HALF A CENTURY OF PROGRESS IN CONTROLLING

Abstract

The science of controlling has made significant advances in recent decades. Managerial accounting, linked to financial accounting, has evolved to bring together the accounting and planning of costs and results, permeating the entire activity of the company, from finance to production, sales, marketing, human resources processes, satisfying the growing information needs of management. In the development of controlling, a distinction can be made between trends specific to the Anglo-Saxon and German-speaking areas. The basic difference is that the Anglo-Saxon approach sees controlling as an integral part of management, with the main task of helping to allocate resources efficiently. The German approach, on the other hand, sees controlling as an independent information-producing tool, a separate organisational unit, on the basis of which the various planning and control processes of management are implemented. Common to both approaches is that controlling is not limited to operational management areas but is increasingly extended to strategic levels, thus helping to improve corporate performance effectively.