The history of the French tableau de bord (1885-1975): evidence from the archives

Anne Pezet (1)

1 DRM - Dauphine Recherches en Management

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, or course, its French specificity.

Mots clés: French tableau de bord; scorecard; managerial innovation

Mots clés: Tableau de bord; innovation managériale

Domaines: Gestion et management

Anne Pezet. The history of the French tableau de bord (1885-1975): evidence from the archives. Accounting Business and Financial History, 2009, 19 (2), pp.103-125. ⟨halshs-00498670⟩