Perspectives on Financial Control

The purpose of this book is to offer a small token in memory of Ken Hilton, who died prematurely at the age of 52 in February 1990. The book contains contributions from a number of 1eading academics; some were close c- leagues of Ken's at the University of Southampton, some have been at other universities but knew Ken fair1y well, and still some who never met Ken but who knew of him through bis work. The unifying motivation for all of them, however, was their immense sense of loss of an extremely proactive and excellent academic. Having led the research group on the Southampton Econometric Model project for three years, Ken was appointed to the Chair of Financia1 Control at the University of Southampton in 1970; at that time this was one of only a handful of similar Chairs in the UK. Most of Ken's subsequent academic career was devoted to contributing to the study of financial control, initially in the private sector and subsequently in the public sector. The breadth of bis interests was demonstrated by bis enviable ability to contribute to the areas of industrial economics, accounting, and management science. We hope therefore that this volume which embraces contributions from leading academics in each of these three fields is a fitting tribute to Ken's work.