Under the Ancien Régime France, collecting taxes was a business affair confided by the King to businessmen. After several unfruitful attempts to have his revenue under control, the King finally imposed, in 1788, the centralisation of the Treasury and the use of double entry bookeeping in that...

he question we address here is: “What is the very nature of managerial problems?” We first argue that real management problems are those which do not have a priori solutions and for which the arguments for and against any important decision are more or less of equal weight. We then define...