Doctoral research [1976, Vol. 3, nos. 1-4]

              DOCTORAL RESEARCH
Hans
Johnson, Editor UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO
The Effect of Scientific Management on the Development of the Standard Cost System (U. of Oregon, 1973, 206 pp.; 34/12, p. 7385-A)1 by Marc Epstein, in search of "all relevant facts," Epstein reviewed primary source materials on file at the F. W. Taylor Collec-tion of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, as well as conducting an exhaustive library search. His study con-cludes that "the scientific management movement had an important and direct effect on the development of the standard cost system" and "this effect was due to the requirements of scientific manage-ment in its application in industry." The bibliography of this disserta-tion has been published by The Academy as Working Paper No. 9 and an annotated version appears in the December, 1974 issue of Abacus.
The Origination and Evolution of Double Entry Bookkeeping To 1440 (North Texas State U., 1974, 968 pp.; 35/7, p. 3941-A) by Alvaro Martinelli establishes the development of double entry bookkeeping as occurring during the latter thirteenth century. The first part of the dissertation is a refutation of the Sombart thesis followed by a study of how bookkeeping evolved over a period of three centuries. Direct examination of documentary evidence located in the State Archives of Genoa, Florence, Milan, and Venice serves as the basis to study and criticize "economic, political and religious conditions that most likely had a considerable influence on the creation and evolution of bookkeeping techniques and methods."
The Archive of Laches: Prosperous Farmers of the Fayum in the Second Century (Duke U., 1974, 219 pp.; 35/8, 5270-A) by Whitney S. Bagnall utilizes as a source of study, a group of papyri discovered in a 1934 excavation, and published in P.Mil. Vogliano., to "discuss certain social and economic facets" of a Greek family living in Egypt under Roman rule. Chapters II and III will be of interest to researchers of ancient times. Chapter III, for example, discusses the
1Volume/Number and page in Dissertation Abstracts International.