An exploratory study of operational reasons to budget

Budgets are used widely but criticized, mainly for performance evaluation reasons. We find that organizations regard budgets as more important for planning and control than evaluation, thus proposing a rationale for their continued use irrespective of evaluation‐based criticisms. This finding is also important, because most extant budget research focuses on evaluation, suggesting a potential disconnect between budget research and practice. We also find that rolling forecasts are used in tandem with the annual budget in most organizations, and for the same reasons. This was unexpected, as coexistence suggests their adoption for different reasons.     

Multiple facets of budgeting: an exploratory analysis

This paper investigates four potential reasons for budgeting in organizations (operational planning, performance evaluation, communication of goals, and strategy formation), their antecedents (e.g., organizational strategy and structure), and several budgeting characteristics (e.g., target difficulty and budget emphasis) that potentially influence these reasons-to-budget's performance. While the idea of multiple uses of budgets in organizations is not new, the rationale for this study is that prior research has tended to look at the same (one) reason for budgeting (primarily performance evaluation), or at only one reason in isolation. Based on survey data from 57 managers responsible for preparing the budget for their organizational unit, our analyses suggest that while the four reasons-to-budget exhibit overlap, they are also substantively unique in their own use. Moreover, we demonstrate that the reasons-to-budget arise in different circumstances and that each reason-to-budget's performance is associated with different budgeting characteristics. We also demonstrate a link between the performance of the individual reasons-to-budget and overall budget satisfaction and organizational unit performance.     

Budget Type and Performance — The Moderating Effect of Uncertainty

Calls for improvements to traditional yearly corporate budgeting practices have a common thread, the failure of these practices to provide adequate plans in uncertain environments. Rolling budgets that require continuously updated forecasts have been suggested as a means to improve the traditional budget process. We hypothesise that when the environment is highly uncertain, learning effects from rolling forecasting result in superior performance. In the same environment, traditional budgeting results in poorer performance because there is no systematic method for exploring and understanding environmental uncertainty. Alternatively, rolling forecasting causes inferior performance in low uncertainty conditions because commitment to the budget goal is more important than the benefits of learning from forecasting.     

Budgeting practices and performance in small healthcare businesses

We present evidence linking primary healthcare business characteristics, budgeting practices, and business performance. Based on a sample of 144 responses from a survey of members of the Australian Association of Practice Managers (AAPM), we find that factors identified by contingency-based research are useful for predicting a business's budgeting practices. Specifically, we find the adoption of written budgets to be related to size and structure, and for businesses using written budgets, the extent of use is related to business structure, strategy and perceived environmental uncertainty. Finally, we find evidence of a relationship between budgeting practice and performance. Here, we initially find a business's performance to be positively associated with the use of written budgets. More refined tests of the “fit” between business contingency factors and extent of operating budget use then provide evidence of a positive association between the extent of “fit” and performance.     

Budgeting and Strategy in Schools: The Elusive Link

This paper examines the effects upon management control in schools following the assumption of responsibility for delegated budgets required by the Education Reform Act (ERA) 1988. The paper examines the process of construction, approval and amendment of school budgets drawing on a neo-institutionalist framework. Our investigation has drawn upon extensive interviews in 17 schools in three North West local authorities, supplemented by a postal questionnaire and inspection of relevant documents. We develop two main arguments. First, in order to satisfy their statutory duties LEAs supervised the introduction of internal systems of budgetary control and school development planning in schools. Thus, control procedures were largely designed by internal auditors, who sought to provide an audit trail and to ensure financial probity mainly to satisfy external legitimacy, rather than to influence internal decision-making. Second, the specific nature of the relationship between budgeting and strategy varies between schools as the extent of formalised planning differs, but in general there is a very loose coupling between strategic objectives and budget expenditures.     

The effort and risk-taking effects of budget-based contracts

We investigate how the budget levels embedded in budget-based contracts affect individual effort and risk-taking. We show that, from a wealth maximization perspective, a tradeoff exists between motivating effort and encouraging risk-taking. We illustrate an inverted-U relation between budget levels and effort. Budget levels and effort are positively correlated until budgets become very difficult, at which point individuals “give up.” We illustrate an opposing, U-shaped, relation between budget levels and risk-taking. Low budgets provide the flexibility to take greater risks, whereas high budgets induce individuals to “play it safe” to ensure budget attainment. Risky projects provide the greatest probability of reaching very high (stretch) budgets. We conduct a laboratory experiment to empirically test this economic proposition vis-à-vis extant psychology research. Consistent with security-potential/aspiration theory, we find that individuals are willing to sacrifice expected wealth to either meet the budget or increase their potential payoffs. Our results suggest that the effort-risk tradeoff is mitigated at low budget levels, thereby increasing firm welfare, but is exacerbated at high budget levels, reducing firm welfare. Collectively, our results highlight the importance of understanding how managerial accounting practices such as budgets affect the various determinants of performance and not just performance per se. Our results also help reconcile conflicting evidence regarding where budget difficulty levels should be set.     

Moderating Role of Cost Accounting Information Quality on the Relationship Between the COVID-19 Pandemic and Budgeting in Public Hospitals

Based on new public management, information processing theory and contingency theory, this study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on budgeting in public hospitals, focusing on budget use. The research hypotheses were tested using a survey of 82 responses from hospital CFOs. The results show that the organisations that were most affected by the pandemic increased their use of budgets for planning, resource allocation and control, compared to those that were less affected. This study also highlights the moderating role of cost accounting information quality in the relationship between crises and budget use. We find that public hospitals that have been most affected by the pandemic and have simultaneously better cost accounting information have increased their use of budgets for planning, resource allocation and cost control more than those whose costing system does not provide superior cost data.     

An Experimental Study on the Effect of Budget Information on Balanced Scorecard Preparer Individual Learning

We examine whether budgets affect individual learning in balanced scorecard (BSC) preparers for the purposes of scorecard target setting. Control systems research has called for studies examining the impact of multiple controls on common decision‐making phenomena. Given this, are there other cybernetic controls (budgets) that might influence the decisions of BSC preparers? From an experimental study involving 235 postgraduate university candidates, our findings suggest that the awareness of progressively greater budget information amongst BSC users in high uncertainty environments engenders greater individual learning about the organisation, altering BSC preparer target‐setting choices. Interestingly, this learning does not necessarily lead to better budget‐actual outcomes, but informs BSC preparers of the constraints facing the organisation from a funding ‘supply side’ perspective. The oft‐criticised budget, even within high uncertainty conditions, facilitates learning in a BSC system originally purported to replace or advance the traditional system. Finally, we contribute more broadly to a growing literature evidencing the appropriateness of budgets in flexible environments, by arguing for its impact on other performance management systems.     

Budget Development and Use in Small‐ and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: A Field Investigation

We examine the process by which operating budgets are developed and how they are used for control, evaluation, and reward purposes in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). SMEs (i.e., fewer than 500 employees) represent the dominant organizational form in North America but surprisingly little research has examined how these companies develop and use management controls. Our study focuses on a key element of the management control system, operating budgets, because prior research on SMEs indicates this as an important and commonly used control tool in such companies. Prior research on budgeting practices, while extensive, has almost exclusively examined larger companies. We conduct in‐depth field interviews at 12 participating SMEs to address four theory‐based research questions intended to provide insights regarding the development and use of budgets by SMEs. Our first question examines how budgets are developed, top‐down versus collaborative. Our second, third, and fourth research questions examine, respectively, whether budgets are used tightly or loosely for results control, performance evaluation, and reward purposes. As a first step in providing a deeper understanding of budget development and use in SMEs, our results have implications for practice, theory development, and management accounting education.     

Antecedents of participative budgeting

This paper has four purposes. First, it analyzes 47 published studies on participative budgeting. Almost all of these studies focus on the effects of participative budgeting and not on its causal antecedents. Second, to provide insight into these antecedents, we report the results of a survey which identifies reasons why managers participate in setting their budgets. Third, we report how these reasons are associated with four theoretical antecedents—environmental and task uncertainty, task interdependence and superior-subordinate information asymmetry. The results indicate that participative budgeting is most important for planning and control, specifically vertical information sharing and co-ordinating interdependence, and that specific reasons for participative budgeting are correlated with three of the antecedents. Finally, directions for future research on participative budgeting are presented.     

建立复式预算体系:意义、紧迫性与目标模式

预算改革的一个紧要任务是建立复式预算框架，将复式预算放到与部门预算等同的基础地位上，与部门预算并列、平衡推进。从当前政府收支的实际运行状况看，确立复式预算框架在重建预算制度中十分具有紧迫性。应该整体推进预算制度建构，统一国家财政，确立起由公共预算、国有资本预算、社会保障预算以及重大项目的专项预算组成的中国特色的复式预算体系。     

The value relevance of timely information: The case of comparable store sales growth

Investors and analysts have called for more timely disclosure of corporate information. Responding to these demands, some retail firms issue comparable store sales (CSS) on a monthly or a quarterly basis in addition to an annual basis. This study examines whether a timely disclosure of CSS provides value-relevant information to market participants by examining investors' and financial analysts' responses at the time of CSS disclosures (short-horizon) and over the month or the quarter (long-horizon). We find that both monthly and quarterly CSS are associated with contemporaneous market returns and analyst forecast revisions. More importantly, we find that quarterly CSS news becomes less important to investors when firms provide more timely CSS information, indicating that monthly CSS reports may preempt the information content of quarterly CSS. Additional tests show that investors and analysts rely less on CSS if CSS news and earnings (sales) news are inconsistent.     

MULTILEVEL FRAMING: AN ALTERNATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF BUDGET CONTROL IN PUBLIC ENTERPRISES

This paper addresses the question as to why there tends to be recurring budget deviations in public sector service organizations. In the public sector, budgets and actuals are loosely coupled, and budgets may serve other institutional functions than control purposes. However, little research has addressed how the framing of budget information may explain the different functions of the budgets as control devices. The paper argues that the valence of budget deviations varies between organizations, and that organizations that have a positively oriented valence towards budget surpluses have a propensity to underspend the budgets. Consequently, organizations that have a positively oriented valence towards budget deficits tend to overspend the budgets. The empirical part analyses the budget situations in the Central Bank of Norway and in a large university hospital in Norway. In the case of the Bank, it was found that underspending of budgets was framed as performance measures indicating high organizational efficiency. The Hospital, on the other hand, showed a different picture as budget deficits were the situation during all years studied. One main finding was the key actors’ roles as translators of the society's expectations as to the fulfilling of the organizations’ missions. These translators function as mediators between the institutional context and pressures, the organizations’ goals and the internal budget processes. The conventional wisdom that the budget also acts as a means of communication and as symbols and ritual acts that reflect the institutional contingencies of the organizations, is further developed by describing how organizations’ goals valence the role of budgets.     

Portfolios in disguise? Window dressing in bond fund holdings

This paper builds on the limited body of research on window dressing by bond mutual funds. Our monthly bias-free sample allows us to undertake a more comprehensive study than is possible with the quarterly data traditionally employed in otherwise similar studies. We test window dressing in a straightforward manner using monthly undisclosed portfolios, which makes it possible to compare changes in public debt allocations around quarterly disclosures. Our results support the hypothesis that window dressing patterns vary with market conditions. We also conduct thorough tests that indicate the significant influence of fund size on window dressing. Individual analyses provide evidence that this cosmetic practice is not a widespread behaviour in the Spanish bond fund industry.     

The effect of fiscal stress and balanced budget requirements on the funding and measurement of state pension obligations

We examine the extent to which fiscal stress and state balanced budget restrictions affect the funding of state public employee retirement systems. Our results indicate a negative relation between pension funding levels and measures of both: (a) state fiscal stress and (b) the existence of balanced budget requirements. Our finding that fiscally stressed states meet balanced budget requirements through reduced funding of pensions raises public policy concerns over the fiscal integrity of employee pension funds in the public sector and the effectiveness of balanced budget requirements. Additionally, we find evidence that choice of pension discount rate is associated with states’ fiscal condition and the requirement to balance the budget. Our findings are consistent with the proposition that fiscally stressed states that are required to balance their budgets both underfund their pensions and select discount rates which obscure the underfunding.     

Accounting quality,information risk and the term structure of implied volatility around earnings announcements

We examine the association between accounting quality, which is used as a proxy for firm information risk, and the behavior of the term structure of implied option volatility around earnings announcements. By employing a large sample of US firms having options traded on their equity during 1996–2010, we find that lower (higher) accounting quality is significantly associated with stronger (weaker) changes in the steepness of the term structure of implied volatility curve around quarterly earnings announcements. This finding (which is robust to controls for business-stemming uncertainty regarding future firm performance) is consistent with a stronger differential of short vs. long-term uncertainty for higher information risk firms, indicating greater uncertainty on the future economic performance of poorer vs. stronger accounting quality firms. We also establish the trading implications of these findings by demonstrating a (profitable in-sample) self-financed option trading strategy that is based on the quality of the accounting information released on earnings announcement days.     

Budget repair or budget spectacle? The passage of Wisconsin’s Act 10

Strategic planning processes use budgets to implement control and accountability. However, budgets can also be used to generate support for strategic decisions, for example by creating a political spectacle. A political spectacle is a problem engineered to have a specific political impact. This paper investigates politicians’ use of a state budget as a political manoeuvre to defend strategic decisions regarding public employee unions in Wisconsin. The analysis shows how the 2011 state budget in Wisconsin was used to create a political spectacle to generate support for eliminating collective bargaining for public workers, especially public (state) school teachers.     

Liquidity effects on price and return co-movements in commodity futures markets

Commodity price comovement is an important research area in finance, and previous studies have investigated the determinants of price comovement using low-frequency (monthly or quarterly) macroeconomic data. In comparison, our paper attempts to scrutinize the liquidity effect on commodity prices and return movements based on daily data. Our findings contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we find significant positively correlated price movements across different commodity markets on a daily basis, and such comovement is driven by the cross-sectional liquidity spillover effect. Second, we observe that a cointegration relationship between individual commodity prices and the global price index can be established only if the liquidity effect is controlled. Finally, instantaneous daily liquidity shocks (i.e., innovation) exert a negative impact on daily commodity returns. However, liquidity shocks do not have a significant impact on monthly returns. Our findings are robust and have significant implications for macroeconomic policymaking, such as managing inflation risk.     

How do politicians shape and use budgets to govern public sector organizations? A position-practice approach

This paper examines politicians’ influence on budgets in governing public sector organizations. Theoretical reasoning is based on the position-practice concept applied in structuration theory. Research took place in a hospital district in Finland from 2009 to 2015. The findings show that politicians set coercive budgetary policies, but there was no direct relationship between budgets and actual medical practices. As a result, the budget was simply a ‘ceremonial’ tool of political governance, as medical professionals concentrate on delivering healthcare services.     

信息过载是否影响投资者对公开信息的使用——来自季度盈余的实证证据

首季季报之所以可能导致投资者的信息过载原因有二 :一是许多公司在同一天披露其季报 ;二是公司的年报和季报有可能同时披露。我们的结果说明了信息的集中披露本身并不妨碍投资者对信息的及时利用 ,这些发现对我国资本市场上信息披露监管机构有着直接的政策性含义。