Railroads (in the 19th / early 20th centuries), AT&T, Du Pont, General Electric, and other large multi-division type corporations both created and inculcated standards of communication and information management, dating back to paper-based systems.

James Beniger and JoAnne Yates are amongst two scholars who've studied and written on this in detail. Beniger's book, The Control Revolution (1986) particularly.