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This study contributes to the management accounting (MA) literature by exploring the effect of managers’ perception of justice in the budgeting process (as a subsystem of MA) on their satisfaction and motivation to achieve organizational objectives. Drawing on the Habermasian concept of deliberative democracy, which underscores the importance of gaining legitimacy to achieve desirable outcomes, our analysis focuses on seven constructs related to situational and intrinsic participation, procedural and distributive justice, and attitude on two outcome constructs: satisfaction and motivation. We surveyed managers with an accounting background who are directly involved in the budgeting process and analyzed our data using partial least squares-based path analysis–structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results of this study indicate that both dimensions of justice – distributive and procedural – are positively associated with participation, and in turn, positively impact satisfaction and motivation. Contrary to expectations, managers’ influence on the final budget does not seem to be as important as we expected. Budgeting is an important managerial function that involves setting targets based on an organization’s strategy and allocating resources for its execution. Such a fundamental process requires managers’ participation at various levels to ensure that the process is fair and just. Our study’s findings imply that justice perceptions are an essential fabric of organizational processes that drive human behavior. Specifically, our findings reveal that perception of justice influences participation and satisfaction and motivation.

Many argue that the design of compensation contracts for public company chief executive officers (CEOs) is often not guided by a goal of value maximization. Yet, there is limited direct empirical evidence on the negative consequences of the proposed inefficient contracting between shareholders and CEOs. Using data on CEO bonus contracts of the S&P 500 firms, we investigate potential firm performance implications of the use of qualitative criteria such as leadership and mentoring in those contracts. We maintain that unlike quantitative criteria, qualitative criteria are difficult to define and measure on an objective basis, possibly resulting in an inefficient and biased incentive structure. Twenty-five percent of the sample observations have CEO bonus contracts that include a qualitative criterion for bonus payment determination. Our results show that employee productivity, asset productivity, capital expenditures, and future abnormal stock returns are lower for firms that use a qualitative criterion in CEO bonus contracts than those that do not. Further, contrary to the argument in prior literature that earnings management decreases with the use of subjective performance indicators in incentive contracts, we find that income-increasing accruals are actually higher when the CEO bonus contract includes a qualitative criterion. We recommend that compensation committees set concrete, measurable performance goals for CEOs, providing CEOs with better guidance and helping improve their corporate decision making.

Accounting educators continue to look for efficient ways to introduce personal competencies into the curriculum. Prior literature contains numerous suggestions on how faculty can implement a single personal competency, such as written communication. This chapter describes our strategy for integrating a variety of personal competencies using team projects. We implement this strategy by selecting projects that are content oriented and not only involve critical thinking but also address students’ skills related to written and oral communication, technology, teamwork, and leadership. We offer guidance on how to implement this project-oriented strategy and also provide selected tools for streamlining the assessment of student performance, such as sample grading rubrics and an online survey for evaluating team leader and team member performance. Feedback suggests that students perceived an improvement in their competencies as a result of the course's activities. While we bundled a variety of personal competencies within a managerial cost accounting course, instructors can easily adapt our strategy to any course in the curriculum.

Purpose – This article examines the operating lease cost stickiness characteristics exhibited by retail firms.

Methodology/approach – Anderson, Banker, and Janakiraman (2003) laid important groundwork for the study of asymmetric cost behavior or cost stickiness. The authors found that a firm’s selling, general, and administrative costs (SG&A) costs increase more with a sales increase than those expenses decrease with an equivalent sales decline. Their findings provided avenues for many studies with differing focal variables; however, extant research has not explored the degree of cost stickiness associated with operating lease expenses. Recognizing the nature and magnitude of operating leases and the competitive and changing environment for retailers, this study adapts Anderson et al.’s (2003) model to provide insights into operating lease stickiness. The study uses archival financial data from 1997 through 2016 for specialty retail firms in testing the lease cost stickiness hypotheses.

Findings – The results of this study supported the hypotheses that operating lease expenses exhibit stickiness behavior and are relatively stickier than future lease commitments for retail firms.

Originality/value – By focusing on retail firms and related lease expenses, this study provides insights into the increasingly competitive retailer environment. This article’s findings will enhance understanding of how specialty retail firms’ managers react to reduced revenues. Finally, given recent authoritative pronouncements affecting accounting for leases and the significance of leasing transactions, research providing insights into cost behavior and managerial actions stands to make an important contribution to literature and practice.

The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the economic determinants of the compensation for chief executive officers (CEOs) between the pre- and post-financial crisis periods. To conduct the comparative analysis, the authors consider five years before and five years after the financial crisis of 2008. The authors use the data from the US financial service institutions and run separate regressions for the pre- and post-crisis periods to check if there is any significant difference in the economic determinants of executive compensation before and after the financial crisis. The authors find that total compensation and its incentive components decreased significantly in the post-crisis period. In the pre-crisis period, total compensation was determined by stock performance, accounting profit, growth, and leverage, whereas in the post-crisis period stock returns and leverage are the major factors influencing total compensation. The authors also find that firms’ leverage negatively influences the sensitivity of the pay for performance, but the influence of leverage on pay for performance is weaker in the post-crisis period. Our research is significant in the context of the US economy, the regulatory reforms of financial institutions, and the perspectives of the executive compensations. This is the first study that compares the relationship between compensation and firm performance over the pre- and post-crisis periods. It is an explicit attempt to develop a theoretical understanding of the compensation/performance relationship for the financial industry, which is blamed for the financial crisis and is affected by the Dodd–Frank regulation after the crisis.

Purpose – Over the last 15 years, research provided insight into several firm- and country-level determinants of asymmetric cost behavior. Their implicit premise builds on rational trade-off decisions between holding costs of idle resources and adjustment costs. The authors build upon these findings and establish an irrational component – sunlight-induced managerial mood.

Methodology/approach – The authors rely on the established cross-sectional model of asymmetric cost behavior to investigate short-term resource adjustment decisions and extend it by an exogenous proxy for managerial mood (i.e., daily sunshine hours per US county-year).

Findings – Beyond rational trade-off and planning decisions, the authors provide large-sample evidence on the influence of irrational mood on cost decisions. In accordance with research in psychology showing that higher serotine levels, attributable to sunlight, contribute to happiness and optimism, the results suggest that sunlight-induced mood increases the level of asymmetric cost behavior. Managers from firms headquartered in counties with a higher level of sunlight less likely react to a decrease in sales by reducing idle resources. Instead, they seem to be more optimistic about future demand conditions and, thus, more inclined to “sit out” downturns in firm activity until sales recover.

Research limitations/implications – Although the mood proxy is truly exogenous in the setting, the authors are unable to establish causality as the actual cost management decisions could not be observed directly. Moreover, the analyses are limited to the county level, whereas weather undoubtedly oftentimes exhibits intra-county variation.

Originality/value – This study is the first to establish an irrational antecedent of managerial resource adjustment decisions, which adds to the cost stickiness literature by demonstrating the important role of deliberate managerial decisions for corporate cost behavior.