The effect of information asymmetry on negotiated budgets: an empirical investigation

This study examines three issues: (1) the effect of information asymmetry on the budget negotiation process, (2) the effect of information asymmetry on budgetary slack when budgets are set through a negotiation process, and (3) whether subordinates consider superiors imposing a budget following a failed negotiation as being low in procedural justice, which in turn causes low subordinate performance. The results suggest that smaller differences in initial negotiation positions do not indicate a higher likelihood of agreement when initial differences are due to differential information symmetry. Further, information asymmetry affects the relationship between negotiation agreement and budgetary slack. Last, inconsistent with a pure economic perspective, having superiors impose a budget after a failed negotiation causes justice or fairness considerations to demotivate subordinates.     

Budget-Emphasis in Performance Evaluation and Managers’ Job Related Tension: the Moderating Effect of Information Completeness

Research examining a budget-emphasis style of performance evaluation has led to insights about those situations where it is likely to increase a manager’s job related tension. However, less is known about how the management accountant can use the budget process to ameliorate this effect. This paper focuses on the part of the budget process where subordinate managers have to explain budget variances to their superiors and, in particular, the information subordinates have available to explain those variances. The paper argues that the completeness of this information affects subordinate managers’ ability to understand budget variances and explain them to their superiors which, in turn, affects subordinates’ level of job related tension, especially where superiors use a budget-emphasis style of performance evaluation. A cross-sectional study, using interview and questionnaire techniques, empirically tests, and finds support for, this hypothesis.     

THE INTERVENING EFFECTS OF PARTICIPATION ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROCEDURAL JUSTICE AND MANAGERIAL PERFORMANCE

Prior studies have suggested that the subordinates’ perception of fairness in their organizations’ procedures is related to improvements in the subordinates’ performance. However, the positive relationship between perception of justice and performance may not be a direct one, but is indirect via the intervening variable of participation. It is likely that the importance of maintaining procedural fairness in the organization will lead senior managers (superiors) to select procedures that allow their subordinates more participation privileges in the organization’s affairs because high participative procedures are perceived to be fair. This increase in participation, in turn, is likely to improve the subordinates’ performance. The results, based on a path analytical model and a sample of 83 senior managers, indicate that procedural justice has an indirect effect on performance via participation. On the basis of these results, it is possible to conclude that the importance of procedural fairness in the organization leads to the selection of procedures with high subordinates’ participation, which, in turn, leads to high managerial performance.     

The influence of organizational justice on accountant whistleblowing

In this research study, we apply the theory of organizational justice to the design of whistleblowing policies and procedures. As a pro-social behavior, we posit that employee whistleblowing is likely to increase when organizational whistleblowing procedures, outcomes, and related exchanges with superiors are perceived as fair. We test our hypotheses with an experiment involving 447 internal auditors and management accountants. Our results indicate that whistleblowing policies and mechanisms incorporating higher levels of procedural justice, distributive justice, and interactional justice were perceived to increase the likelihood that an organizational accountant would internally report financial statement fraud.     

Perceptions and Attitudes of Different User-groups to the Role of the Budget,Budget Pressure and Budget Participation

This paper examines the perceptions and attitudes of three distinct user-groups to three important budget-related issues. The three user-groups are: accountants, senior non-financial managers and first line managers, each of which has direct contact with budget data in their normal work. The issues, which have been examined by questionnaire and interviews in thirteen medium or large UK companies, are: (a) the perception of the role of the budget in medium and large companies; (b) the use of the budget as a control device, the pressure that may be felt when this occurs and the behavioural consequences of such pressure; (c) the degree of participation in budget setting and whether there is any desire for increased participation. In some instances there were important differences between the user-groups; in particular concerning budget pressure and participation. The general textbook picture of the budget-setting process was not confirmed in certain important aspects. These results raise issues concerning the budgetary control process, including the effects of self-generated pressure, and the desire among accountants for greater participation in the budget process.     

参与式预算行为实验研究

本文介绍了序贯的讨价还价理论,并通过分析企业参与式预算活动与讨价还价行为的相似性,利用讨价还价模型,构建了本实验的基本模型。依据序贯理论研究参与式预算活动,设定了国有企业与民营企业背景下管理者角色的支付函数,与传统预算激励制度相比,对下属实行真实导向的预算激励制度时,会产生更高的预算值和更低的预算松弛,且预算成本小、效率高。     

Budgeting—the Role of Trust and Participation: A Research Note

Prior studies have found a combination of an evaluative style with high budget emphasis and high participation to be associated with better behavioural outcomes (e.g., lower job-related tension) than all other combinations of budget emphasis and participation. Yet there has been little research to investigate the theory on why this particular combination of budget emphasis and participation is associated with better behavioural outcomes. A path analytical model, which investigates the intervening effects of trust and participation on the relationship between budget emphasis and job-related tension, was used. Senior Norwegian managers were selected as subjects for this study. The results indicate that budget emphasis has an insignificant direct effect on job-related tension but a strong indirect effect through trust and participation. Trust also has an intervening effect on the relationship between budgetary participation and job-related tension. It is therefore possible to conclude that high budget emphasis is associated with high budgetary participation and high trust. High trust, in turn, is associated with reduced subordinates' job-related tension.     

Testing a Model of Cognitive Budgetary Participation Processes in a Latent Variable Structural Equations Framework

Previous accounting research has suggested that subordinate participation in the budgetary process has two cognitive aspects: (1) participation enhances budget quality, and hence the utility of budgets, by allowing subordinates to introduce private knowledge into the budgetary process, and (2) participation enables subordinates to obtain information that is relevant to performing their jobs. This study tests a model that encompasses both cognitive aspects of budgetary participation. Data were gathered with a questionnaire distributed to managers from a variety of different national origins who were working in many different global locations. The data were analysed with latent variable structural equation modelling, which provides several advantages over more conventional analytic methods generally used in budgetary participation and other behavioural accounting research. The results indicated that participation enhances budget quality and that budget quality, in turn, has a positive effect on budget utility. Participation was also found to have a direct and positive effect on job-relevant information. The results failed to support a proposed indirect effect of participation on job-relevant information through the enhancement of budget quality.     

服务型领导行为对员工建言的影响机制与边界研究

基于社会角色理论,依据问卷调研数据,考量服务型领导行为对于员工建言影响机制与边界条件。结果显示：服务型领导行为通过改善领导-员工关系,有助于促进员工产生建言行为,女性领导影响更强。因此,管理者应采取服务型领导行为,促进企业在复杂的竞争中依靠全员智慧得到更好的发展。     

Effects of the use of control systems

This research explored the moderating effects of subordinate participation in decision making and subordinate job difficulty on their responses to different uses of control systems by their superiors. In a sample of managers from a moderately large U.S. organization, both of these factors were found to moderate the ways subordinates responded to the perceptions that their superiors used control systems for goal setting, evaluation, problem solving, and contingent reward allocations.The results of the study indicated that the use of control systems for contingent reward allocation produced defensive subordinate responses under all conditions, but also produced the functional response of effort when subordinate participation was low and job difficulty high. The use for goal setting appeared to result in functional responses when subordinate participation was high, and in dysfunctional responses when participation was low. The use for evaluation and the use for problem solving both seemed to be aspects of a collaborative developmental use of the control systems. This use pattern appeared to have primarily functional effects, although the results were more functional when the subordinate jobs were not difficult, and when they participated in decision making. Based on the results several propositions are formulated for future testing.     

Ritual legitimation, de-coupling and the budgetary process: managing organizational hypocrisies in a multinational company

The study of participation in the budgetary cycle has formed a prominent part of the research literature concerned with the budgetary process. More recently there has emerged a body of literature concerned with exploring the political and symbolic nature of the budgetary process. The paper reports upon the outcomes of an empirical study of the introduction of `budgetary participation' in a division of a European subsidiary of a large North American car manufacturer. We detail the long process of consultation and negotiation within the subsidiary, and between it and the European Headquarters. The study provides a revealing instance of the roles of formal budget participation as a ritual of control and legitimation without the substantive involvement of middle managers and suggested to us the introduction of de-coupling and organizational hypocrisy alongside the introduction of budget participation. The study pays close attention to the contingent effects of the wider political context of the division and the relationships between the division, its organizational context and organizational environment, and how this context played upon the budgetary process in the division. The outcomes that we analyse at `Delta' reflect the de-coupling strategies and organizational hypocrisies commonly found in public sector organizations. In this wider setting the corporation persists with the ritual of `tight' budget negotiation and target setting and apparent underachievement in performance. Yet we conclude that the complex technological and political context to the formation and siting of Delta continued and may continue to support its existence.$g0     

The subordinate's predicaments

How can subordinates improve relations with their superiors? And how can superiors help their subordinates feel comfortable in what is often a tense relationship? These questions have usually been dealt with only indirectly in management circles. Yet the relationship is so threatening to many subordinates that they react in ways that are damaging to themselves and their ogranizations. Drawing heavily on the work of psychologist Erik Erikson, the authors present dilemmas that commonly confront the subordinate. They point out that being aware of these dilemmas can make them more manageable and then offer advice to superiors to aid subordinates in handling such situations.     

The effect of performance feedback on prior budgetary participative research using survey methodology: An empirical study

Prior research examining the relation between budgetary participation and job performance explicitly or implicitly posits budgetary participation and intervening variables such as role ambiguity, motivation, job satisfaction, and job-relevant information as independent variables; job performance as the dependent variable. However, these studies are often based on correlated data in which the direction of causation is unknown. This paper uses attribution theory to examine whether job performance affects perceptions of budgetary participation and/or intervening variables (e.g. role ambiguity). Using a laboratory experiment and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), the findings of this study show that knowledge of performance, obtained through performance evaluations and/or external cues, affects individuals’ perceptions regarding budgetary participation, job satisfaction, role ambiguity, motivation, and job-relevant information. The results of the study may undermine correlations between self-reported data on individual characteristics (e.g. motivation) and performance data, as well as correlations between self-reported data on organizational variables (e.g. budgetary participation) and performance data. The study provides suggestions how researchers could overcome problems associated with causal directions in future budget participation studies that link self-reported individual and organizational characteristics to job performance.     

Flattening the organization: the effect of organizational reporting structure on budgeting effectiveness

This study investigates whether increasing a superior’s span of control improves the effectiveness of the budgeting process. We characterize the superior’s utility function as consisting of utilities for norm enforcement and wealth, leading the superior to reject profitable projects believed to contain excessive slack. We develop theory to predict that superiors become more willing to reject projects as their span of control increases. Further, subordinates anticipate superiors’ behavior and reduce slack as span of control increases. Experimental results are consistent with these predictions. As span of control increases, superiors show a greater willingness to reject projects that they believe contain excessive slack, and subordinates submit budgets with less slack. The net result is that superiors earn more profit per subordinate under an expanded span of control. Our study suggests that increasing span of control can improve the effectiveness of the budgeting process, an important component of most firms’ control environments.     

基于预算的考核、预算氛围和预算副效应

预算作为一种管理控制工具被广泛运用于实务,并有许多企业根据预算进行业绩考核。基于218个问卷样本,本文运用结构方程(SEM)研究了基于预算的考核执行、预算氛围和预算副作用之间的关系。结果表明,基于预算的考核执行与预算副作用正相关,预算氛围与预算副作用负相关。这表明严格的预算考核执行会带来副作用,而恰当的预算氛围可以降低副作用。该结论与权变理论的系统性适应相吻合,即在有较好预算氛围的公司,严格的预算考核执行更为适应,这类公司往往管理更规范。     

Leadership style, budgetary participation and managerial behavior

This paper reports the results of a study of the effects of leadership style and budgetary participation on performance and job satisfaction. The first two variables have been given much attention in the organizational behavior and management accounting literatures, respectively, while litte consideration has been given to both jointly. The most important results of the study reveal that the two variables interact in their effects on the criterion variables. Under certain leadership conditions, budgetary participation was found to have strong positive effects on performance and job satisfaction. Under other conditions, the reverse was true. The implications of the results for control system design and personnel management are considered.     

Ways women lead

Women managers are succeeding not by adopting the traditional command-and-control leadership style but by drawing on what is unique to their experience as women. According to a study the author conducted for the International Women's Forum, men and women in similar managerial jobs make the same amount of money and experience roughly the same degree of work-family conflict. But when they describe their leadership styles, vast differences arise. Men are much more likely than women to view leadership as a series of transactions with subordinates, and to use their position and control of resources to motivate their followers. Women, on the other hand, are far more likely than men to describe themselves as transforming subordinates' self-interest into concern for the whole organization and as using personal traits like charisma, work record, and interpersonal skills to motivate others. Women leaders practice what the author calls "interactive leadership"--trying to make every interaction with coworkers positive for all involved by encouraging participation, sharing power and information, making people feel important, and energizing them. In general, women have been expected to be supportive and cooperative, and they have not held long series of positions with formal authority. This may explain why women leaders today tend to be more interactive than men. But interactive leadership should not be linked directly to being female, since some men use that style and some women prefer the command-and-control style. Organizations that are open to leadership styles that play to individuals' strengths will increase their chances of surviving in a fast-changing environment.     

组织转型视角的预算管理研究

本文在反思现有预算管理研究局限性的基础上,以组织理论、组织转型和行为科学为理论基础,分析基于科层制的预算管理所产生的功能紊乱的行为后果,提出在组织转型的大背景下必须对传统预算管理模式进行变革,并从行为基础、组织体系和预算技术等三个维度构建新型组织的预算管理模式。     

组织公平、组织认同感与组织公民行为关系的实证研究

本文以16家企业的181名员工为调查对象,运用统计方法对组织公平、组织认同感与组织公民行为关系进行了实证研究。结果发现：国内员工的组织认同感主要是员工对组织的情感认同,组织公平是影响组织认同感的重要因素,组织认同感对组织公民行为具有显著的影响。这些研究结果为国内企业员工组织认同理论提供了证据支持。     

Vertical information sharing in the budgeting process

This study develops a model of vertical information sharing between superior and subordinate in the budgeting process. Upward information sharing involves the revelation of private information by subordinate to superior. Its proposed antecedents are budget participation and organizational commitment while job performance is a proposed outcome. Downward information exchanges from superior to subordinate are also examined by including role ambiguity in the model. Survey results suggest that vertical information sharing is an important intervening variable in understanding the performance effects of budget participation and organizational commitment.