Ernest Anthony Lowe

Ernest Anthony Lowe was a British economist, and Professor of Accounting and Financial Management at the University of Sheffield, known for his work on management control, and management control systems.

Biography

Lowe started his career as chartered accountant and received his BSc in Economics at the London School of Economics.
In the beginning of his academic career he held appointments at the Durham University, the University of Leeds, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and the University of California, Berkeley, and back in England mid-1960s at the University of Bradford, and then as senior lecturer in management accounting at Manchester Business School. In 1971 Lowe was appointed Professor of Accountancy and Financial Administration, and later Professor of Accounting and Financial Management at the University of Sheffield, where he held the university's first chair in accounting.
From 1997 to 2012 he was director of the Management Control Association.

Lowe was one of the first authors to define management control systems. In his 1972 article "On the idea of a management control system" he listed the following four reasons for the need for a planning and control system:
The term ‘management control’ was given of its current connotations by Robert N. Anthony.

Lowe, Tony, Tony Puxty, and Wai Fong Chua, eds. Critical perspectives in management control. Macmillan Press, 1989.
Articles, a selection:

Lowe, E. A., and Richard Wright Shaw. "An analysis of managerial biasing: Evidence from a company's budgeting process." Journal of Management Studies 5.3 : 304-315.
Lowe, E. A. "On the idea of a management control system: integrating accounting and management control." Journal of management Studies 8.1 : 1-12.
Lowe, E. A., and J. M. McInnes. "Control in Socio- Economic Organizations: A Rationale for the Design of Management Control Systems. "Journal of Management Studies 8: 2 1 : 3-27..
Lowe, E. A., and A. M. Tinker. "Siting the accounting problematic: towards an intellectual emancipation of accounting." Journal of Business Finance & Accounting 4.3 : 263-276.
Lowe, E. Anthony, Anthony G. Puxty, and R. C. Laughlin. "Simple theories for complex processes: accounting policy and the market for myopia." Journal of Accounting and Public Policy 2.1 : 19-42.
Berry, A. J., Capps, T., Cooper, D., Ferguson, P., Hopper, T., & Lowe, E. A.. "Management control in an area of the NCB: rationales of accounting practices in a public enterprise." Accounting, Organizations and Society, 10, 3-28.
Laughlin, Richard, and E. A. Lowe. "A critical analysis of accounting thought: prognosis and prospects for understanding and changing accounting systems design." Critical Accounts, Macmillan, London : 15-43.