17th
railroad management culture points to informatization
McCallum’s innovations in managerial principles and techniques, as well as innovations by a few other railroad managers, were wikdely publicized through such railraod periodicals as Henry Varnum Poor’s American Railroad Journal. Poor, who extolled the innovations, generalized and extrapolated from them in ways that emphasized the connection between managerial theory and systematic communication. In his own theorizing, Poor porposed three general principles of the “science of management”: organization, communication, and information. Organization referred to the clear designation of dutiesand responsibilites and to a clear chain of command. Such careful designationwould almsot certainly require rule book and job descriptions, a form of downward communication. Communication, for Poor, “meant primarily a method of reporting throughout the organization which would give the top management an accurate and continuous account of the progress of operations, and which in so doing would assure the necessary accountability all along the line.” Thus, the regular flow of formal upward communication was in itself one of his managerial principles. Finally, Poor used the term informaiton to designate “recorded communication—that is, a record of the operational reports systematically compiled and analyzed.” These analyzed recrds and reports formed an organizational memory used as a basis for understanding, maintaining, and improving operational efficiency and financial performance. (JoAnne Yates, Control Through Communication, 7-8)
