19세기 중엽 美國 巨大鐵道會社의 管理會計實務

Management accounting practices of the American large railroad companies in the mid-nineteen century: Tthe Pennsylvania railroad company

This study examines management accounting practices of American large railroad companies, especially focused of The Pennsylvania Railroad Company, in the mid-nineteenth century. American railroads were the first modern business enterprise. They were the first to require a large number of full-time salaried managers to coordinate, control and evaluate the functional activities of several regionally defined operating divisions. For this reason, Thomson and his associates on the Pennsylvania Railroad during the late 1840s and 1870s invented nearly all of the basic techniques of modern accounting, and provided the most relevant accounting informaition /system for planning/decision making and control/performance evaluation. In sum, this study suggests that the management accounting practices at American railroads were an archetype of today’s management accounting.