The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries witnessed a growth in the use of information within firms throughout the industrialised nations. In her survey of this phenomenon in American businesses, Yates (1989, 1994) has stressed the importance not only of technological developments in...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the role of the Japanese state in the development of budgets within “special companies” in the transportation sector between 1928 and 1945. Design/methodology/approach – Using evidence contained in the archives of “closedown institutions” this...

This study examines aspects of the accounting and financial history of the South Manchuria Railway Company (SMR) from its formation in 1907. In particular we focus on the 1930s, a period in which the activities of the SMR became increasingly dominated by the demands of the Kwantung Army which...

Various estimates, both <italic>ex ante</italic> and <italic>ex post</italic>, have been produced of the accounting rate of return on investments in the late nineteenth-century coal industry, with some <italic>ex post</italic> figures also being calculated for individual firms engaged therein, such as the Consett Iron Co. Ltd. No one, however,...

This study examines aspects of the accounting and financial history of the South Manchuria Railway Company (SMR) from its formation in 1906. In particular we focus on the 1930s, a period in which the activities of the SMR became increasingly dominated by the demands of the Kwantung Army which...

The use of accounting to help apply the principles of scientific management to business affairs is associated with the adoption of standard costing and budgetary control. This first British industry-based study of the implementation of these calculative techniques makes use of the case study...

This article looks at the effects of office mechanisation in greater detail by describing data processing innovations in major building societies during the dawn of the computer era. Reference to similar developments in clearing banks, industrial and computer organisations provides evidence as...