c o m e t h a t o f f o l l o w i n g h u m a n r a t i o n a l –
ity, i n o r d e r t o i m p r o v e its e f f e c t i v e n e s s , t h r o u g h
a m u l t i p l i c i t y o f a r e n a s o r sites o f a c t i o n . Social
s c i e n t i f i c k n o w l e d g e s a n d p r a c t i c e c o u l d , as it
w e r e , f o r m p a r t n e r s h i p w i t h t h e state, a s s i s t i n g
t h e l a t t e r in t h e p u r p o s e f u l , d e l i b e r a t e i m p r o v e –
m e n t o f b o t h t h e s o c i a l o r g a n i z a t i o n , a n d t h e life
a n d b e h a v i o u r o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l w i t h i n it.
T h i s c h a n g e d c o n c e p t i o n o f t h e n a t u r e o f t h e
s o c i a l a n d t h e p o s s i b i l i t y o f its r a t i o n a l a d m i n i s t –
r a t i o n w a s e x p r e s s e d i n t h e c o n c e p t i o n o f t h e
s o c i a l m a c h i n e a n d t h e o r g a n i c r e l a t i o n s w h i c h
w e r e s e e n t o l i n k i n d i v i d u a l s t o it. In Britain, for
e x a m p l e , t h e F a b i a n socialist S i d n e y W e b b
w o u l d p r o c l a i m that:
•.. we must take even more care to improve the social
organism of which we form part, than to perfect our own
individual developments. Or rather the perfect and fitting development of each individual is not necessarily the
utmost and highest cultivation of his own personality, but
the Falling,in the best possible way, of his humble function in the great social machine (Webb, 1899, p.58; cited
in Freeden, 1978).
A n d t h e w o r k i n g – o u t o f a p h i l o s o p h y f o r w h a t
w o u l d b e c o m e t h e N e w L i b e r a l i s m o f B r i t i s h
p o l i t i c s took, as o n e o f its i m p o r t a n t s t r a n d s , t h e
d i l e m m a o f h o w t h e m o r e t r a d i t i o n a l l i b e r a l
i d e a l o f t h e f r e e d o m o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l w a s t o b e
r e n d e r e d c o m p a t i b l e w i t h a n o r g a n i c c o n c e p –
t i o n o f t h e s o c i a l ( F r e e d e n , 19 78, pp. 2 5 – 7 5). F o r
H o b h o u s e ( 1911 ), s o c i e t y c o n s i s t e d of:
… individual persons and nothing but individualpersons,
just as the body consists of cells and the product of cells
… (p.30).
B u t in t h e s a m e w a y t h a t o n e w o u l d fail to
u n d e r s t a n d t h e life o f a b o d y b y e x a m i n i n g its
s e p a r a t e cells, s o o n e w o u l d also fail t o u n d e r –
s t a n d s o c i e t y in t e r m s o n l y o f i n d i v i d u a l p e r s o n s .
We must equally take into account that organic interconnection whereby the living processes of each separate
cell cooperate together to maintain the health of the
organism which contains them all. So, again, to understand the social order we have to take into account, not
only the individuals with their capabilities and achievements, but the social organization in virtue of which
these individuals act upon one another and jointly produce what we call social results… (Hobhouse, 1911,
p.29).
A n i m p o r t a n t task f a c i n g t h e s o c i a l r e f o r m e r
w a s t h e r e d e s i g n o f t h e s o c i a l o r g a n i z a t i o n so
t h a t t h e c o o p e r a t i o n o f i n d i v i d u a l s t o p r o d u c e
s o c i a l r e s u l t s c o u l d w o r k in t h e least w a s t e f u l
way. B u t u n l i k e W e b b ‘ s m e c h a n i s t i c i m a g e r y , in
w h i c h t h e f r e e d o m o f t h e i n d i v i d u a l s e e m e d to
d i s a p p e a r in t h e filling o f a s o c i a l role, H o b h o u s e
a r g u e d that:
… the life of the body is not perfected by suppressing the
life of the cells, but by maintaining it at its highest point
of efficiency. Nor is the organism developed by reducing
the cells to a uniform type, but rather by allowing each
type to vary on its own lines, provided always that the
several variations are in the end mutually compatible.
These things are applicable to society, from the widest to
the narrowest form thereof (pp.90-91 ).
T h e s e t w o d i m e n s i o n s t o t h e s o c i o l o g i c a l a n d
p h i l o s o p h i c a l d e b a t e s o f t h e t i m e c o m b i n e d
well. A r a t i o n a l l y a d m i n i s t e r e d s o c i a l w a s o n e i n
w h i c h a c o n c e r n w i t h t h e i n d i v i d u a l c o u l d b e
f o r m u l a t e d i n t e r m s o f t h e c o l l e c t i v e goals o f society. A c o n c e r n w i t h i n d i v i d u a l b e h a v i o u r s w a s
a c o n c e r n w i t h s o c i e t y b e c a u s e t h e t w o w e r e
248 PETERMILLERand TEDO’LEARY
organically interdependent. Social reform could
be conceived in a m a n n e r analogous to the
reform of the enterprise. Both required the
elimination of inefficiencies. Poverty and
destitution represented losses for the entire
social body. Issues of social reform might n o w be
pressed not only u p o n moral grounds, but u p o n
intensely practical ones as well (Freeden, 1978,
pp.117-169). It was a matter of enhancing the
efficiency of individuals, and of seeking to reconstruct the bases of their interactions so as to
achieve a minimization of vital wastes (Ritchie,
1891: Hobson, 1914; Ward, 1881 ).
Some actual practices o f socio-political management
Active intervention in the lives of individuals
was a way of enhancing the resources of the
nation. Such views were not just abstract
theoretical formulations but had a real existence
at the level of practices. Eugenics is one example
of such practices. Eugenics was c o n c e r n e d with
the deterioration of the nation’s physical stock
and its effect on the efficiency of the h u m a n
c o m p o n e n t of the nation’s resources. Eugenics
provided what might be termed a strategic link
b e t w e e n a certain theory of social administration and a certain c o n c e p t i o n of h u m a n abilities
(Rose, 1979). Arguments c o n c e r n i n g the
deterioration of the national physique posed the
question of the most appropriate mode of intervention in the organisation of the population. In
Britain the principal contribution of the
eugenics m o v e m e n t (Mackenzie, 1976), was,
perhaps, that it provided a principle of legitimation for a series of operations on those individuals suspected of sapping the nation’s vigour
through their o w n defects, whether in the field
of intelligence testing (Sutherland, 1972; Rose,
1979) or social administration. In the United
States eugenics developed further as a “practical” movement. (cf. Hailer, 1963; Pickens, 1968;
Castel et al., 1982). In 1907, after a n u m b e r of
attempts in the preceding decade or so, (cf.
Kamin, 1974, p.lO) legislation was passed in
Indiana and Michigan providing for the sterilization of “confirmed criminals, idiots, imbeciles
and rapists” (Castel et al., 1982, p.47). Many
states followed suit during the following two
decades. Much debate followed such legislation,
but the eugenic principle was upheld in 1927 by
the United States Supreme Court, w h e n it was
held that sterilization fell within the police
power of the state:
It would be strange if it could not call upon those who
already sap the strength of the Statefor those lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in
order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It isbetter for allthe world, ifinstead ofwaitingfor
their imbecility,society can prevent those who are manifestlyunfitfromcontinuingtheir kind.Theprinciple that
sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to
cover cutting the Fallopiantubes (cited in Hailer, 1963,
p.139).
In a famous aphorism the judgement concluded by stating “Three generations of imbeciles are enough”(ibid). Eugenic principles continued to spread during the first three decades of
this century, so that by 1931 some thirty states
had passed a sterilization law at one time or
another. It should be added, however, that by
1944 only 42,000 official sterilisations had actually b e e n performed.
But it is not eugenics in and of itself that concerns us here. Eugenics is interesting, rather, as
the most extreme example of a form of social
m a n a g e m e n t whose c o n c e r n is the efficiency of
the individual. Eugenics ultimately failed as a distinct strand of social management(Rose, 1979).
Yet alongside eugenics, initially deriving support from it and ultimately supplanting it as a
form of social management, we can see develop
in the first three decades of this century a vast
range of social interventions which take as their
target the inefficient individual. Mental hygiene
is an important example of such developments.
In the United States in 1909 the National Committee for Mental Hygiene is founded with its
aim being:
To work for the protection of the mental health of the
public; to help raise the standard of care for those in
danger of developing mental disorder or actuallyinsane;
to promote the study of mental disorders in all their
forms and relations, and to disseminate knowledge concerning their causes, treatment, and prevention; to
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THEGOVERNABLEPERSON 249
obtain from every source reliable data regarding conditions and methods of dealing with mental disorders; to
enlist the aid of the Federal Government so far as may
seem desirable; to coordinate existing agencies and help
organize in each State in the Union an allied, but independent, Society for Mental Hygiene, similar to the existing
Connecticut Society for Mental Hygiene (cited in Castel
etal., 1982, p.34).
Rapidly obtaining financial support, the
results of its first study carried out in a Baltimore
school in 1913 are held to s h o w that 10% of the
school children w e r e in n e e d of psychiatric
assistance. The war was to add considerable
force to such developments, the “war neuroses”
providing n e w material for observation and
highlighting the relationship b e t w e e n psychic
disorders and everyday living conditions. In this
respect the greatest contribution of the mental
hygiene m o v e m e n t lay in the treatment of the
p r o b l e m s of soldiers returning home.
The mental hygiene m o v e m e n t in America
was particularly c o n c e r n e d with children’s
problems, and played a leading role in the child
guidance m o v e m e n t w h i c h first flourished in the
‘twenties. The importance of such developments lay in the n e w form of social m a n a g e m e n t
w h i c h they permitted. In the w o r d s of one official of the child guidance m o v e m e n t :
the (children’s) clinic treats these problems by treating
not only the child through whom they become manifest,
but as well the family, schools, recreational and other
involved factors and persons which contribute to the
problem, and whose disorder the problem may reflect
(cited in Castel etal., 1982, p.35).
It was n o w possible to intervene in the w h o l e
range of behaviours of these individuals w h o s e
p e r f o r m a n c e fell b e l o w the norm. The guiding
principle was not the curing of disease and the
eradication of defects, but the i m p r o v e m e n t of
the health of the individual, the optimisation of
their functioning. William White was to state this
principle clearly in his inaugural address to the
First International Congress of Mental Hygiene:
Mental hygiene is on this account alone more important
than ever before, and its significance can be seen to be
gradually changing from one of the simple prevention of
mental disease, which is a negative program, to the positive attitude offinding ways and means for people to live
their lives at their best. Medicine has long enough maintained as ideals freedom from disease and the putting off
of death. It is time that these were replaced by ideals of
living, of actual creative accomplishment. The art of living must replace the avoidance ofdeath as aprime objective, and if it ever does succeed in replacing it in any
marked degree, it will be found that it has succeeded better in avoiding death than the old methods that had that
particular objective as their principal goal. Health is a
positive, not a negative concept (cited in Castel et al.,
1982, p.37).
The advantages w e r e evident. O n e was n o w
fully entitled, e v e n required, to do something to
individuals manifesting m i n o r deviations from a
statistical n o r m w h i c h two decades earlier might
have passed unnoticed. O n e could n o w claim to
be able to do something, for instance, to children
w h o manifested such behaviours as “tantrums,
stealing, seclusiveness, truancy, cruelty, sensitiveness, restlessness, and fears” (Castel et al.,
1982, p.38). At least in principle, there was
henceforth no limit to those spheres of personal
life which, o n c e r e n d e r e d visible, could n o w be
regarded as potentially disruptive of the efficient
functioning of the individual.
The focus for all these n e w forms of social
intervention was the individual. What they
achieved was to bring to the surface all those
aspects of an individual’s personal life w h i c h
might be detrimental to their physical and mental health, and thereby to their efficiency, and to
o p e n these up to the possibility of a w i d e range
of forms of social management. Intelligenge testing p r o v i d e d a further and important dimension
to this overall strategy of rendering visible the
level of functioning of the individual. The advantage of intelligence tests was that they supplied
an elaborate and supposedly objective means
w h e r e b y one could differentiate one individual
from another. It did so with the aid of statistics
w h i c h served to s h o w the extent of the individual’s deviation from the norm(Hacking,
1975; Rose, 1979). Intelligence tests w e r e first
d e v e l o p e d in France by Alfred Binet in 1905,
although as early as 1895 the principles w e r e
stated clearly:
we must search with the present knowledge and
250 PETERMILLERand TED O’LEARY
methods at hand for a series of tests to apply to an individual in order to distinguish him from others and to enable us to deduce general conclusions relative to certain
ofhis habits and faculties… (Binet &Henri, trans quoted
from Rose, 1979, p.8).
Intelligence tests w e r e i m p o r t e d to the United
States by T e r m a n at Stanford, G o d d a r d at the Vineland Training School in N e w Jersey, and Yerkes
at Harvard. Mental testing at that time had close
c o n n e c t i o n s with the eugenics movement. The
p r o b l e m s w e r e seen to be those of criminality,
pauperism, indigence and inefficiency, all of
these being a threat to a w e l l – o r d e r e d social
body. The difficulty, however, lay in detecting
such insidious characteristics. For whilst a layp e r s o n c o u l d d e t e c t the most e x t r e m e and manifest forms, h o w was o n e to identify the highgrade defectives? The i n e x p e r t o b s e r v e r could
easily mistake such individuals as entirely normal. Mental testing p r o d u c e d a “solution” in its
provision of a means of systematically identifying the fine differentiation b e t w e e n individuals
across huge masses of individuals. Statistics and
the normal curve supplied another i m p o r t a n t
ingredient in the form of a m e c h a n i s m for identifying deviation from the n o r m (Galton, 1883;
Hacking, 1975; Rose, 1979; Sutherland, 1972).
In the United States the question of immigration control offered a suitable e x p e r i m e n t a l
g r o u n d for mental testing. The testing of “the
great mass of average immigrants” in 1912 had
revealed that 83% of the Jews, 80% of the Hungarians, 79% of the Italians, and 87% of the Russians w e r e “feeble-minded”. It is well to recall
that feeble-mindedness was a way of qualifying
for deportation, and it appears that mental testing significantly increased the n u m b e r of deportations for this reason (Kamin, 1974, p. 16).
The first w o r l d war was a further powerful factor in encouraging the spread of mental testing.
The testing p r o g r a m m e , the Alpha and Beta tests,
was applied to s o m e two million men, public
interest in such tests being given a stimulus
w h e n it was revealed that the “mental age” of the
average whitge draftee was only 13 (Yerkes,
1921). Extrapolating such results to the entire
population of the United States yielded a figure
of some 50 million mentally defective citizens!
( c i t e d in Castel et al., 1982, p.45). Although it
appears that such figures w e r e rapidly revised
d o w n w a r d , they p r o v i d e d an i m p o r t a n t impetus
for the spread of mental testing to o t h e r areas of
social life.
In Britain the war also was significant for the
d e v e l o p m e n t of psychological testing. The influence of the w o r k of C.S.Myers is crucial here.
Questions such as fitness in relation to length of
w o r k i n g time, the selection and training of
industrial workers, the estimation of “accident
proneness” as a personal attribute, all s h o w e d
the value in being able to identify the personal
psychological characteristics of the individual.
Myers devised and applied selection tests for
m e n using listening devices for locating e n e m y
submarines, and w o r k e d on p r o b l e m s of the
“war neuroses”. Myers insisted o n the
psychological nature of what was called “shell
shock” and p r o p o s e d and p r a c t i c e d
p s y c h o t h e r a p e u t i c m e t h o d s of treatment. His
position was emphatic:
The physiological factors involved in purely muscular
fatigue are now fast becoming negligible, compared with
the effects of mental and nervous fatigue, monotony,
want ofinterest, suspicion, hostility, etc. The psychological factor must therefore be the main consideration of
industry and commerce in the future (Myers, 1920,
pp.V-VI).
The psychological attributes of the p e r s o n
were, indeed, to p r o v i d e the most fruitful
g r o u n d for the expression of c o n c e r n s to implicate the individual within the objectives of the
enterprise and society.
THE FIRM AS A SITE IN THE CONSTRUCTION
OF THE GOVERNABLE PERSON
The ambiguities of the w o r d efficiency enabled it to o p e r a t e across a series of dispersed
strategies c o n c e r n e d with managing the life of
the person. These ranged from b r o a d political
platforms to psychological and sociological concerns with individuals w h o deviated from
specified n o r m s in a variety of ways. W e have
argued that the standard costing-budgeting com
ACCOUNTINGANDTHECONSTRUCTIONOFTHE GOVERNABLEPERSON 251
plex can be viewed in terms of such a preoccupation. Standard costing and budgeting, however, were i n t e n d e d to operate within a particular site – – that of the firm. Our c o n c e r n n o w is to
identify the way in which standard costing and
budgeting, in c o n j u n c t i o n with scientific management and industrial psychology, came to
define the firm as a very particular kind of space.
It should be one in which efficiency and rationality w o u l d prevail. Such objectives would be
stated not just in terms of the overall objectives
of the enterprise, but at the level of the activities
and ultimately motivations of the individual
employee. Initially the worker on the factory
floor, and finally every employee, w o u l d c o m e
to be identified in terms of their c o n t r i b u t i o n to
such ends. This was to require a process of continual monitoring and observation. The standard
costing and budgeting complex was, we argue, a
central element in such a process.
The creation of a standard costing within the
accounting literature, accounting historians
have acknowledged, owes a considerable debt
to that m o v e m e n t which, originating in the
U.S.A., became k n o w n as “scientific management”. According to Solomons ( 1968, p. 37), for
example, one cannot read F. W. Taylor’s paper of
1903 on Shop Management without noticing
that it contains many of the essential elements of
what w o u l d later b e c o m e standard costing.
Accounting historians have drawn our attention,
also, to another leading p r o p o n e n t of scientific
m a n a g e m e n t ideas, Harrington Emerson (see,
e.g. Sowell, 1973, pp. 2 0 6 – 1 9 ; Epstein, 1978, pp.
9 0 – 1 2 0 ) . Not only did his work on efficiency
explictly envisage a r e q u i r e m e n t for something
akin to a standard costing (Emerson, 1919, pp.
149-172), but apparently he exercised a strong
influence o n the writings of G. Charter Harrison,
whose 1930 book has b e e n taken as an early
examplar of a fully-integrated and rationalised
standard-costing and budgeting system (Sowell,
1973, pp. 2 2 0 – 7 0 ) .
Taking scientific m a n a g e m e n t and cost
accounting as an interlinked complex, we wish
to suggest an explanation as to the kind of project to which it contributed. This was one in
which notions of efficiency identified at the level
of the individual could c o m e to be expressed in
m o n e y terms and related to expected standards
and norms.
Undoubtedly, the body of thought and practice that became k n o w n as scientific managem e n t was e n m e s h e d within that American quest
for national efficiency to which we have referred
in the proceding section (Haber, 1964; Hays,
1959). According to F. W. Taylor (1913, pp. 5 –
7), in the introductory pages of his celebrated
Principles of Scientific Management, the task
was to advance national efficiency through
remediation of those vast wastes which, going
far b e y o n d the poor use and inadequate conservation of natural resources, secreted themselves
within the dally actions of everyone. Roosevelt
had b e e n prophetic, says Taylor, in regarding the
conservation of natural resources as no more
than preliminary to such a wider question of the
efficiency of the person and, thereby, of the
nation.
For Taylor the core of the issue was that,
whereas wastes of natural resources have an easy
visibility, wastes of h u m a n resources are hidden:
We can see our forests vanishing, our water-powers
going to waste, our soil being carried by floods into the
sea.Wecansee andfeelthe waste ofmaterialthings.Awkward, inefficient,or ill-directedmovements ofmen, however, leavenothingvisibleor tangiblebehindthem. Their
appreciation calls for an act of memory, an effort of the
imagination.And for this reason, even though our daily
loss from this source is greater than from our waste of
material things, the one has stirred us deeply, while the
other has moved us but little (Taylor, 1913,pp. 5-6 ).
Scientific m a n a g e m e n t would take u p o n itself
the project of replacing that vagueness and other
acts of the imagination with exact scientific
knowledge of the extent of the wastes caused
through inadequate h u m a n action and social
organisation. And, it would also set itself the task
of their systematic elimination.
We are not c o n c e r n e d here to contest Taylor’s
claims to scientificity. It is, rather, with the way
in which such claims functioned that we are
interested. Lay knowledges and practices of all
kinds, such as trades, crafts and traditional practices, were to be placed u n d e r suspicion as to the
wastefulness of their modes of operation. As the
252 PETERMILLERand TEDO’LEARY
above quote shows, Taylor was in little doubt
that such wastes were vast. Gilbreth also would
illustrate the shocking waste through awkward
and blundering m o v e m e n t s in a trade as old as
bricklaying ( Drury, 1915, pp. 108-113). Taylor
himself would point to the need for a science of
such m u n d a n e tasks as shovelling and pig-iron
handling, urgently to replace haphazard modes
of work.
This rendering suspicious of the inadequacy
of lay knowledges and practices is important. It
helped to legitimate the attemplt of scientific
management to appropriate the work-life of the
individual with a view to intervening in it in
order to optimise its efficiency. Around the pillars of efficiency, the need to eliminate wastes,
and the assuredness of science over and above
informal knowledges, scientific management
sought to establish for itself a right to interfere in
people’s lives. This right was eventually to be
taken over by an army of technicians of the social
and e c o n o m i c life of the enterprise.
Scientific m a n a g e m e n t reflects the almost
messianic role for the engineeringprofession envisaged by some of its leaders in the U.S.A.:
To attain the high efficiencyof the atomic energy of the
fish, the high mechanical efficiencyof the bird, the high
lighting efficiencyof the firefly,is not an ethical or financial or social problem, but an engineering problem; and
to the engineering profession, rather than to any other,
must we look for salvationfrom our distinctlyhumanills,
so grievously and pathetically great (Emerson, 1919, p.
5).
Coupled with its rejection of the merit of lay
knowledge and practices, the scientific managem e n t literature also reveals a belief in the possibility of actually improving the efficiency of the
person. It reflects a philosophy which refuses to.
accept that greatness and success are solely accidents of birth. “In the future”, says Taylor ( 1913,
pp. 6-7),
it will be appreciated that our leaders must be trained
right as well as born right, and that no great man can
(with the old system of personal management) hope to
compete with a numberofordinary men who have been
properly organized so as efficientlyto cooperate.
In the later years of his career Taylor envisaged that scientific m a n a g e m e n t would c o n q u e r
the entire social space. While his proposals originated in the factory:
It ishoped, however, that itwill be clear.., that the same
principles can be applied with equal force to all social
activities:to the management ofour homes;the managementofour farms;the managementofthe businessofour
tradesmen, large and small;of our churches, our philanthropic institutions, our universities, and our governmental departments (Taylor, 1913,p. 8).
To achieve such an objective within the enterprise meant constructing norms or standards of
what efficiency might mean. Implanted within
the task performance of the worker these were
to provide a basis for observing deviations from
expectations. It is in this context that we can
appreciate the intersection of scientific managem e n t and cost accounting. For it seems that from
an early date, scientific m a n a g e m e n t writers had
recognised the potential of an efficiency measure grounded in money, in costs saved and profits earned. As early as 1886, for example, H. R.
Towne, then president of the American Society
of Mechanical Engineers and a m e n t o r of
Taylor’s, had wanted to construe the engineer as
an economist (Towne, 1886). For Towne, the
true significance of an engineer’s efforts to promote efficiency, some special cases of vital
national security apart, ought ultimately to be
judged in terms of economics. Efficiencies were
d e e m e d true only if they could ultimately be
shown to be so in terms of costs saved. One finds
Harrington Emerson ( 1 9 1 9 ) echoing these sentiments later, arguing a need for engineers and
accountants to collaborate towards the meaningful exposition of inefficiencies. It is hardly
surprising, then, that engineers associated with
scientific m a n a g e m e n t should have come to
occupy such a central role in the construction of
standard costing.
The work of G. Charter Harrison provides a
way of identifying this bridge which was established b e t w e e n engineering and accounting.
Harrison’s claims to title span the professional
bodies of industrial engineering, chartered
accountancy and costs accountancy. To him has
b e e n attributed the writing of one of the earliest
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 253
full articulations of standard costing, a w o r k of
w h i c h Solomons w o u l d say in 1968 that it was
still part of the current literature. Harrison takes
from Emerson ( 1 9 1 9 ) his c o n c e p t of the fundamental defect of existing cost accounting practices. Prior to its intersection with scientific
management, cost accounting’s p r i m e defect
was that it had:
Failed most utterly and dismally to achieve what should
be the primary purpose of any cost system, namely, to
bring promptly to the attention of the management the
existence of preventable inefficiencies so that steps
could be taken to eliminate these at the earliest possible
moment (Harrison, 1930, p. 8).
In rectifying this deficiency cost accounting
w o u l d expand its domain. It w o u l d supply the
engineers and their scientific m a n a g e m e n t with
a facilitative technology for expressing their
norms and standards in terms of money. The
earlier c o n c e r n of cost accounting with
the registration of the m o v e m e n t s of workers
and materials as they “attached” themselves to
p r o d u c t i o n (Epstein, 1978, pp. 9 0 – 1 2 0 ) w o u l d
be augmented. This expansion w o u l d reflect a
c o n c e p t of the w o r k e r as almost certainly inefficient, needing to be e n m e s h e d within a
routinely-applicable calculative apparatus
w h i c h standard costing w o u l d provide.
This alliance of cost accounting with the
engineers was important in the construction of
norms of efficfency. It p r o v i d e d a way for making
the individual w o r k e r routinely knowable and
accountable in terms of wasted actions. And scientific m a n a g e m e n t was such an individualising
e n d e a v o u r p a r excellence. It was a matter of
ceasing to treat of workers only in the anonymous terms of groups, classified by trade or skill.
Attention was to be paid instead to the perform a n c e of each individual worker. Taylorism
w o u l d insist that each w o r k e r be singled out, to
be r e w a r d e d or punished on the basis of his or
her individual p e r f o r m a n c e (Taylor, 1913, p.
121; Haber, 1964, p. 23). W h e n one ceases to
deal with m e n in large gangs or groups, says
Taylor (1913),
and proceeds to study each workman as an individual, if
the workman failsto do his task,some competent teacher
should be sent to show him exactly how his work can
best be done, to guide, help, and encourage him, and, at
the same time, to study hispossibilities as aworkman (pp.
69-70).
But over w h o m was this individualisation t o
be exercised? It is clear that leaders of the scientific m a n a g e m e n t m o v e m e n t had envisaged that
their principles could e m b r a c e everyone, with
no task at all too lowly or important to escape.
Both physiological and mental w o r k w e r e to be
embraced. But despite that hope, scientific management w o u l d remain entrapped at the level of
fairly mundane, physiological tasks (Drury,
1915). Its first-hand technologies for constructing norms, such as the time and m o t i o n study,
w e r e hardly e q u i p p e d for anything more.
This is precisely w h e r e standard costing again
b e c o m e s significant. T o g e t h e r with budgeting it
w o u l d seem to have provided an important
escape route, allowing the principles of standardising and normalising to m o v e away from the
factory floor. At least in principle they could
n o w e m b r a c e e v e r y o n e within the firm. Harrison’s ( 1 9 3 0 ) standard costing text offers, in the
terms of scientific management, a rationale for
such an endeavour:
We have increased the efficiency of the average man
because we have applied the principles of scientific management to his work…
Our accounting methods today are the best evidence
of our failure to apply scientific management principles
to the development of our executives. For the five-dollars-a-day man our accounting records clearly set up the
objective and the accomplishment in comparision therewith. But when we come to our records for executives
what do we find?… Ofaccomplishment, it is true that our
profit and loss account tells the story of the ultimate
result, but of executive objectives shown in relation to
the accomplishment, our records are silent… (p. 27-
28).
Standard costing had already e n m e s h e d the factory w o r k e r within a calculus of efficiency. It
should n o w m o v e on, by means of the budget or
profit plan, to do the same for executives.
No man can realize his fullest possibilities, whether he be
a five-dollar-a-day trucker in the factory or a five
254 PETERMILLERand TEDO’LEARY
thousand-dollar-a-yearexecutive, unless he has before
him at alltimes ( 1) a carefullydetermined objective, (2)
records showing the relationship between accomplishment and this objective, and (3) ifhe has failedto realise
the objective, informationasto the causesofsuch failure.
Standard costs furnish the factory superintendent with
this informationasregard factorycosts,and standardprofit or budget systemsgive the executive this information
as regards profits (Harrison, 1930,pp. 27-28).
The engineers (e.g. Emerson, 1919) had envisaged that standard costing would be no more
than an appendage to their principles of scientific management. It would be a c o n v e n i e n t calculative apparatus in respect of the core data the
engineer would supply. But accounting’s facility
to operate in terms of m o n e y effected a surprising metamorphosis. By concentrating u p o n an
end-result of money, accounting could standardise efficiency for a m u c h larger group. In the
case of more “mental” type of work, it could simply express expectations in terms of a m o n e y
outcome, leaving uncertain the question of the
means.
A line of continuity can, we suggest, be established from scientific m a n a g e m e n t to standard
costing to budgeting. It is a continuity which
centres on the norm, on surrounding the person
with expections of behaviour. While scientific
m a n a g e m e n t might seem to have faded into
extinction, it has not done so without leaving a
significant residue, in standard costing and
budgeting. If Taylorism and scientific managem e n t more generally had envisaged the enterprise as machine-like, cost accounting, through
the budget and budgetary control, would provide a means for rendering that image operational. Money would, as it were, b e c o m e the
c o m m o n currency with which to integrate and
aggregate the activities of individuals as components. For both brain-work and physical-work,
indeed for every accountable person within the
firm, standards and deviations therefrom
reckoned in m o n e y could record the individual’s contributions, and also their failure to
contribute, to the ends of the machine as a
whole. At hand was a calculative apparatus
through which deep questions of responsibility
could routinely be pressed u p o n individuals.
But the scientific management–cost accounting complex was not the only one in the early
decades of the century to c o n c e r n itselfwith the
efficiency of the person and their contribution
to collective efficiency. While standard costing
and budgeting provided the lens through which
engineers and managers might gaze at workers
and managers and their inefficiencies, others
were also interested to join in the process of
observation. Specifically, these were the early
industrial psychologists. A central figure here
was Hugo Munsterberg. He formulated the task
of industrial psychology as follows:
Our aim is to sketch the outlines ofa new science which
is to intermediate between the modern laboratory
psychology and the problems of economics: the
psychological experiment is systematicallyto be placed
at the service of commerce and industry (Munsterberg,
1913, p. 3).
What was n o w being addressed was how the
psyche of the worker might be k n o w n and managed, so as to serve efficiency on an even grander
scale than the promise of the engineers and the
cost accountants. The industrial psychologists
can be seen as a further group that would invade
the firm, generating and applying a knowledge of
the individual. With this development concerns
of the mind as well as of the body would be introduced into the project of enmeshing the individual within norms of e c o n o m i c performance.
There seems little doubt that the early industrial psychology literature shares m u c h in orientation with the scientific m a n a g e m e n t – c o s t
accounting complex we have just looked at.
Industrial psychology would also lay claim to
scientific status. And it would do so in a more
careful m a n n e r than Taylorism. Relative to the
“helpless psychological dilettantism” of others
who would seek to motivate the worker,
(Munsterberg, 1913, p. 56), it would thereby
seek to establish for itself a privileged position.
Now that it had moved b e y o n d philosophical or
theological speculation, psychology could offer
a practical contribution to the goals of civilisation (Munsterberg, 1913). It would establish a
laboratory within which to place the person as a
subject u p o n w h o m experiments could be con
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOFTHEGOVERNABLEPERSON 255
ducted. This would place it alongside the natural
sciences. Its peripatetic laboratory would be the
factory, industrial psychologists moving freely
from the one to the other with great ease (Myers,
1920).
Industrial psychology would share with scientific m a n a g e m e n t a concentration u p o n the individual. Indeed as Munsterberg ( 1913) points
out, the entire project of an applied psychology,
within which industrial psychology can be sited,
had b e c o m e possible only w h e n psychologists
came to recognise the importance of individual
differences. The quest for universal laws of the
mind, for all of its importance, had denied
psychologists the possibility of bringing their
skills to bear u p o n the practical world of affairs:
In practical lifewe never have to do with what is common to all humanbeings, evenwhen we are to influence
large masses;we have to deal with personalities whose
mental lifeischaracterised byparticular traits ofnational.
ity, or race, or vocation, or sex, or age, or special
interests, or other features by which they differfrom the
average mind which the theoretical psychologist may
construct as a type (Munsterberg, 1913,p. 9).
It is the individualw h o m the psychologist is to
help. His or her particular aptitudes or skills are
to be expertly ascertained, so that the
psychologist can r e c o m m e n d a person-task fit
that is c o n g r u e n t with individual well-being and
the exigencies of efficiency (see e.g. Myers,
1920). And motivational difficulties in task performance are to be seen as stemming from mental traits which the non-expert cannot effectively diagnose. Only by such interventions of
the psychologist will there be avoided that
which
social statistics show with an appallingclearness, what a
burden and what a danger to the social body is growing
from the massesofthose who do not succeed andwho by
their lack of success become discouraged and embitted
(Munsterberg, 1913,p. 35).
Finally, the early industrial psychologists
share with Taylorism an appeal to efficiency as a
transcendent purpose. They too, it seems, want
their endeavour placed b e y o n d the reach of politics:
psychotechnics does not stand in the services ofa party,
but exclusively in the service of civilisation (Munsterberg, 1913,p. 20).
To any project of enmeshing the individual
within norms of efficiency, an expert psychological selection process, as well as psychological
intervention in interpreting task performance
variables, is declared indispensable. Later, as we
shall see, the body of psychological literature
which would emerge in altered form from these
beginnings would significantly intersect with
budgeting and standard costing. In so doing, it
would help to bring into particular relief the
complex individuality of the person within the
firm. This construct has, we shall suggest, reinforced a rationale for “behavioural scientists” to
intensify their attention to managing the organisationally dysfunctional properties of the person.
A GESTURE TOWARDS THE PRESENT
In so far as the c o n c e r n of this paper is historical we would like it to be read as a “history of the
present”. By this we mean an attempt to identify
the dispersed events which intersect to establish
our contemporary, and often unquestioned,
rationales. This far, however, we have b e e n
pointing largely to notions and practices which
have b e e n supplanted or significantlyredefined.
We would like n o w to try schematically to identify some of the relocations and shifts which
have occurred in more recent times. We cannot
hope in any way to do justice to the richness of
the intervening period. It is simply some of the
lines which emerge out of and following the
period 1 9 0 0 – 1 9 3 0 to which we wish to refer.
This is undertaken with a view to locating the
continuities b e t w e e n the present and the period
we have addressed above. It also entaills registering the effect and implications of the shifts
which have occurred in the accounting literature.
One issue which interests us particularly in
this continuity of concerns, coupled with a redefinition of terms and objectives, is the introduc
256 PETERMILLERand TEDO’LEARY
tion of the notion of the “behavioural” into
accounting (Devine, 1960; Bedford and
Dopuch, 1961; Ashton, 1983). Our suggestion is
that this p r o d u c e d a modernisation of the
accounting complex, but one which entailed a
significant continuity with the c o n c e r n to
enmesh the individual within a complex web of
calculative practices. It is not that accounting
simply expands its domain through the introduction of the behavioural within its sphere. It is
rather a redefinition of the terms according to
which the accounting complex is understood
that is at issue. This is achieved through incorporating within the domain of accounting a
changed notion of the person. The change concerns the attribution to the individual of a complex set of motives and frustrations, a potential
hostility to the budget, for example. The individual is viewed as a m e m b e r of informal groups
outside, from which can be drawn considerable
support and into which there is always the
danger that he or she may withdraw. In recognition of such a danger accounting comes, we
argue, to redefine its territory by including
within its legitimate sphere of operation precisely these concerns.
A second issue, and one we have referred to
already, concerns the level at which the redefinition takes place. Stated baldly, and as a question,
the issue is this: is our c o n c e r n here simply with
discourses? The answer is clear. The redefinition
of accounting through the introduction of the
behavioural was carried out in relation to very
real practical problems. One of the pioneering
studies in this field (Argyris, 1952) was indeed
undertaken as a report to the Controllership
Foundation itself. Concerned with “the point at
which m e n and budgets meet” the foreword
declared clearly the aims of the report:
we hope the report sheds light on one of the most basic
“Control” questions faced by management – – how to
gain acceptance – – the real acceptance of standards and
goals(Argyris, 1952,foreword).
within discourse. It could not be otherwise. The
point we would draw from this is that important
practical issues produce the conditions under
which certain problems come to be expressed.
They do not, however, determine the terms
according to which they are expressed. Our concern here is with the latter.
A third point relates to the notions of rationality and efficiency, and the extent to which the
changes we point to represent a continuation of
such a concern. Our answer would be emphaticaUy affirmative. Yet we would again wish to
draw atttention to the redefinitions which
occur. Rationality itself comes to be problematised. All individuals come to be viewed as
decision-makers, albeit in different respects.
Rationality remains as an issue of the relation
b e t w e e n personal and collective efficiency, yet
it is constructed according to a different conception of the person and a revised notion of the
organisation.
Our interpretation of the introduction of the
behavioural into accounting entails a slight
detour. This is through the psychological and
sociological formulation of an interest in the
h u m a n relations aspect of organisations during
the second quarter of the twentieth century.
Central here are the Hawthorne investigations
which extended for five years from 1927 until
1932 (Mayo, 1933; Whitehead, 1938; Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939). The familiarity of the
various commentaries on the Hawthorne
researches entails the possible danger that we
b e c o m e inured to the novelty of their invention
of an art of g o v e r n m e n t for the enterprise. This
would be unfortunate because the reformulation they produced in such a project was profound. The effect of the Hawthorne researches
was to enable a c o n c e r n to develop with the life
of the person in all its dimensions as a problem
for the collective ends of the total organisation.
Roethlisberger & Dickson express this ambition
clearly:
The starting point for the rethinking of accounting through the introduction of the behavioural
was a concrete problem. The formulation of the
terms of such an issue was effected, however,
In terms of the concept ofan industrial organizationas a
social system many of the human problems of management can be reformulated. A traditional statement of
these problems frequently distorts the actualhumansituation in the industrialplant. The workers, supervisors,or
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 257
executives are often considered apart from their social
setting and personal history and are treated as essentially
“economicmen”. Simplecause and effectanalysisoftheir
behaviour is substituted for the richer situational context
in which their lives are lived and in which the relation of
mutual interdependence obtains (Roethlisberger &
Dickson, 1939, p. 569).
The emphasis w h i c h emerges is on collective
goals and mutual i n t e r d e p e n d e n c e of the various
c o m p o n e n t parts of the enterprise. This was to
entail a reconceptualisation of what one could
e x p e c t from budgets and other forms of standardisation of managerial expectations. O n e could
no longer base budgets and p e r f o r m a n c e standards solely on an assumption of rational
e c o n o m i c personal motivations. To do so risked
p r o d u c i n g severe u n i n t e n d e d c o n s e q u e n c e s
and resistances. In place of such limited views
must be put the p e r s o n characterised by sentiments, to w h o m managerial policies must be
addressed in terms of their meanings to that person in their particular personal and social circumstances. The c o n c e r n with efi$ciency and
rationalisation must be articulated with an
understanding of the possibilities of securing
c o o p e r a t i o n and acceptance of managerial goals.
A negotiative c o n c e p t i o n of m a n a g e m e n t should
be substituted for one based on the crude imposition of standards. The c o n c e p t of managerial
control w o u l d have to be redefined so as to
implicate individuals within the collective objectives of the enterprise. To achieve this one
w o u l d have to attend to a quite different dimension of the enterprise to that previously:
Agreat deal of attention has been given to the economic
function of industrial organization. Scientific controls
have been introduced to further the economic purposes
of the concern and of the individuals within it. Much of
this advance has gone on in the name of efficiency or
rationalization. Nothing comparable to this advance has
gone on in the development of skills and techniques for
securing cooperation, that is, for getting individuals and
groups of individuals working together effectively and
with satisfaction to themselves (Roethlisberger &
Dickson, 1939, pp. 552-553).
E c o n o m i c ends are mediated through personal
and social sentiments. O n e cannot h o p e to
achieve the former if the latter are ignored. O n e
must construct a w o r k situation w h i c h is also a
social situation. Through this o n e will be able to
implicate the personal dimensions of the life of
the w o r k e r within the e c o n o m i c objective of the
organisation:
Where the work situation is such that it does not allow
the worker’s preoccupations or attention to be socially
expressed or directed by conversation or by other
activities, an ideal setting is created for the development
of morbid preoccupations. He is likely to spend his time
brooding about his personal problems or his relations
with his co-workers and supervisors. Where the social
situation is such that it does allow for the social expression ofpreoccupation, much brooding about factors incidental to the worker’s personal history can be alleviated
(Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939, pp. 573-574).
N o w of course the c o n c e r n with the personal
dimension of the life of the w o r k e r was a m u c h
m o r e c o m p l e x issue than these brief remarks
suggest. Their relevance for our c o n c e r n s here,
however, are in terms of the way such themes
p r o v i d e d a basis for the redefinition of accounting w h i c h was to o c c u r in the third quarter of
this century. Put simply, the redifinition took
place through the incorporation (within the
domain of accounting) of just these personal and
human relations concerns.
Argyris ( 1 9 5 2 ) is the clearest early formulation of such a concern. The F o r e w o r d to Argyris’
study reminds us of the defects of accounting
techniques as previously conceived. Some of
these, it is argued:
have reached the ultimate state of dwelling within an
electronic tube and emerging only to shake a mechanical
finger at erring human beings (Argris, 1952, foreword).
The point of Argyris’ study was that this conception of accounting must be drastically revised.
He d r e w attention to “what p e o p l e think of
budgets”, distinguishing b e t w e e n “budget
people”, “factory supervisors” and ” e m p l o y e e s ”
or “factory people”. The point of this categorisation was to demonstrate that different groups of
p e o p l e had different views on budgets, on h o w
they w e r e used and w h y they often w e r e not
met. The negative c o n s e q u e n c e s of budgets
w h i c h w e r e simply imposed on p e o p l e w e r e
identified clearly by Argyris. Pressure to m e e t
258 PETERMILLERand TED O’LEARY
targets laid d o w n in budgets risked increasing
tension, resentment, and suspicion. This w o u l d
often lead to the formation of groups as a way of
combatting m a n a g e m e n t pressure. The real
danger, however, lay in the longer term. In the
short term m a n a g e m e n t may recognise the dangers and r e d u c e the pressure. In principle the
group should disappear. H o w e v e r the conclusion to w h i c h Argyris came was that there was a
t e n d e n c y for the group to remain. If it remained,
it w o u l d continue to cause problems well after
the initial irritant had b e e n removed.
The r e m e d y p r o p o s e d was the introduction of
a negotiative politics for the g o v e r n m e n t of the
enterprise. A n u m b e r of terms came to operate
within this broad space – – cooperation, bargaining, communication. Of course as a negotiative
politics it was w e i g h t e d heavily in the favour of
one side. The point h o w e v e r was clear. As far as
budgets w e r e c o n c e r n e d one should seek to gain
acceptance of budgets by all those w h o m they
affected. Accounting should be reformulated so
as to take account of such factors. The w o r k e r as
a c o m p l e x person and as a m e m b e r of an informal group should be incorporated within
accounting’s domain.
This shift to a behavioural c o n c e p t i o n of
accounting can be indicated across a range of
writings w h i c h have appeared over the past two
decades and m o r e (Caplan, 1966; Hofstede,
1968; Hopwood, 1974; Schiff & Lewin, 1974;
Harrison et al., 1981). Devine ( 1 9 6 0 ) w o u l d
argue that the behavioural assumptions of accounting n e e d e d drastic revision:
Let us… turn to that part of accounting which is related
directly to the psychological reactions ofthose who consume accounting output or are caught in its threads of
control. On balance it seems fair to conclude that
accountants seem to have waded through their relationships to the intricate psychological network of human
activity with a heavy-handed crudity that is beyond
belief. Some degree of crudity may be excused in a new
discipline, but failure to recognise that much ofwhat passes as accounting theory is hopelessly entwined with
unsupported behaviour assumptions is unforgiveable
(Devine, 1960, p. 394).
Another writer (Caplan, 1966) w o u l d argue that
accounting as a m a n a g e m e n t tool n e e d e d to take
account of the c o m p l e x i t y of the individual’s
motivations, their diverse needs and desires:
It is possible that the failure of management accountants
to consider the more complex motivating forces which
organisation theory recognizes in the individual contributes to the use of accounting systems and procedures
which produce “side-effects” in the form of a variety of
unanticipated and undesired responses from participants. For example, many management accounting
techniques intended to control costs, such as budgeting
and standard costing, may virtually defeat themselves
because they help to create feelingsof confusion, frustration, suspicion and hostility. These techniques may not
motivate effectively because they fail to consider the
broad spectrum of needs and drives of the participants
(Caplan, 1966, p. 506).
The clear lesson was that accountants should
accept as relevant those bodies of k n o w l e d g e
which hitherto they had overlooked, What
might have s e e m e d to Harrison ( 1 9 3 0 ) as no
m o r e than commonsense, namely that budgets
ought to be set so as to encourage their achievement, was c o m i n g to be seen as itself rather a
large territory for investigation, requiring the
mediation of other and unfamiliar theories and
concepts. Indeed, one might say, the w h o l e
meaning of cost accounting’s effectiveness was
being challenged. Instead of depending just
u p o n the technical sophistication of the
accounting system, effectiveness was c o m i n g to
be seen as crucially d e p e n d e n t upon w h e t h e r
the system w o u l d actually impel p e o p l e to
achieve desired purposes (Benston, 1963; Caplan, 1966; Hopwood, 1973). The encircling of
the person with calculative practices which
w o u l d routinely construct or monitor his or her
contributions to efficiency, as traditionally
effected by budgeting, was seen to be d e p e n d e n t
upon an inadequate psychology.
Other studies w e r e to refine the issues at stake
here (e.g. Likert & Seashore, 1963; Becker &
Green, 1962). The e n c o u n t e r b e t w e e n the person and the budget was to lead accountants to
observe the organizational life of the person at
first hand. Questions would be asked as to the
extent of the relevant psychological, sociological and organization theories w h i c h accountants
ought to know, and the options w h i c h existed
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THEGOVERNABLEPERSON 259
for collaborations with the more established
“behavioural scientists” (Devine, 1960; Hofstedt
et al., 1970). And some substantive empirical
studies would be carried out. Tending to take
budgeting and standard costing as points of
departure, such studies would explore the
impact, both u p o n the psychological well-being
of the person and u p o n his or her propensities to
meet organizational efficiency or goals, of those
” u n i n t e n d e d consequences” p r o d u c e d by such
calculative practices (see e.g. Hofstede, 1968;
Hopwood, 1973). More knowledge was needed,
in order that the systems and their methods of
use might be redesigned, so as to enhance the
well-being of person and organization. One
might say that the discovery of the motivational
complexity of the person revealed the inadequacy of such as budgets in procuring individual
efficiency. A space was o p e n e d for fresh
approaches to that endeavour. And in addition to
empirical field studies, accountants would come
not only to join the psychologist in laboratory
observations of the organizational subject, but
even to make some significant attempts to construct similar laboratories of their o w n (see e.g.
Libby, 1981 for a review). Accountancy would
enter alliances with the other behavioural sciences to gaze u p o n and to direct the organizational life of the person.
One particular expression of the shift we are
referring to here was the re-casting of organisation theory through a notion of the person view e d as a decision-maker. For our concerns here
this is an important development. It had the
effect of significantly redefining the project of
m a n a g e m e n t and the attempt to establish
mechanisms for the implication of the individual
within organisational objectives. Or rather it
rendered problematic the nature of the social
b o n d within the enterprise.
The introduction of the notion of the person
as a decision-maker rendered obsolete the image
of the individual as a machine and substituted
one of an individual capable of choice. This elem e n t of choice entailed in the n o t i o n of the decision-making individual placed the personal
dimension of individual behaviour at the margins of the possibility of control. The individual,
and the project of organisational management,
would have to enter a perpetual series of moves
and counter-moves. The project of m a n a g e m e n t
viewed in these terms could never terminate
because the person was always seen to possess
the possibilities of choice which could be
organisationally dysfunctional. The decisionmaking person is seen to have an ineradicable
element of freedom. The task of organisational
m a n a g e m e n t would come to be understood as
the supervision and definition of this freedom,
something which could always be subverted. An
expanded group of “behavioural scientists”, including at least some accountants, would set
itself the task of attending to such questions.
One can locate such a shift through the writings of Barnard (1938), Simon (1957), March &
Simon ( 1 9 5 8 ) and Cyert & March (1963). These
works were to be seen as having enriched the
concerns of accountants with h u m a n motivation, and they achieved rapid recognition within
the academic accounting literature (Devine,
1960; Benston, 1963). As early as 1937 Barnard
was lecturing on the distinction b e t w e e n personal ends and organizational ends. He was to
suggest the existence of”a sort of dual personality”, one which was organisational and one
which was personal. An important issue this
raised was that of their c o n g r u e n c e on matters of
authority. The latter was seen to d e p e n d crucially on personal acceptance and not on purely
formal criteria:
Ifa directive communication isaccepted byone to whom
it is addressed,its authority for him isconfirmed or established. It is admitted as the basisofaction. Disobedience
of such a communication is a denial of its authority for
him. Therefore, under this definition the decision as to
whether an order has authority or not lies with the persons to whom it is addressed,and does not reside in “persons of authority” or those who issue these orders (Barnard, 1938,p. 163).
Authority is interpersonal. The individual is seen
to be free to decide for or against acceptance of
norms, instructions and standards; at the very
least they are no longer viewed as unproblematically internalised. The reactions of subordinates
is seen to be mediated by varying degrees of conviction. Whereas for an organisation:
260 PETERMILLERand TED O’LEARY
decision is in its important aspects a social process.., the
process of decision in individuals.., is a psychological
process socially conditioned (Barnard, 1938, cited in
Sofer, 1972, p. 165).
M a r c h & S i m o n ( 1 9 5 8 ) , S i m o n ( 1 9 5 7 ) and
C y e r t & M a r c h ( 1 9 6 3 ) w e r e to d e v e l o p this
n o t i o n o f t h e d e c i s i o n – m a k i n g organisation. “Dec i d i n g ” c a m e to b e v i e w e d n o t as a m o m e n t a r y
act b u t as a p r o c e s s w h i c h p e r v a d e d t h e e n t i r e
organisation:
Although any practical activity involves both “deciding”
and “doing”, it has not commonly been recognised that a
theory of administration should be concerned with the
processes of decision as well as with the processes of
action. This neglect perhaps stems from the notion that
decision-making is confined to the formulation ofover-all
policy. On the contrary, the process of decision does not
come to an end when the general purpose of an organization has been determined. The task of “deciding” pervades the entire administrative organization quite as
much as does the task of “doing” – – indeed, it is integrally
tied up with the latter. Ageneral theory of administration
must include principles of organization that will insure
correct decision-making, just as it must include principles that will insure effective action (Simon, 1957, p. 1).
A drastic r e v i s i o n of t h e c o n c e p t of ” e c o n o m i c
m a n ” was s e e n to b e n e e d e d . T h e r e v i s i o n m e a n t
i n c o r p o r a t i n g the e n v i r o n m e n t and t h e
p s y c h o l o g i c a l attributes of individuals w i t h i n a
n e w c o n c e p t i o n of t h e individual h u m a n being.
C y e r t & M a r c h ( 1 9 6 3 ) w e r e to f o r m u l a t e this
shift in a ” b e h a v i o u r a l t h e o r y of the firm” w i t h i n
w h i c h s u c h a n o t i o n of t h e p e r s o n and of decisions w e r e central. T h e b u d g e t and its ability to
d e f i n e organisational o b j e c t i v e s was c e n t r a l to
u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e firm in s u c h a m a n n e r . T h e
issue was e x p r e s s e d simply. Individuals h a v e
goals; c o l l e c t i v i t i e s d o not. A m e a n s o f generating c o l l e c t i v e goals so that t h e y are c o n g r u e n t
w i t h p e r s o n a l goals was s e e n to b e r e q u i r e d .
T h e e l a b o r a t i o n o f organisational goals c a m e
to b e d e f i n e d in a w a y w h i c h saw t h e m as inher e n t l y conflictual. T h e o r g a n i s a t i o n was, after all,
o n l y a ” c o a l i t i o n ” o f individuals, s o m e o f t h e m
o r g a n i z e d into s u b c o a l i t i o n s ( C y e r t & March,
1963, pp. 2 7 – 2 9 ) . C o o p e r a t i o n was a p r o c e s s of
negotiation, of bargaining. But h u m a n b e i n g s
h a v e l i m i t e d capacities. C o n t r o l – s y s t e m s are
n e e d e d to identify t h e c o n s i d e r a t i o n s r e l e v a n t to
m e m b e r s of t h e coalition. O n e s u c h control-syst e m is t h e b u d g e t :
The budget in a modern, large-scale corporation plays
two basic roles. On the one hand, it is used as a management control device to implement policies on which
executives have decided and to check achievement
against established criteria. On the other hand, a budget
isa device to determine feasible programs. In either case,
it tends to define – – in advance – – a set of fixed commitments and (perhaps more important) fixed expectations.
Although budgets can be flexible, they cannot help but
result in the specification of a framework within which
the firm will operate, evaluate its success, and alter its
program (Cyert & March, 1963, pp. 110-111 ).
T h e b u d g e t m a y set organisational o b j e c t i v e s .
But it is n o n e t h e l e s s c o n s t r a i n e d by t h e m o r e
g e n e r a l c o n s t r a i n t s o f t h e m o t i v a t i o n a l c o m p l e x –
ity of individuals. W h a t is i n t e r e s t i n g for o u r purp o s e s h e r e is t h e p r o p o s e d r e s o l u t i o n to this difficulty. O n e n o l o n g e r seeks o n l y to f o r c e p e o p l e
into t h e s t r u c t u r e s o f t h e b u d g e t . R a t h e r o n e
r e d e f i n e s t h e a c c o u n t i n g side of t h e e q u a t i o n
t h r o u g h t h e i n c o r p o r a t i o n of a c o n c e p t of t h e
p e r s o n as m o t i v a t i o n a l l y c o m p l e x . T h e b u d g e t
and standard c o s t i n g c o m e to b e d i s p l a c e d in
f a v o u r o f a task of s e e k i n g to e n g i n e e r t h e rationality of t h e person. T h e i m p l i c a t i o n and normalisation of t h e individual w i t h i n c a l c u l a t i v e practices is n o l o n g e r to b e a c h i e v e d t h r o u g h singlem i n d e d p u r s u i t o f b u d g e t r e q u i r e m e n t s ( H o p –
w o o d , 1973).
Let us try and e x p r e s s w h a t w e see to b e at
issue here, for it is n o t s i m p l y a m a t t e r o f definitions. W h a t w e s e e to b e o c c u r r i n g in t h e t e x t s
w e h a v e c i t e d is a r e c o n c e p t u a l i s a t i o n of t h e
b o u n d a r i e s of t h e a c c o u n t i n g c o m p l e x t h r o u g h
an i n c l u s i o n w i t h i n it of a r e v i s e d n o t i o n of t h e
p e r s o n and t h e firm. W i t h this shift a c c o u n t i n g
c o m e s to f u n c t i o n as an i n t e r d e p e n d e n t e l e m e n t
in a r a n g e of o p e r a t i o n s w h o s e c o n c e r n is w i t h
t h e i m p l i c a t i o n o f t h e individual w i t h i n organisational o b j e c t i v e s . W h a t w e are suggesting, admittedly by m e r e l y g e s t u r i n g t o w a r d s s o m e relevant e x a m p l e s , is that an i m p o r t a n t r e f o r m u l a t i o n
of t h e o b j e c t i v e s of a c c o u n t i n g o c c u r s t h r o u g h
t h e i n t r o d u c t i o n of t h e n o t i o n of t h e b e h a v i o u r a l
w i t h i n its t e r m s of r e f e r e n c e . It is n o t just a
b r o a d e n i n g o f t h e c o n c e r n s of a c c o u n t i n g . It is a
ACCOUNTINGANDTHE CONSTRUCTIONOF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 261
significant redefinition of the terms and objectives of a c c o u n t i n g as a social practice. Accounting w o u l d seek to w o r k m o r e closely with
p s y c h o l o g y within a c o m p l e x of h u m a n sciences
w h o s e o b j e c t was defined as the p e r s o n and his
o r her life within the organisation. The redefinition w h i c h takes place, however, does not obliterate the c o n c e r n s of a c c o u n t i n g w e have identiffed above as e m e r g i n g in the early decades of
this century. To adapt March’s ( 1 9 7 8 ) useful
analogy, accounting continues to b e c o n c e r n e d
with the active engineering of the organisationally useful person. It c o m e s to possess, however,
a m u c h m o r e p r o m i s i n g set of concepts,
techniques and m e c h a n i s m s with w h i c h to
achieve such an objective.
IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
W e have p o i n t e d in this p a p e r to a n u m b e r of
events o c c u r r i n g roughly within the first t h r e e
decades of this c e n t u r y w h i c h w e see to be significant for the u n d e r s t a n d i n g of accounting as a
social and organisational practice. These events
have b e e n the c o n s p i c u o u s e m e r g e n c e of different bodies of e x p e r t k n o w l e d g e and practice, as
well as political, journalistic and philosophical
discourses, all of w h i c h share as a p o i n t of conv e r g e n c e the active m a n a g e m e n t of the life of
the p e r s o n in its varied facets. Clustering around
the w o r d efficiency, w e have suggested, one can
witness within this p e r i o d a diverse group,
including engineers, psychologists, accountants,
medical practitioners, p r o p o n e n t s of eugenics,
journalists and politicians, p r o p o s e various projects for i m p r o v i n g the life of the p e r s o n and,
thereby, of the nation. At stake, it seems, is an
urgent felt n e e d to identify and to eliminate
shortcomings in such matters as p e o p l e ‘ s mental
and physical health, and the quality of their
offspring, as well as their c o n t r i b u t i o n to the
e c o n o m y , the p r o t e c t i o n of the empire, and public life generally. A t h e m e running through all
the discourses and practices w e have l o o k e d at is
a positive c o n c e r n to take and to i m p r o v e the life
of the person. Quite literally, the p e r s o n was to
b e w o r k e d upon, to be m a n a g e d t h r o u g h a series
of interventions into an e n h a n c e d state of life.
W e have suggested that the firm can be seen as
one of the sites in society towards w h i c h such
p r o j e c t s w o u l d address themselves. Specifically,
w e have l o o k e d at scientific management, at the
birth of industrial p s y c h o l o g y and of m o d e r n
cost accounting.
Viewed in terms of a c o n c e r n with national
efficiency, the p r o j e c t of scientific m a n a g e m e n t
h e l p e d to r e n d e r apparent and r e m e d i a b l e the
waste lying d e e p within the every m o v e of the
worker. N o r m s or standards w e r e to b e cons t r u c t e d for the doing of w o r k of every kind.
Those norms, reflecting as they w o u l d an
increased level of efficiency, w e r e e x p e c t e d to
yield that extra o u t p u t and p r o s p e r i t y w h i c h
w o u l d r e n d e r class conflict obsolete. Such a cong r u e n c e of self-interest of worker, e m p l o y e r and
the social b o d y alike, joined to the assurance of
science, was to r e n d e r the w o r k e r acquiescent
in this “taking hold” of his or her physiology, in
o r d e r to e x p e r i m e n t with it and to i m p r o v e its
p r o d u c t i v e capabilities.
W e have n o t e d the alliance of scientific management and costing. From its earliest beginnings, it seems, the scientific m a n a g e m e n t literature had recognised the p o w e r of an efficiency
m e a s u r e m e n t g r o u n d e d in costs and profits. And
w e have n o t e d the influence of scientific management on the c o n s t r u c t i o n of standard costing, w h i c h itself merges into budgeting. The
resultant calculative apparatus was to entail the
possibility for going b e y o n d a routine r e n d e r i n g
visible of only the factory-floor w o r k e r ‘ s efficiency. W e have v i e w e d the s u p e r i m p o s i t i o n of
a n o t i o n of standardized magnitudes u p o n the
traditional accounting statements of i n c o m e and
financial position as facilitating the normalization (in terms of e c o n o m i c a c c o m p l i s h m e n t ) of
e v e r y o n e within the firm. Budgeting, one might
say, w o u l d serve as an escape-route b y w h i c h
standards could leave the factory floor and
enmesh, potentially, e v e r y o n e in the firm. Without effacing the notion of the p e r s o n as potential
thief, that longer-standing stewardship c o n c e r n
of accounting, standard costing and budgeting
w o u l d r e n d e r accessible to various e x p e r t and
authoritative interventions the individual as “al
262 PETERMILLERand TED O’LEARY
most certainly inefficient”. Cost accounting
w o u l d e x p a n d its domain, to e n m e s h the p e r s o n
in a calculus of expectations. In thus constructing a notion of the p e r s o n w e have argued that
standard costing and b u d g e t i n g p r o v i d e d a
facilitative t e c h n o l o g y w h e r e b y , in time, various
interventions to i m p r o v e the person’s perform a n c e w o u l d b e c o m e possible. For the w h o l e
p r o j e c t of e n m e s h i n g the p e r s o n within norms
of efficiency, once begun, came quickly enough
to be seen as a complex, sophisticated
endeavour.
I m p o r t a n t in bringing about such a sense of
c o m p l e x i t y was industrial psychology, to w h o s e
birth w e have briefly attested. More or less
simultaneously with the e m e r g e n c e of scientific
m a n a g e m e n t and standard costing,
psychologists began to argue the inadequacy of
such endeavours’ c o n c e p t of the person. Wastes
and inefficiencies, for their d e t e c t i o n and elimination, w e r e n o w argued to require the expertise of those w h o can k n o w the person’s mind. A
project w o u l d be initiated w h i c h establishes the
individual’s psyche as the key mediating force in
matching p e r s o n and task and in interpreting
task p e r f o r m a n c e variables. And w e have
p o i n t e d out, albeit too sketchily and briefly, h o w
a redefined industrial psychology comes, later in
the century, to significantly intersect with
accounting. By the 1950s, w e have suggested,
the p e r s o n as machine has been r e p l a c e d b y the
motivationally-complex decision-maker. This
adds greatly to the c o m p l e x i t y of r e n d e r i n g efficient his or her e c o n o m i c performance, and produces a redefinition of what w e have called the
accounting complex.
In looking at such processes in this manner w e
have w a n t e d to suggest a way of viewing
accounting as having c o n t r i b u t e d to a m o r e general p r o j e c t of socio-political management. This
is one w h i c h operates through a variety of expert k n o w l e d g e s and practices. The efficiency
of individual persons and their contribution to
collective efficiency is central to such processes.
But the efficiency of the p e r s o n in the firm, as w e
have seen Taylor p o i n t out, is not something
w h i c h can be o b s e r v e d with the naked eye.
Indeed, one might say, it cannot exist until what
is to be r e g a r d e d as normal or standard has first
b e e n constructed. But once a n o r m is to hand,
and especially w h e n it gains expression within a
routinely applicable calculative apparatus like
standard costing or budgeting, the p e r s o n can
b e c o m e a subject for various h u m a n sciences.
The deviations of the p e r s o n from a norm, with
all of their possible causes and consequences,
b e c o m e available for investigation and for remedial action. And, w e w o u l d suggest, one distinctive c o n t r i b u t i o n of standard costing, hitherto
apparently ignored, is its c o n t r i b u t i o n to a m u c h
w i d e r process, w h e r e b y the life of the p e r s o n
c o m e s to b e v i e w e d in relation to standards and
norms of behaviour.
N o w of course the processes w h i c h w e have
b e e n referring to here are of a greater c o m p l e x –
ity than w e have b e e n able to indicate. But w h a t
w e w a n t e d to do was to at least make a start in
untangling some of the strands of the contribution of accounting to a m o d e of operation of
p o w e r in our societies which, w e argue, emerges
in its distinctive form at the beginning of this
century. This is one which, w e feel, cannot be
explained adequately b y over-zealous adherence either to a notion of e c o n o m i c determination and interests, or to an explanation w h i c h
hinges on a desire on behalf of the professions to
continually e x t e n d their field of operations. Of
course this is not to imply that e c o n o m i c pressures and professional influences are unimportant. It is, rather, to suggest what w e see to be a
different line of investigation for the understanding of accounting in relation to p o w e r in our
societies. This is one w h i c h locates it as an important part of that c o m p l e x of interventions
which can be given the name the human sciences.
W e have outlined briefly h o w our thinking on
these matters has b e e n significantly influenced
by the work of Michel Foucault and his associates.
W e do not feel that our c o n c e r n s in this p a p e r
can be adequately c a p t u r e d by referring to a general process of rationalisation of W e s t e r n industrial societies ( W e b e r , 1978). In talking of projects for social and organisational m a n a g e m e n t
w e have w a n t e d to give weight to the actual construction of such projects, and to the terms in
w h i c h they are constructed. W e have sought
ACCOUNTING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 263
t e n t a t i v e l y to e x p l a i n h o w a c c o u n t i n g supplies
an i m p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n to a c o m p l e x o f interv e n t i o n s d i r e c t e d at p r o v i d i n g m e c h a n i s m s for
t h e i m p l i c a t i o n o f individuals w i t h i n t h e life o f
t h e o r g a n i z a t i o n and o f society. T h e g e n e r a l
p r i n c i p l e o p e r a t i v e h e r e has b e e n w e l l e x p r e s –
s e d b y R e x f o r d T u g w e l l , g o v e r n m e n t advisor,
e c o n o m i c s professor, and s t a u n c h a d v o c a t e of
t h e a p p l i c a t i o n s o f scientific m a n a g e m e n t to t h e
w i d e r society:
is it possible that, instead of appealing to sets of emotions
ofan immediate and piecemeal sort, the problem ofmotivation might be resolved by fixing in each individual
mind a rationale of ends to be tried for, and of the means
available? For if this cannot be done, it seems very little
use to hope that group action will ever become coherent
and cooperative in a larger, a genuinely social sense;…
( Tugwell, 1933).
In d e f i n i n g o u r c o n c e r n as w i t h t h e ” c o n s t r u c –
t i o n o f t h e g o v e r n a b l e p e r s o n ” w e w o u l d n o t
w a n t to i m p l y an i m a g e o f a totally o b e d i e n t individual. W e w a n t e d r a t h e r to e x a m i n e t h e progr a m m a t i c f r a m e w o r k s and p o w e r r e l a t i o n s in
t e r m s o f w h i c h t h e lives o f individuals are
v i e w e d , m e a s u r e d and s u p e r v i s e d . In g e s t u r i n g
t o w a r d s r e c e n t d e v e l o p m e n t s w i t h i n a c c o u n t –
ing w e w a n t e d to suggest w a y s of i n t e r p r e t i n g
t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n o f t h e n o t i o n of t h e c o m p l e x
p e r s o n as a r a t i o n a l e for a series o f p r a c t i c a l int e r v e n t i o n s . T o p u t this r a t h e r p r o v o c a t i v e l y ,
o n e c o u l d say that w h a t is at issue in t h e s e m o r e
r e c e n t d e v e l o p m e n t s is a f o r m o f p o w e r w h i c h
o p e r a t e s t h r o u g h f r e e d o m : a f r e e d o m for t h e
individual to h a v e an i n f o r m a l life w i t h i n t h e
organization, to d e v i a t e f r o m criteria of rationality, to b r o o d o n p e r s o n a l p r o b l e m s , and to b e inf l u e n c e d by t h e e n v i r o n m e n t o u t s i d e t h e firm. In
its m o r e r e c e n t d e v e l o p m e n t a c c o u n t i n g has
p r o v i d e d for s u c h a f r e e d o m in its a t t e m p t to inc o r p o r a t e t h e b e h a v i o u r a l and t h e d e c i s i o n t a k e r
w i t h i n its sphere. In so d o i n g w e w o u l d suggest
that a c c o u n t i n g t o d a y can b e v i e w e d as in continuity with, albeit in a c o n s i d e r a b l y m o d i f i e d
form, a m o d e o f e x e r c i s e of p o w e r w h i c h was installed in t h e early d e c a d e s of this c e n t u r y .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
American Accounting Association, Report of the Committee on Accounting History, Accounting Review,
Supplement to vol. XLV(1970).
Argyri.s,C., The Impact of Budgets on People (New York: Controllership Foundation, 1952).
Armstrong, D.,Political Anatomy of the Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
Ashton, R. H. (ed.), The Evolution of Behavioural Accounting Research (New York: Garland, 1983 ).
Baritz, L., The Servants of Power (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1960).
Barnard, C., The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 1938).
Becker, S. & Green, D., Budgeting and Employee Behavior, Journal of Business (October 1962) pp.
392–402.
Bedford, N. & Dopuch, N., Research Methodology and Accounting Theory–Another Perspective,AccountingReview (July 1961) pp. 351-61.
Benston, G., The Role of the Firm’s Accounting System for Motivation,Accounting Review (April 1963)pp.
347-54.
Burchell, S., Clubb, C. & Hopwood, The Development of Accounting in its International Context, Seminar
on an Historical and Contemporary Review of the Development of lnternational Accounting, Atlanta
(August 1979).
Burchell, S.,Clubb, C., Hopwood, A., Hughes,J. & Nahapiet,J., The Roles ofAccounting in Organizations and
Society,Accounting Organizations and Society (1980) pp. 5-27.
Burchell, G., Gordon, C. & Miller, P. (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in the History of Government
Rationality (Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press, forthcoming).
Caplan, E. H., Behavioral Assumptions of Management Accounting, Accounting Review (July 1966) pp.
496-509.
Castel, R., Castel, X. & Lovell, X., The Psychiatric Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982).
264 PETER MILLERand TED O’LEARY
Chattield, M. (ed.), Contemporary Studies in the Evolution of Accounting Thought (Belmont, CA:
Dickenson, 1977).
Church, A. H., Manufacturing Costs and Accounts (New York: McGraw Hill, 1917).
Collini, S., Liberalism and Sociology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
Cousins, M. & Hussain, A.,Michel Foucault ( London: Macmillan, 1984).
Cyert, R. & March, J., The Behavioral Theory oftheFirm (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1963).
Devine, C. T., Research Methodology and Accounting Theory Formation, Accounting Review (July 1960)
pp. 387-399.
Donzelot, J., The Policing of Families (London: Hutchinson, 1979).
Drury, H. B., Scientific Management (New York: Columbia University Press, 1915 ).
Dyson, K., The State Tradition in Western Europe ( Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980).
Emerson, H.,Efficiency as a Basisfor Operation and Wages ( New York: Engineering Magazine Co., 1919).
Epstein, M.J., The Effect of Scientific Management on the Development of the Standard Cost System (New
York: Arno, 1978).
Foucault, M.,Madness and Civilisation (London: Tavistock, 1967).
Foucault, M., The Order of Things (London: Tavistock, 1970).
Foucault, M., The Archaeology of Knowledge (London: Tavistock, 1972).
Foucauh, M., TheBirth of the Clinic (London: Tavistock, 1973).
Foucault, M.,Discipline andPunish (Harmondsworth: Allen Lane/Penguin, 1977).
Foucault, M., TheHistory of Sexuality, vol 1 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1981 ).
Freeden, M., The New Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
Galton, F.,Inquiries in to Human Faculty and its Development (London: J. M. Dent, 1883).
Garcke, E. & Fells, J. M.,Factory Accounts, 6th ed. (London: Crosby Lockwood, 1911 ).
Haber, S., Efficiency and Uplift: Scientific Management in the Progressive Er~ 1890-1920 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1964).
Hacking, I., The Emergence of Probability (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975).
Hailer, M. H., Eugenics (NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1963).
Harrison, G. C., Standara Costing (New York: Ronald Press, 1930).
Harrison, R. H., Harrison, G. L. & Watson, D. J. H. (eds), The Organizational Context of Management
Accounting (London: Pitman, 1981 ).
Hays, S. P., Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959).
Hobhouse, L. T., Social Evolution and Political Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 1911 ).
Hobson, J. A., Work and Wealth: A Human Valuation (London: Macmillan, 1914).
Hofstadter, R., Social Darwinism in American Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1955 ).
Hofstede, G., The Game of Budget Control (London: Tavistock, 1968).
Hofstedt, T. R. & Kinard, J. C., A Strategy of Behavioral Accounting Research, Accounting Review (January
1970) pp. 38-54.
Hopwood, A.,An Accounting System and Managerial Behaviour ( London: Saxon House, 1973).
Hopwood, A.,Accounting andHuman Behaviour (London: Haymarket, 1974).
Kamin, L.J., The Science and Politics ofL Q. ( Potomac, MD: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1974 ).
Kaplan, R., The Evolution of Management Accounting, Accounting Review (July 1984) pp. 390-418.
Lee, T. A. & Parker, R. H., The Evolution of CorporateFinancialReporting (London: Nelson, 1979).
Libby, R.,Accounting andHuman Information Processing (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1981 ).
Likert, R. & Seashore, S. E., Making cost control work, Harvard Business Review (November-December
1963) pp. 96-108.
Littleton, A. C. & Zimmerman, V. K., Accounting Theory: Continuity and Change (Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall, 1962).
Mackenzie, D., Eugenics in Britain, SocialStudies of Science, (1976) pp. 499-532.
March, J. G., Ambiguity, Bounded Rationality and the Engineering of Choice, BellJournal of Economics
(1978) pp. 587-608.
March, J. G. & Simon, H. A., Organizations (New York: John Wiley, 1958).
Mayo, E., The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilisation (New York: Macmillan, 1933).
Merkle, J., Management and ldeology (Berkely, CA: University of California Press, 1981 ).
Miller, P., Domination andPower (London: Routledge, forthcoming).
Munsterberg, H., Psychology and Industrial Efficiency (London: Constable, 1913).
Myers, C. S., Mind and Work (London: University of London Press, 1920).
Nicholson, J. L., Cost Accounting (New York: Ronald Press, 1913).
ACCOUNTING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE GOVERNABLEPERSON 265
Noble, D.,America byDesign (New York: Galaxy Books, 1977).
Parker, R. H., The Study of Accounting History, Hopwood, A. and Bromwich, M. (eds), Essays in British
Accounting Research (London: Pitman, 1981 ).
Pickens, D., Eugenics and the Progressives (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1968 ).
Ritchie, D. G., The Principles of State Interference (London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1891 ).
Rose, N., The Psychological Complex: Mental Measurement and Social Administration, Ideology and
Consciosness (Spring 1979) pp. 5–68.
Roethlisberger, F.J. & Dickson, W. J., Management and the Worker (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1939).
Schiff, M. & Lewin, A. Y. (eds ), Behavioral Aspects of Accounting (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall,
1974).
Scull, A. T., Museums of Madness: The Social Organization of lnsanity in 19th Century England ( London:
Allen Lane, 1979).
Searle, G. R., The Quest for National Efficiency (Oxford: Blackwell, 1970).
Sheridan, A., Michel Foucault: the Will to Truth (London: Tavistock, 1980).
Simon, H. A.,Administrative Behavior (New York: Free Press, 1957).
Sofer, C., Organizations in Theory and Practice (London: Heinemann, 1972).
Solomons, D., The Historical development of costing, in Solomons, D. (eds) Studies in Cost Analysis
(London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1968).
Sowell, E. M., The Evolution of the Theories and Techniques of Standard Costs (Alabama: University of
Alabama Press, 1973).
Spencer, H., The Study of Sociology (London: Kegan Paul, 1878).
Stedman-Jones, G., Outcast London (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971 ).
Sutherland, G., The Magic of Measurement: Mental Testing and English Education, 1900-40, Transactions
of the Royai Historical Society (5th series, 1977) pp. 135-153.
Taylor, F. W., The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1913 ).
Towne, H. R., The Engineer as Economist, Proceedings of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
(1886).
Tugwell, R., The Industrial Discipline and the GovernmentalArts (New York: Columbia University Press,
1933).
Ward, L., The Scientific Basis of Positive Political Economy ( 1881 ), in Ward, L., Glimpses of the Cosmos,
(NewYork: Putnam, 1913).
Weber, M., Economy and Society (eds Roth, G. and Wittich, C.) (Berkeley, CA: University of California
Press, 1978).
White, A.,Efficiency and Empire (London: Methuen, 1901 ).
Whitehead, T. N., The Industrial Worker (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938).
Winter, J. M., Military Fitness and Civilian Health in Britain During the First World WarJournal of Contemporary History (1982) pp. 211–244.
Yerkes, R. M., Psychological Examining in the US. Army (Washington, DC: Memoirs of the National
Academy of Sciences, vol. 15, 1921).