The history of the french tableau de bord (1885–1975): evidence from the archives

Abstract

The history of the tableau de bord in France has never really been written. This paper sets out to draw up a history using the archives of three large industrial companies – Lafarge, Pechiney and Saint-Gobain – as source material. This paper seeks to revisit the myth of the French tableau de bord as presented in a great many comparative management studies (typically, Tableau de bord vs. Balanced ScoreCard). This myth rests on more or less implicit assumptions regarding, for instance, the central role played by engineers in the emergence of tableaux de bord, the single and unified way in which this instrument is used in companies from top to bottom and, of course, its French specificity.

Keywords:

• French tableau de bord
• scorecard
• managerial innovation

Acknowledgements

The research on which this paper is based has been carried out within the framework of a project financed by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) entitled ‘Management: Private Practices, Public Issues’. For their help in allowing me to access to the archives, I wish to thank M. Boutiron and Mme. Malherbe (Lafarge), Melle. Carbonell and M. Grinberg (Institut pour l'histoire de l'aluminium), and M. Hamon, Mahoudeau and M. Robinet (Saint-Gobain).

Notes

Source: Lafarge Archives.

The ‘machines à statistiques’ (tabulating machines) were the antecedent of computing machines. They were invented by Hermann Hollerith at the end of the nineteenth century.

From a theoretical point of view, Gino Zappa was arguing from the 1920s onwards that cost accounting (which he referred to as ‘statistics’) should be kept separate from financial accounting. Indeed, he thought that financial accounting was incapable of capturing the reality of processes within the organisation, anticipating the later work of Kaplan and Norton (Zan 1994).

The distinction between accounting and other methods is not clear here. Accounting was perceived as an innovative method in contrast to merely managing cash flow. We may assume that, here, we are dealing with industrial accounting.

Indeed, it seems highly unlikely that data conveyed by the Glaceries met the requirements of general management. It seems that such data pre-dated these requests.

Here, the distinction with financial accounting is clear.

For a history of budgetary control, see Berland (1999).

We have only been able at this point to consult the second edition dated 1962.

It is unclear whether this is because they were never generated or that they simply have not survived.

Unfortunately, we do not know which kind of audience he addressed.

The ambiguities between tableaux de bord and budgetary control are, however, far from being clarified in this report.

This is how the system isstill used in Saint-Gobain today, the SIF (Système d'informations financières), emerged.

Furthermore, it was this model that has been widely theorised (see, for instance, the OVAR method – ‘Objectifs, Variables d'Action, Responsables’ – developed by a French research group).

The examples of current tableaux de bord that are available to us, through the works of Masters students in particular, show that they are mainly financial reporting tools. Implementation of methods described as ‘ways’ (the Areva way, the Danone way, the Lafarge way, etc.) perhaps illustrates what a ‘genuine’ French-style tableau de bord would be. The company's social responsibility would appear to be the source of these initiatives (see the work of Moquet, thesis in progress at the University of Paris Dauphine).

Trevor Boyns has also collected some data about the case of UK industry: ‘Forecasting demand: a means to more effective management’ (unpublished manuscript, presented to the Association of Business Historians Conference, University of Reading, June 2002).

As of writing, we have only consulted the sixth edition dating from 1946.

In this section, it is directors’ tableaux de bord that we have chosen as our focus.

Here, we use the term ‘text’ in its broadest sense to include ‘technologies of the intellect’ such as lists, tables, diagrams, forms, etc.