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The budget has traditionally been viewed as playing an essential role in management control. However, recently it has become the subject of intense critique. The critiques concern the way budgets are used as well as the fundamental drawbacks of the budgeting process. At the same time, a number of studies provided evidence that budgets are still being used in most organizations. Responding to the call for more examination of these issues against empirical evidence, this chapter studies contemporary budgeting practices in the case of a Russian oil company.

The chapter is heavily based on primary data collected from the interviews with company representatives. Secondary data collected from public sources was used as well. The empirical description is organized around a monthly budgeting process adopted in one subsidiary of the case company. The description is presented from the perspective of the financial department of the subsidiary company.

The study concludes that, in spite of all the critiques, budgeting is widely used in the Russian oil company. It is extensively used for control purposes, and the main focus of budgetary control is put on a transactional level.

The chapter traces the budgeting process currently adopted in one of the Russian oil corporations. This contributes to research evidence on Russian companies, an area which has previously received little attention from researchers and provides evidence supporting the view of budgeting as continuing to play an important role in many organizations.

The purpose of this chapter is to study institutional contradictions in the existing concept of institutional economy.

The authors use the methodology of neo-institutional analysis, based on qualitative description and modeling of the process of institutionalization of socioeconomic phenomena and processes, logical analysts of their essence, advantages and drawbacks, and the method of graphical presentation of information (method of formalization).

Graphical interpretation of institutional economy as a social institute on qualitative analysis reflects the determined institutional contradictions of this concept that are related to the dual character of the role of information, violation of the logic of the process of institutionalization, and uncertainty toward information exchange. The authors determine the institutional gaps in the conceptual model of information economy that show a necessity for the development of its methodological provision.

The determined logical mismatches in the model of information economy show nonoptimality of its concept and existence of perspectives, which depicts a necessity for its improvement – which is the main recommendation of the authors.

The purpose of the research is to determine the signs of nonoptimality of managerial decisions that are made by Russian business systems and to determine the barriers on the path of making of optimal decisions in business systems by the example of modern Russia and perspectives of overcoming them.

The information and empirical basis of the research consists of statistical materials of the World Economic Forum, RIA Rating and Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness for 2018, according to which signs of nonoptimality of managerial decisions of Russian business systems, which are observed at the macro-level, are determined. During the research, the method of systemic, problem, and logical analysis (analysis of causal connections) and the method of formalization are used.

It is determined that drawbacks of the process of making of managerial decisions in modern Russian model of this process, connected to the functional organizational structure, low marketing activity, and underdevelopment of internal business communications, create barriers on the path of making of optimal decisions: high expenditures for making of managerial decisions, duration of the process of making of managerial decisions, high complexity of choice of alternative decisions, and incomplete accounting of possibilities and problems during decision-making.

Perspectives of overcoming the determined barriers are connected to the usage of outsource during the making of managerial decisions, refusal from functional organizational structure of managerial staff, usage of means of authomatization of making of managerial decisions, and development of systemic feedback and marketing. According to the studied practical experience of the largest and well-known Russian business systems – Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom, and Sberbank – these perspectives (2018) are not implemented in Russia.