Role of Management Control Systems During Early Years of PARC

Abstract

A management control systems perspective is applied to the history behind Xerox PARC’s founding and innovative development of technological products. The inability of Xerox to commercialize their many innovations at PARC is traced back to the inception of the ROI financial control metric at DuPont. While the story of PARC in the 1970’s has been well-studied from a strategic-management perspective, we believe an accounting management control perspective, framed within management theories, sheds new light and gives richer context to the decision-making processes at Xerox PARC during the late 1960’s through the 1970’s.