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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the use of flexible budgets may influence different institutional logics (organizational inertia and flexibility).

A qualitative research based on a single case study in a multinational subsidiary company was carried out. The data were mainly collected using the dialog technique through open-ended and semi-structured interviews and complemented with direct observation in informal and formal meetings and the analysis of internal documents. Content analysis was used for the analysis of the findings.

The use of flexible budgets, which isolates the negative variations due to the decrease in sales volume, may contribute to organizational inertia. However, this can be counterbalanced if the managers try to minimize the decline in performance through initiatives that promote organizational flexibility. In this case study, it was found that the alignment between the production director and the controller, who frequently work under different institutional logics, was important to stimulate organizational flexibility particularly in continuous improvement projects.

The findings of this paper are based on only one in-depth case study. Hence, the results cannot be generalized, but a theoretical contribution can be made. Furthermore, the findings are constrained by the constructs used and the specific managerial and theoretical perspectives that have supported the analysis.

These results can be useful particularly for companies that are dealing with the abrupt drop in the sales volume and use the flexible budget as a performance assessment technique. These firms must pay attention because this combination can stimulate organizational inertia. To counteract this problem, it is necessary that controllers and the managers work by understanding the initiatives that promote organizational flexibility, mainly by Kaizen projects, which can minimize performance decline.

The main contribution may be how to deal with the different managers’ behaviors, given the decrease in sales volume, and it can help an organization survives in times of economic recession and fierce competition environments.

This paper contributes to both practical and academic dimensions. Indeed, despite being widely used, flexible budgeting is not a widely researched topic.

This article reports key findings from a comprehensive survey concerning budgeting within UK hotels. A postal questionnaire was sent to company finance directors. The results are based on 44 companies representing a 45.4 per cent response rate. It considered many aspects of budgeting policies and procedures such as: why they use budgets; who is involved in the process; for what time period they produce budgets; the use made of flexible budgets and zero‐based budgeting techniques; and how budgets are used in the control process. Key results indicate that the main use of budgeting was to evaluate performance and aid control. In producing budgets the bottom‐up approach was most commonly used, but not as widely as in the USA. Zero‐based budgeting and flexible budgeting techniques seemed under‐utilised. As 59 per cent of organizations did not review their budgeting policies and procedures on a routine basis it is possible organizations could be making better use of their budgets to aid the organization. It might also be possible that some theoretical techniques are not appropriate in an hospitality environment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a greater flexibility in the budget time-structure, which allows for shifting budgetary funds beyond the budget year, does, in fact, mitigate inefficiencies in budget spending. Traditional budgets are usually tied to a finite time span, e.g. one year, and are heavily criticized both for hampering efficient resource allocation and also for encouraging dysfunctional budget spending behaviours such as wasteful spend-downs at the end of the budget year and inappropriate holding back of funds early on.

A research framework is proposed which draws on critical perspectives developed in prior research and an analytical model put forward by Pollack/Zeckhauser that is adopted as the basis for the development of the hypotheses. In an explorative study, data from an empirical questionnaire survey administered to 219 practitioners, mainly managers, from Austria are then used to substantiate the hypotheses.

Finite-period budgets and fully flexible budgets, which allow subordinates both to save unspent funds beyond the budget year and also to borrow funds from future budgets, cause inefficiencies in budget spending. Subordinates who are allowed to spend and save funds at their discretion without being threatened by the loss of funds or imminent debts seem to spend their budgets most efficiently.

The present paper contributes to the management accounting literature by investigating a heavily criticized but rather underexplored area of budgeting and by subjecting theoretical propositions from prior research to explorative empirical testing. Enhanced understanding of the temporal effects of the budget cycle structure will help practitioners improve budget spending and should encourage further research.

Preface The functions of business divide into several areas and the general focus of this book is on one of the most important although least understood of these—DISTRIBUTION. The particular focus is on reviewing current practice in distribution costing and on attempting to push the frontiers back a little by suggesting some new approaches to overcome previously defined shortcomings.

This study aims to investigate the relationships among budget emphasis, budget planning models, and performance, to determine whether an emphasis on the budget has indirect effects on performance, in the presence of other budget planning characteristics as mediators.

A questionnaire survey was conducted and structural equation modeling was used to test the proposed models among the constructs and related hypotheses.

The results indicate that while budget planning models entirely mediate the influence of budget emphasis on the performance of management and the organization, they partially mediate the influence of budget emphasis on budget satisfaction. In addition, it is determined that differentiation strategies have a significantly positive influence on budget emphasis, budget planning models and performance.

The results of this study provide a reference for organizations in the design of budgeting systems. During the design process, budget planning models should consider the degree of emphasis an organization places on the budget.

Theeuwes and Adriaansen (1994), among others, have asserted that activity-based costing (ABC) is inappropriate for operational decision-making. In this article, ABC is modified to reflect separate flexible and committed cost driver rates for an activity. This enables the model to reflect the difference in the behavior of an activity’s flexible and committed costs needed for operational planning decisions. The modified ABC facilitates determining the resources required to produce the product mix developed from the firm’s strategic plan and the excess capacity that will result. The modifications made to ABC aid in determining an optimal product mix when the firm has excess capacity, while the traditional ABC may not. Equally important, it facilitates measuring the financial implications of the resource allocation decisions that comprise the firm’s operational plan. As the operational plan is implemented, operational control is used to ensure that it is performed in an efficient and effective manner. The modified ABC enables the firm’s managers to compute the different types of deviations that arise from using flexible and committed resources at the unit, batch, and product levels of the firm’s operations. This aids in understanding problematic aspects of the firm’s operations and identifying where management resources are needed to improve operational efficiency.

Public-rented flats in Jakarta Province operated by the Management Unit of Public-Rented Flats (MUPRF) experienced budget cuts for the maintenance and treatment activities during the COVID-19 pandemic that hit Indonesia in the early 2020. Currently, the budgeting scheme of the MUPRF uses the local government’s budget in determining the expenditures of public-rented flat. This papers aims to propose an alternative budgeting scheme for the MUPRF.

Soft system methodology (SSM) was adopted to understand the public-rented flats as a whole system, so an alternative budgeting scheme for the MUPRF can be identified and developed. Interviews with an employee of the Department of Community Housing and Settlement of Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta Province were conducted. A rich picture, customer, action, transformation, worldview, owner and environment analyses, conceptual model and a proposed model were developed during the process.

Based on the SSM, it is found that becoming a local public service agency, the MUPRF can be more independent and flexible in managing their budget. The income generated by the public-rented flats can be used directly for their expenditure.

Through the SSM, only a conceptual model is developed, which has not yet been implemented in practice. Future studies need to be carried out to evaluate the feasibility of the conceptual model.

This research analyses the public-rented flat as a whole system through SSM to identify factors and parties that are involved in the daily activities in public-rented flats to propose a suitable alternative for its budgeting scheme.

The purpose of this study is to examine the viewpoints and experiences of multiple budget actors to understand their particular budget related behaviours contingent upon the COVID-19 (C19) pandemic of a developing country.

This study uses Uganda as a case study and employs semi-structured interview method for the data collection. In trying to generate themes and patterns, data are analysed through three levels of coding: open, axial and selective coding. The contingency theory is used to interpret the data.

The task of budgeting formulation, implementation and control in times of C19 lead to varied actual behaviours of budget actors because of the environmental uncertainty, inappropriate structural and technological conditions and manipulative organisational cultures contingent upon the Ugandan C19 budget context.

The insights generated from the study can be useful for the national governments of emerging economies, e.g. African countries, to understand the conditions that influence the budget actors' behaviour and together, develop long-term financial resilience strategies to face future emergencies.

This study contributes to accounting and public budgeting theory by showing that contingency theory is a relevant framework for understanding budget actors' behaviour in emergency situations. The study potentially strengthens the contingency theory framework through its incorporation of organisational culture perspective into the “people” element.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the impact that Japanese culture has on the budgeting process, using insights gained from the literature and from a single company small‐sample pilot study. It provides a research agenda which links specific aspects of Japanese culture to predictions about Japanese groups' budgetary, performance evaluation and variance investigation practices.

The approach takes the form of a detailed literature review of the relevant literature in accounting, education and sociology, which considers how Japanese culture systematically differs from Western culture, and a small‐sample pilot study.

It was found that the Singaporean subsidiary of the Japanese MNC studied uses common Japanese budgeting practices, as previously documented by Ueno and Sekaran. Line managers are rewarded based on overall actual company‐wide profit, consistent with the Japanese collectivist group‐orientation which is itself a product of Confucianism. Although variances are used to rectify operational problems on a timely basis, line managers are not rewarded for outperforming the budget – the budget is a stick, but there is no offsetting carrot. An interviewed line manager (Chinese Singaporean, Purchasing) expressed mixed feelings about the current reward system and a preference for rewards based on outperforming his own budgetary target. This observation is consistent with some research in the educational literature suggesting that the Chinese tend to be less collectivist than the Japanese.

As a literature review the paper provides a synthesis of a diverse variety of sources. The literature review and pilot study findings add to the accounting literature by studying in greater detail than prior studies exactly how and why Japanese culture characteristics will and should affect budgetary practice. The paper should be of special value and interest to higher‐degree and early‐career researchers.

When librarians think of accounting, they generally think of budgets. However, accounting includes planning and control activities broader than creating budgets. Managerial accounting concentrates on internal decision‐making processes. In many libraries, external budgetary reports have mandated techniques that the library is expected to use. Internal reports and operational budgets are designed by the librarian. The question is: How can internal reporting and operational budgets be used advantageously in the library? Using managerial accounting is one answer.