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Even though leaders often are seen as responsible guides, they sometimes behave in a self-serving way, for example, by spending the company's budget on their own, frivolous needs. In this study, the authors explore an aspect of such behavior: the authors examine how an organizational budget policy makes such spending more legitimate in the eyes of followers. Specifically, the authors examine when followers will react to a leader's self-serving behavior as a function of: the role of organizational budget policies, and whether followers are directly affected by the leader's behavior. The authors test two particular budget policies, i.e. carry-forward vs non-carry-forward (a.k.a., “use-it-or-lose-it” budget policies), which differ on whether a department/team's allocations not spent by the end of the fiscal year flow back to the central administration. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Study 1 is a multi-source field study that should enhance the external validity of the results. Study 1 was analyzed with regression analyses and bootstrapping techniques. To be able to draw causal inferences, the authors also conducted an experimental study (Study 2).

Followers react more negatively – by showing increased turnover intentions and decreased commitment and cooperation – to a leader's self-serving behavior in a carry-forward policy than in a use-it-or-lose-it budget policy. Thus, organizational policies, such as the budget policy, affect how followers react to self-serving leaders.

The authors focus on self-serving leader behavior. The authors show that followers’ reactions to self-serving leaders are not necessarily negative and are influenced by the specific organizational context in which the self-serving behavior occurs. More specifically, the authors add to the literature by introducing budget policies as influencing followers’ reactions to leaders’ behavior.

How analysts make recommendations to the budget director and governor depends partly on the nature of the state budget office (SBO). This paper contrasts the development of a budget recommendation in an office with a strong policy orientation with recommendations fashioned in an office with a strong control orientation. One important difference is that control oriented analysts focus almost exclusively on the technical and legal facets of budget problems, whereas their policy oriented counterparts spend considerable time on the social, legal, and political (SLP) facets. The SLP framework enables the policyoriented analysts to apply economic rationality to evaluate requests and make recommendations that are consonant with the governor’s policy agenda.

The paper applies two core theoretical frameworks of budgetary change-incrementalism and punctuated equilibrium theory-to a new database of Hungarian final accounts data for the period 1991 through 2013. Based on our analysis trends in Hungarian budgeting are in line with available comparative evidence suggesting that yearly changes of budget outlays in policy domains are best characterized by a punctuated equilibrium model. The most significant variable in predicting whether an observation would fall into the equilibrium or punctuated group was the share of the given policy domain of total outlays. However, alternative explanatory variables, such as the electoral cycle, the fiscal cycle and the business cycle had no effect on the results.

Substantial research has been conducted examining policy diffusion among both the American states and the nations of the developed world and to a somewhat lesser extent, developing worlds. Little research, especially at the nation-state level, has focused upon budget systems, however. We use case studies of 18 diverse countries (Menifield, 2011) to conceptualize national budget systems and, based upon this conceptualization, to identify clusters of nations with similar systems. We found evidence suggesting that policy diffusion may be occurring in the realm of national budget systems. Our analysis shows that budgetary institutions and behaviors can and do form clusters that are useful in analyzing national budget systems. Our ability to describe clusters of nations with similar budget systems could prove to be a helpful tool for analyzing international policy diffusion.

How do entrepreneurs in the public sector effect major policy changes? Are the same entrepreneurs likely to be involved from the idea initiation stage through design, adoption, implementation and institutionalnation, or are there different prominent entrepreneurs in each of the policy stages? What does the pattern of entrepreneurial participation mean for the success of the policy? Utilizing a case study of Performance-Based Program Budgeting (PB2 ) in the State of Florida, this paper employs the observations of key Florida policymakers and advocates to describe the strategic and purposive actions of public entrepreneurs in the four stages of the PB2 budget reform policy process. The work supports current research that major policy changes, such as the adoption of PB2 in Florida, require purposive and strategic actions from public entrepreneurs for their fruition. The paper also contributes to the growing implementation and budgeting literature that describes and assesses performance-based budgeting in the states, and provides observations on necessary conditions for institutionalizing PB2 in Florida.

This paper aims to provide a commentary on how well the New Zealand (NZ) Government has used the budget as a tool to tackle the social and economic problems associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The role of public budgeting as a political instrument is also critiqued.

An analysis was carried out of relevant documents that included government policy statements, budgets, news articles and website information on the pandemic. Meaningful interpretation of information and reflections helped provide the basis of the commentary.

Public budgeting has a prominent role in addressing a major global crisis. Budgets need to quickly respond to the needs of the moment in saving lives and sustaining people’s well-being, businesses and the economy. In a crisis situation, the social, political and economic factors become crucial determinants of budgetary policy measures. Although strong political leadership is required to deliver budgets under unimaginable circumstances, the ideology of the political party in government can be a powerful predictor of fiscal policies. Crisis budgeting will result in mounting budget deficits and public debts that will take many years for future generations to pay back.

This paper provides a significant learning for other nations. These lessons will guide budget policymakers to prepare better for potential crisis in the future.

This paper is original and based on the NZ Government’s budgetary response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be valuable in formulating budget policies and public funding decisions in a major crisis.

The magnitude and immediacy of threats to the sustainability of state government programs call for significant changes in how we think about and make policies that influence the public budget. The Great Recession's prolonged battering of state budgets exhausted cutback strategies and has left policy makers with few options, producing a decision gridlock that is inescapable using traditional functional and line-item budget perspectives and embedded practices. Transforming state budgets requires an uncommon view. This paper identifies and describes seven overarching and pervasive habits in state policy making that contribute to unsustainable budgets. Although the applicability and commonness of each habit will vary by state, both individually and as a set the seven habits impart important handles for gaining greater control over a state's fiscal directions and fortunes.

Since the late 1970s, Chinese policymakers have implemented many policies to reform their country's administrative systems for the purpose of promoting economic development. In the area of public budgeting and finance, reform policies have been introduced to improve China's taxation system, budgeting system and intergovernmental fiscal relations. The implementation of these policies has resulted in many changes and improvement to China's society and has also created new challenges to China's future development. This symposium introduction provides a brief review of the development of reform policies and a summary of five articles that examine China's revenue system, public expenditure structure, budgeting control, incentive policy, and education finance.

Although punctuated equilibrium theory (PET) is widely hailed as the dominant theory regarding public policy and budgets, little research has extended PET to the local government arena or to capital expenditures. This article utilizes a panel dataset of public expenditures from Wisconsin counties, cities, villages, and towns from 1990-2009 to show that local operating and capital budgets fit the contemporary PET framework. However, the article also offers some discussion about methodological problems in assessing PET for local governments, and highlights the importance of differentiating between expenditure types (e.g. capital versus operating spending) as well as institutional differences between counties, cities, villages, and towns.