基于民主化视角的高校新型预算管理体系研究

民主化预算管理体系的实施能够有效地促进高校综合体制改革,推动高校内部控制体系建设,进一步优化高校法人治理结构,对于实现高校预算管理的精细化和科学化具有重要的意义。论文首先分析了高校预算管理的现状,并指出了预算管理过程中存在的问题;其次详细阐述了基于民主化视角的新型预算管理体系的内涵、组织流程及建设思路;最后文章就如何在高校中稳步推进和进一步巩固新型预算管理体系的有效实施提供了政策建议。     

DRG-based prospective pricing and case-mix accounting—Exploring the mechanisms of successful implementation

Escalating health care expenditures have brought on the need for restructuring health care delivery. A common response to this problem has been to seek market-based solutions. In the literature, however, increasing concern has been expressed that hospital management reforms will fail or will have only a limited impact. This longitudinal case study extends our understanding of the effects of implementing DRG-based prospective pricing and case-mix accounting systems for hospital management control in a specific health care setting. Moreover, this study contributes to current knowledge by focusing on the mechanisms explaining successful implementation of new accounting and control systems in the health care sector. A deep understanding of these mechanisms may help us to design better management control systems, and thus circumvent problems in implementing these systems. Our study suggests that successful implementation in the studied context is strongly dependent on the involvement of clinicians in this process. Integrated clinical and financial accountability, assigning responsibility for implementation to clinicians, freedom in choosing appropriate control tools, and flexibility in adoption all facilitated implementation. Furthermore, we argue that this process has also been advanced by the gradual implementation of these reforms and intensifying institutional pressures.     

Accounting and the Development of Management Control in the Cultural Sphere: The Case of the Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale, founded in 1893, is situated within the cultural sphere, covering work ranging from art, architecture, dance, music and theatre to cinema (the world-known 'Venice Film Festival'). Throughout its life, the Biennale has experienced very troubled times, being involved in controversy, as well as undergoing significant legal and organisational changes, in particular, the transition from a public body to private one at the end of the 1990s. Dramatic changes have also affected the accounting data collection system utilised by the Biennale, which has developed from a system concerned with providing information for fulfilling specific legal provisions to one comprising a subsystem which has progressively evolved to aid the corporate strategic decision-making process.

This paper critically and systematically reviews the evolution of the accounting system and management control within the Biennale. It will examine how new information requirements over the years have driven the information-accounting system to change and, in turn, how the system has been influenced by the historical setting within which the decisions were made. We also provide some thoughts regarding the future development of such systems.     

Balanced scorecard implementation in an Italian local government organization

This article explains how action research was used to analyse the implementation of the balanced scorecard (BSC) model to meet the legislative requirements of strategic control reporting in Italian local government. The BSC model was modified for local government and was used for political action, non-financial measures, budget allocations, and to meet legislative requirements. This article offers some important lessons for policy-makers and practitioners about adopting and implementing a BSC model.     

Fabricating budgets: A study of the production of management budgeting in the national health service

This paper examines the processes by which a form of responsibility accounting system emerges in an organizational context. The paper utilizes recent approaches to the understanding of how science and technology is created (Latour, Science in Action, Harvard University Press, 1987) to investigate the processes by which a management budgeting initiative in the U.K. hospital system takes hold (or not) in specific hospitals. The approach is critical of the notion that accounting systems are well-defined technologies which are designed and then implemented (or face resistance). Instead, the study shows that management budgeting is fabricated, put together in a changing and fragile manner. Emerging accounting systems are not fixed technologies with well-defined purposes which reflect patterns of responsibility but changing constructions. Management budgeting systems are initiated with loose characteristics, purposes and uses. In the process of their design and implementation, new possibilities for decision making and definitions of responsibility emerge. Through this study of accounting in action, the paper explores the processes by which accounting and budgeting systems bring economic logic into hospital management. It is also relevant to debates about the role of budgeting and accounting in health care organizations in many countries.     

A Bangladesh soap opera: privatisation, accounting, and regimes of control in a less developed country

This paper reports an intensive case study of a soap manufacturing company in Bangladesh that was nationalised upon Bangladesh's independence in 1971 and privatised in 1993. Theoretically it is informed by Burawoy's contributions to labour process theory, especially how the consent of labour is manufactured through internal states, internal labour markets and games, and how regimes of control in less developed ex-colonial countries are transformed by state and production politics. How the role of accounting systems may shape and be shaped by these processes is traced. Nationalisation brought state attempts to manufacture consent by the methods described in Burawoy's depiction of hegemonic regimes. However, idealistic attempts to secure accountability, rational planning and control, and consent through bureaucratic means were subverted and transformed into a regime of political hegemony. Here control was secured by political interventions, often at the behest of trade unions, for party political rather than commercial ends. Detailed systems of accounting for control and accountability were maintained but became marginal, ritualistic, and de-coupled from operations. Privatisation brought changes consistent with Burawoy's prediction of coercive controls within a new despotic regime. New owners destroyed the internal state and internal labour markets and, following widespread redundancies, most workers were hired through internal subcontracting. The changes heightened worker divisions and rendered workers powerless to resist. Gaming was observed but this relieved the pressures of work intensification and proved functional to management. Significant changes to accounting controls were made. External reporting ceased in violation of legal requirements — financial accounting became the preserve of the owning family and was beset with irregularities. Budgets became more market oriented and were transmitted downwards in a physical form to reinforce coercive pressures upon managers and thence the shop floor. The paper concludes by relating the findings to a revised model of transformation of control regimes in Bangladesh     

Paying People to Lie: the Truth about the Budgeting Process

This paper analyzes the counterproductive effects associated with using budgets or targets in an organisation's performance measurement and compensation systems. Paying people on the basis of how their performance relates to a budget or target causes people to game the system and in doing so to destroy value in two main ways: (a) both superiors and subordinates lie in the formulation of budgets and, therefore, gut the budgeting process of the critical unbiased information that is required to coordinate the activities of disparate parts of an organisation, and (b) they game the realisation of the budgets or targets and in doing so destroy value for their organisations. Although most managers and analysts understand that budget gaming is widespread, few understand the huge costs it imposes on organisations and how to lower them. My purpose in this paper is to explain exactly how this happens and how managers and firms can stop this counter‐productive cycle. The key lies not in destroying the budgeting systems, but in changing the way organisations pay people. In particular to stop this highly counter‐productive behaviour we must stop using budgets or targets in the compensation formulas and promotion systems for employees and managers. This means taking all kinks, discontinuities and non‐linearities out of the pay‐for‐performance profile of each employee and manager. Such purely linear compensation formulas provide no incentives to lie, or to withhold and distort information, or to game the system. While the evidence on the costs of these systems is not extensive, I believe that solving the problems could easily result in large productivity and value increases – sometimes as much as 50–100% improvements in productivity. I believe the less intensive reliance on such budget/target systems is an important cause of the increased productivity of entrepreneurial and LBO firms. Moreover, eliminating budget/target‐induced gaming from the management system will eliminate one of the major forces leading to the general loss of integrity in organisations. People are taught to lie in these pervasive budgeting systems because if they tell the truth they often get punished and if they lie they get rewarded. Once taught to lie in this system people generally cannot help but extend that behaviour to all sorts of other relationships in the organisation.     

Management based critical success factors in the implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning systems

This study examines critical success factors for implementing Enterprise Resource Planning systems using the framework of classical management theory. The study is motivated by conflicting results in earlier studies examining critical success factors in Enterprise Resource Planning implementation, many of which are anecdotal in nature. Ten critical success factors in ERP systems implementation proposed in past literature are selected. The relationship between each of these factors and project success is examined. Project success is defined as organizational impact and on time and on/under budget project completion. Eight implementation projects were qualitatively analyzed using the case study method to examine the proposed relationships. The findings suggest that choosing the right full time project manager, training of personnel, and the presence of a champion relate to project success. The use of consultants, the role of management in reducing user resistance and the use of a steering committee to control the project do not appear to differentiate successful and unsuccessful projects. Integration of ERP planning with business planning, reporting level of the project manager, and active participation of the CEO beyond project approvals, resource allocation and occasional project review, are not found to be critical factors of success. Considering the financial cost and risk associated with these projects, a better understanding of critical success factors will enable practitioners and academics to improve the chance of success in the implementation projects. All organizations implementing ERP, especially small and mid-sized enterprises with limited resources, will benefit from this knowledge.     

The power of accounting: a field study of local financial management in a police force

This paper describes the introduction of management accounting change in the form of local financial management in a police force, West Mercia Constabulary, using an ethnographic study. The study applies institutional theory to understand the context, process and consequences of the introduction of devolved budgeting systems to the organization.The field study explains how the devolution of budgets in West Mercia was accompanied by a shift in power that helped to reconcile the interests of those pursuing a legitimating accountability with those who prioritized operational policing.This paper makes two contributions to institutional theory. First, is the development of understanding of relations of power, particularly where interests coincide and shifts in power are a by-product of legitimating processes. Second, is an explanation of how loose coupling can take place through accounting, in which a devolved budget can satisfy both institutional and technical demands.     

Hardening soft accounting information: Games for planning organizational change

This study provides theory and field evidence on the social process of hardening soft accounting information to make it persuasive for planning organizational change. Accounting information intended to support organizational change is often soft, that is, there is lack of interpersonal agreement about its quality. For example, employees can lack agreement about the quality of accounting information (e.g., activity-based costing) because the information is constructed from subjective information obtained from interviews and surveys. This information can contain unintentional errors as well as intentional distortions that are intended to avoid revealing embarrassing inefficiencies and/or to resist painful organizational change. We use concepts from applied game theory and social psychology to identify from the accounting literature four multi-person games that may be played to harden soft accounting information. These hardening games are characterized in terms of payoffs, players, the comparability of soft accounting information, and the rules of the games that are expected to emerge. We interpret the field evidence as indicating that the hardening games that emerge depend on who the players are and the comparability of their soft accounting information. In addition, we provide evidence on how the rules of the games that harden the information emerge from the players’ social interactions. Finally, we provide evidence on how an organization learns by trial-and-error how to harden soft accounting information by changing the players and the comparability of the soft accounting information.     

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     

PERFORMANCE AUDITING AND THE NARRATING OF A NEW AUDITEE IDENTITY

This paper analyzes how performance auditing affects the auditee in different and sometimes unexpected ways. On the basis of a detailed case study of the Danish Ministry of Transport's encounter with performance auditing we argue that performance audit is a practice that generates multiple effects and that some of these effects can be characterized as a reconfiguration of the organizational identity of the auditee. In this process, accountabilities are reformulated and reallocated which sometimes lead to ‘blame games’ and strong feelings of discomfort. We draw on actor‐network theory and a narrative approach to study how performance audit reports produce narratives that picture new possible identities that the auditee in question must take into consideration. We argue that auditee identities are partly shaped by relations to ‘significant others’, such as the National Audit Office, the politicians and the press who all give accounts of who the Ministry is and ought to be. Furthermore, we argue that accounting and management information systems are enrolled as important ‘nonhuman’ actors that enable the suggested identity positions.     

The role of budgets in organizations facing strategic change: an exploratory study

Recent attention in the general management literature has focused on mechanisms and processes used by organizations to respond and adapt to changes in their operating environment. There is, however, very little broad-based empirical research examining the role that management accounting control systems can play in shaping organizational change. Much of the empirical research to date has focused on the role of accounting as a diagnostic tool for assessing and rewarding managerial performance despite the recognition that accounting can serve as a dialogue, learning and idea creation machine (Burchell et al., 1980. Accounting Organisations and Society 5,5–27). The purpose of this study is to explore how accounting can serve this alternative role. We use (Simons, R. 1990.) Accounting Organisations and Society 15, 127–143). interactive/diagnostic classification of management control systems to capture how accounting can be used as a learning machine in the formulation and implementation of strategic change. A theoretical model is developed to examine the relationship between strategic change, style of budget use and performance. It is argued that an interactive style of budget use can mitigate the disruptive performance effects of the strategic change process. The data, collected from Chief Executive Officers in 63 public hospitals, provide results that are consistent with our expectations.     

Political budget cycles in new versus established democracies

Like other recent studies, we find a political deficit cycle in a large cross-section of countries, but show that this result is driven by the experience of “new democracies”. The political budget cycle in new democracies accounts for the finding of a budget cycle in larger samples that include these countries and disappears when they are removed from the larger sample. The political deficit cycle in new democracies accounts for findings in both developed and less developed economies, for the stronger cycle in weaker democracies, and for differences in the political cycle across governmental and electoral systems. Our findings may reconcile two contradictory views of pre-electoral manipulation, one that it is a useful instrument to gain voter support and a widespread empirical phenomenon, the other that voters punish rather than reward fiscal manipulation.     

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.     

POWER AND POLICY MAKING: THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN R & D STANDARD

This paper addresses the question of policy-making by such bodies as the UK Accounting Standards Committee (ASC) and suggests that an understanding of the nature of power is a necessary prerequisite to rigorous analysis of the political process. Using the example of SSAP 13, the paper investigates the applicability of political methodologies to attempt to understand and analyse ASC behaviour. The paper attempts to provide: (a) a deeper understanding of the issues which determined the outcome of the R & D standard; (b) support for the importance of the political science experience in this field; and (c) suggestions on how future research may be formulated and developed.     

Public sector auditor identities in making efficiency auditable: The National Audit Office of Denmark as independent auditor and modernizer

This paper examines how the National Audit Office of Denmark (NAOD) manoeuvred in making the Danish military receptive to a performance-accountability project in the period 1990–2007. Evidence is provided from a detailed case study, where the actions of the auditors have been followed in their efforts to make the military activities auditable by focusing on the multiple and dynamic interactions between them, the auditee and others. This study contributes to our understanding of how auditors manoeuvre with their performance audit devices in different ways to make efficiency auditable. It appears that as the auditee initiated the implementation of a new accounting system called DeMars a stream of overflows threatened to destabilise it. Groups within the auditee were eager to put heat into the overflowing. This study illuminates how the auditors, equipped with their devices of purification in the later stages of the project, helped at least provisionally to contain the overflows and stabilize the construction. Due to such different manoeuvres by the auditors, this paper demonstrates the problems that emerge when state auditors manoeuvre in performance auditing with identities both as ‘modernizers’, i.e., participating in providing the reasons for change and defining its designs and as ‘independent auditors’, i.e., to legitimize the construction in which they participated themselves. Many allies to the auditors worked hard in protecting the NAOD as the two identities conflicted with each other during the execution of the project.     

构建有价值的企业预算管理框架

企业实施预算管理不仅具有企业层面的价值,而且具有政府层面的价值.要发挥预算管理的作用,关键是构建有价值的预算管理框架.本文分别从企业预算目标的确立、预算管理信息系统的建立、现金流管理、内部控制制度以及综合性方面,提出了构建有价值的企业预算管理框架的思路.     

The Accounting–Clinical Interface—Implementing Budgets for Hospital Doctors

The implementation of budgets for hospital doctors has been the subject of study in many countries. A general conclusion to emerge from these various studies is that of failure—of an inability of accounting information to make meaningful connections with the world of the hospital doctors. A distinguishing feature of many policy initiatives which seek to reform practice in the state-owned or state-financed institutions has been the perspective adopted by policy-makers—that of modernizers or reformers who pursue their policies with relentless conviction, even where there is no sign of successful implementation. This article presents a contrasting view, in which a more complex understanding of the reform process is necessary, to explain successful clinical budgeting.     

Does Centralization Increase the Size of Government? The Effects of Separation of Powers and Lobbying

Difficulties faced by the Economic and Monetary Union have strengthened the position of those who advocate a process of (further) political integration in the European Union (EU). A widespread fear is, though, that such a process would favor powerful interest groups able to lobby the EU policymakers. Persson and Tabellini (1994) argue that political centralization will increase the size of the government through lobbying because of free-riding incentives created by federally funded programs with localized benefits. We extend their analysis by presenting a model where the budgeting process is divided into two stages, instead of one, which better captures the EU institutional framework. A federal legislator (the Council) chooses the size of the budget at one stage, while a federal agency (the Commission) chooses the allocation of the budget at the next stage. We show that separation of powers in the budgeting process restricts free riding and, therefore, reduces the incentives to lobby. The result is an unchanged budget under centralization. Moreover, it is shown that if the lobbying activity is directed to both policymakers, competitive lobbying may actually reduce the size of the public sector under centralized policymaking.