Ernest Anthony (Tony) Lowe (June 1928 - 5 March 2014) was a British

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

, and Professor of Accounting and Financial Management at the

University of Sheffield The University of Sheffield (informally Sheffield University or TUOS) is a public university, public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. Its history traces back to the foundation of Sheffield Medical School in 1828, Fir ...

, known for his work on

management control Control is a function of management that helps identify errors and take corrective actions. This is done to minimize deviation from standards and ensure that the stated goals of the organization are achieved effectively. According to modern con ...

, and

management control system A management control system (MCS) is a system which gathers and uses information to evaluate the performance of different organizational resources like human, physical, financial and also the organization as a whole in light of the organizational ...

Biography

Lowe started his career as chartered accountant and received his BSc in Economics at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

. In the beginning of his academic career he held appointments at the

Durham University Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament (UK), Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by r ...

, the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

, the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

and the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, and back in England mid-1960s at the

University of Bradford The University of Bradford is a public research university located in the city of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. A plate glass university, it received its royal charter in 1966, making it the 40th university to be created in Britain, but ...

, and then as senior lecturer in management accounting at

Manchester Business School Alliance Manchester Business School (Alliance MBS) is the business school of the University of Manchester in Manchester, England. It is one of the oldest business schools in the UK, and provides education to undergraduates, postgraduates and e ...

. In 1971 Lowe was appointed Professor of Accountancy and Financial Administration, and later Professor of Accounting and Financial Management at the

, where he held the university's first chair in

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

.Gray, Rob. "Professor Tony Lowe (1928–2014)."
Social and Environmental Accountability Journal
' 34.2 (2014): 74-74. From 1997 to 2012 he was director of the Management Control Association.

Work

Management control systems

Lowe was one of the first authors to define

s. In his 1972 article "On the idea of a management control system" he listed the following four reasons for the need for a planning and control system: :''The need for a planning and control system within a business organization flows from certain general characteristics of the nature of business enterprises, the chief of which are follows:'' :* ''firstly, the enterprise has (by definition) organizational objectives, as distinct from the separable and individual ones of the members constituting the 'managerial coalition';'' :* ''Secondly, the managers of the sub-units of the enterprise must necessarily be ambivalent in view of their own personal goals, as well as have a good deal of discretion in deciding how they should behave and in formulating their part of any overall plan to achieve organizational objectives; '' :* ''thirdly, business situations (and people's behaviour) are full of uncertainty, internally as well as externally to the business enterprise.'' :* ''fourthly, there is a necessity to economize, in human endeavours we are invariably concerned with an allocation of effort and resources so as to achieve a given set of objectives...'' The term ‘

’ was given of its current connotations by Robert N. Anthony (Otley, 1994).

Reception

David Cooper (2014) recounted :''Tony Lowe's publications are important contributions to the intellectual beginnings of critical accounting and a fitting memorial to his recent death. This... tarted withTony's conceptualization of management control as a system...''Cooper, David J. "On the intellectual roots of critical accounting: A personal appreciation of Tony Lowe (1928–2014)." ''Critical Perspectives on Accounting'' Vol. 25, Iss. 4–5, July 2014, Pages 287–292 (2014). Rob Gray (2014) added: :'' owe waspossibly the most important academic the field of accounting has ever produced... He was absolutely crucial in the development of wider perspectives on accounting drawing equally from economic, sociology, decision theory, systems science and operations research to set in motion the accounting we know these days as interpretative and critical. His influence on modern management accounting is incalculable. More generally, I have always been in awe of his creation of the ‘Sheffield School’ and his critical influence on its principal members such as Wai Fong Chua, David Cooper, Richard Laughlin, Tony Puxty, Tony Tinker,

Prem Sikka Prem Nath Sikka, Baron Sikka (born 1 August 1951) is a British-Indian accountant and academic. He holds the position of Professor of Accounting at the University of Sheffield, and is Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex. ...

, Dick Wilson...''

Selected publications

Lowe, Tony, Tony Puxty, and Wai Fong Chua, eds. Critical perspectives in management control. Macmillan Press, 1989. Articles, a selection: * Lowe, E. A., and Richard Wright Shaw. "An analysis of managerial biasing: Evidence from a company's budgeting process." ''Journal of Management Studies'' 5.3 (1968): 304-315. * Lowe, E. A. "On the idea of a management control system: integrating accounting and management control." ''Journal of management Studies'' 8.1 (1971): 1-12.
abstract
* Lowe, E. A., and J. M. McInnes. "Control in Socio- Economic Organizations: A Rationale for the Design of Management Control Systems. "Journal of Management Studies 8: 2 1 (1971): 3-27.
abstract
. * Lowe, E. A., and A. M. Tinker. "Siting the accounting problematic: towards an intellectual emancipation of accounting." ''Journal of Business Finance & Accounting'' 4.3 (1977): 263-276. * Lowe, E. Anthony, Anthony G. Puxty, and R. C. Laughlin. "Simple theories for complex processes: accounting policy and the market for myopia." ''Journal of Accounting and Public Policy'' 2.1 (1983): 19-42. * Berry, A. J., Capps, T., Cooper, D., Ferguson, P., Hopper, T., & Lowe, E. A. (1985). "Management control in an area of the NCB: rationales of accounting practices in a public enterprise." ''Accounting, Organizations and Society,'' 10(1), 3-28. * Laughlin, Richard, and E. A. Lowe. "A critical analysis of accounting thought: prognosis and prospects for understanding and changing accounting systems design." ''Critical Accounts,'' Macmillan, London (1990): 15-43.

References

External links

Professor Tony Lowe (1928–2014)
obituary. {{DEFAULTSORT:Lowe, Ernest Anthony 1928 births 2014 deaths British business theorists British economists Accounting academics Academics of Durham University Academics of the University of Leeds Harvard University faculty Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty University of California, Berkeley faculty Academics of the University of Bradford Academics of the University of Sheffield