by Akhil Kumar University of North Carolina at Greensboro

This book is a collection of articles by Alexander Hamilton Church along with a few related articles by other authors. In the editor’s opinion Church’s views are of great relevance to accounting and management of today. In addition, he is of the view that these areas can benefit a great deal from Church’s writings. The purpose of the book, therefore, is to stimulate a discussion and review of Church’s work. The editor has been careful to limit his objectives to pointing out the relevance of Church’s work. He refrains from suggesting that solutions to modern day problems are contained in Church’s work.

The articles presented are very diverse and cover a wide area. They span the fields of accounting, management, business and society, and industrial engineering. The articles by Church, written during the period of 1900 to 1931, are not reprinted in his books. Hence, this anthology makes an important contribu-tion by exposing the reader to significant writings of Church.

In “The Meaning of Commercial Organization” [1900] Church emphasizes the importance of overhead cost component in product costs. In addition, Church highlights the importance of monitoring product wise profitability and requiring monthly performance reports. Church is fearful of the obstructionist role of unions in the “British Industrial Welfare” [1901]. He prophesizes that if unions resisted new technologies, industrial activity would shift to countries where innovation was acceptable. “The Meaning of Scientific Management” [1911] was Church’s interpretation of Taylor’s “Scientific Management”. He saw it as a quest for accuracy — in planning, and in actions. He disagrees, however, that Taylor had found a science of management. In “Has ‘Scientific Management’ Science?” [1911] he questions the real-world applicability of Taylor’s principles. He challenges Taylor “to convince the rest of us that, in this imperfect world, he can banish discord, and substitute cooperation for individualism, except in the very limited sense that any well managed system of payment by results covers the same ground” [p. 32]. This article also illustrates Church’s concern for the behavioral issues, a dominant theme in some of his articles. In “Intensive Production and the Foreman” [1911] he suggests that employers take the foreman in confidence and discuss changes to minimize frictions. In “Distribution of the Expense Burden” [1911] Church introduces the notion of machine-hour rate method and goes on to develop this idea in subsequent writings.

Church provides a thorough overview of a good reporting system in “What is a Cost System?” [1915] He supports the idea of management by exception and quick reporting for prompt corrective action. In “What the Foreman Wants to Know about Costs”, Church switches from his usual “big picture” approach and discusses the minute details of the information a foreman should be able to get from machine shop cost records.

Another recurrent theme expressed in Church’s writing was a perferance for evolutionary change over revolutionary methods. This was evident to some extent in “Intensive Production and the Foreman” [1911] and “Industrial Management” [1915]. He places management into an evolutionary model and attributes the progress in management to a process of “analysis” and “synthesis”.

For the most part, the editor achieves his objectives i.e., of providing an exposure to Church’s writings. How these writings are relevant is somewhat ambiguous and left to the reader to figure out. It is clear to see Church’s contribution in the areas of allocation of overhead costs and product line profitability. From an historical perspective, it is interesting to see the emergence of behavioral issues in his writings. However, there are occasions when Church lacks rigor and his conclusions are sweeping generalizations. For instance, in “Industrial Management” [1915], he states “… the competent manager, like the great general, is born and not made” [p. 157]. Again, Church’s arguments in support of including interest expenses in manufacturing costs are very weak.

The book could have been better organized and presented. The articles are arranged chronologically. As a result, the ideas are jumbled and the underlying themes are unfocussed.

It is left to the reader to sort out the ideas and then figure out their relevance. For instance, a reader interested in cost accounting will have to skip several intervening articles on management in order to maintain a continuity of thought. I would have liked to see the writings arranged thematically and categorized by subject rather than chronologically. This would have helped the reader better appreciate the development of ideas in Church’s work. Also, some of the articles have been reproduced in very fine print which makes it difficult to read.

Overall, this anthology makes an important contribution by exposing the reader to significant writings by Church. This book should be interesting to students desiring a historical perspective on some of the current practices in cost accounting and management.