Abstract
Tony Lowe spent a good deal of time considering how management control systems might be better designed to enable enterprises to adapt to a dynamic external environment (Lowe, Journal of Management Studies, 8(1):1–12,1971b; Lowe and McInnes, Journal of Management Studies, 8(2):213–227, 1971). One strand of research considered how the structure of management control systems influence the ability of the firm to gather relevant information about its environment. A second strand examined the implications of the law of requisite variety (LORV). Tony Lowe’s systems and cybernetic work had some influence over a period of time, as evidenced by the production of systems-based accounting texts, but longer-term impacts have been limited. Our aim is to examine how more recent research reflects and might be seen to extend Tony Lowe’s work.
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O’Grady, W., Lowe, A. (2016). Management Control: The Influence of Cybernetics and the Science of the Unknowable. In: Haslam, J., Sikka, P. (eds) Pioneers of Critical Accounting. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54212-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54212-0_3
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