Control through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management (Studies in Industry and Society)

Winner of the Waldo Gifford Leland Prize from the Society of American ArchivistsWinner of the Alpha Kappa Psi Foundation Award for Distinguished Publication on Business Communication from the Association for Business Communication

Caught in the midst of an information revolution, today's business managers and scholars are trying to assess the likely effects of the sweeping changes now taking place in technolocy and in organization. In Control through Communication JoAnne Yates looks back to the last major shift in the use of communication and information-and writes the first full and detailed account of the process by which modern managerical systems came to be created within the American business system. Focusing on the evolution of corporate communication as an integrated whole, Yates examines its functions, technologies, and genres in case studies of the Illinois Central Railroad, Scovill Manufacturing Company, and E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company.

JoAnne Yates is the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management, Emerita, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880 and Structuring the Information Age: Life Insurance and Technology in the Twentieth Century.