accounting could and should do to inform managers better. Anthony himself stressed the
importance of field research in his overview of the past and future of management accounting
(Anthony 1989).
Beginning in the pre-World War II period, at the same time as Anthony was starting his career,
accounting at HBS was heavily influenced by the work of Ross Graham Walker, Anthony’s and
McNamara’s mentor. As Robert K. Jaedicke, a colleague of Anthony’s at HBS from 1958 to 1961,
and later on the faculty of, and dean of, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, noted:
Harvard, for quite some time in the very early days [pre-World War II] into the 50s was fertile
ground for the development of that part of the ‘‘field’’ where Bob had a significant impact, and
there was a large cadre of colleagues who also had a deep interest in the development of
information and accounting processes that were primarily of use in managing organizations.
This is not to say that similar developments did not take place at other schools, but I think they
were somewhat later and not as pervasive.
So, as is normally the case when new ideas develop, Bob was probably in exactly the right
place at the right time—both school orientation, but also a great collection of people and
graduate students. (Jaedicke 2010, personal correspondence)
After retiring from HBS, he remained an active writer until short