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Despite cultural dimensions being included in hundreds of business and management research studies, there have been relatively few studies in public-sector accounting that include the use of cultural dimensions. It is posited that national cultural variables impact the institutions, which, in turn, have an influence on public-sector budgeting. The study aims to contribute to the literature by examining these relations in 31 countries.

These relationships are empirically evaluated by structural equation modeling using measures of national culture from Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) study and Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGIs) measures named institutions from the World Bank. Furthermore, measures of public-sector budgeting are evaluated in which public-sector budgeting is classified according to the legislative power of the purse and budget transparency.

Generally, findings reveal that institutions mediate the relationship among national cultural variables and budgeting at the national level. By that means, budgeting in a given nation is linked to the nation's supporting institutions which, in turn, are influenced by the national culture of those who maintain them. Particularly, power distance and uncertainty avoidance impact budgeting through the full mediation of institutions.

The World Bank's database used for the institutions contained over 200 countries (Kaufmann et al., 2007); the GLOBE cultural database (House et al., 2004) contained data for 62 societies; the public-sector budgeting (Qi and Mensah, 2011) included power of the purse and budgeting transparency country scores for 49 countries and the datasets comprised 31 nations, mostly from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. While smaller than we would have preferred, the size is consistent with other international studies (for instance: Waldman et al., 2006; Kwok and Tadesse, 2006).

The findings of the paper suggest that any plan to improve a nation's budgeting should consider the links between budgeting, supporting institutions and the culture of those that run them. The formal adoption of new methods and standards by supporting institutions may not be enough without accompanying efforts to transform national culture.

The theoretical contribution of the paper is discussed further in the paper.

Since 1915 adult education in New Zealand has been chiefly the responsibility of the Workers' Educational Association. The Workers' Educational Association enjoyed a virtual monopoly in the area until 1946 when National and Regional Councils of Adult Education were established in association with the University of New Zealand. Although the National Council held the purse‐strings, control of adult education rested chiefly with the University—related Regional Councils. Problems arising from the finance, control and stalling of adult education culminated in the passing of the 19G3 Act which eliminated the Regional Councils and established a reformed National Council. The implications of the Act are university acceptance of responsibility for adult education, financial support from the University Grants Committee and a decline of local influence on programmes. A crucial issue with the growth of university interest is whether there is likely to be a disproportionate growth of professional courses at the expense of liberal studies.

There is a dearth of research that investigates the impact of national culture on budgeting and management indexes in the public sector across developing countries. Limited studies in accounting and management have explained the role of national culture in shaping organisational and individual values. It is posited that national cultural variables impact budget transparency and performance management. This study contributes to the literature by examining these relations in 16 developing countries.

Adopting an unbalanced timing framework, the current paper seeks to fulfill this gap and applies four cultural dimensions from the GLOBE study (House et al., 2004) as explanatory variables to investigate whether national culture is associated with budget transparency and performance management or not, particularly in the context of developing countries. The paper uses budget transparency as the first dependent variable, based on the OECD database from Qi and Mensah (2011), along with performance management as the second dependent variable, from the BTI Project (2016), according to the leadership's political performance management.

Generally, the empirical findings reveal a minimal relation among GLOBE cultural variables with budget transparency and performance management. Particularly, the empirical findings indicate that only performance orientation has a significant relation with budget transparency and performance management.

The findings of this paper suggest that any plan to improve a nation's budget transparency should consider the links between budgeting, performance management and the culture of those that run them.

The formal adoption of new methods by performance management may not be enough without accompanying efforts to transform performance orientation as an index of national culture.

To modernize budgeting system is a challenge issue in many developing countries. To some scholars (Schick, 1998a, 1998b; Ma, 2009a), developing countries must first put into place basic budgetary controls before moving to more advanced models of budgeting. This approach of “basic first,” however, is questioned by others (e.g., Andrew, 2006). Drawing on China's recent budget reforms, this essay reconfirms the validity of the “basics first” approach. In China, budget reform since 1999 has begun to install budgetary controls for state finance, leading to an enhancement of budgeting capacity and financial accountability. However, governments at the same time have begun to be plagued by the unexpected problem of delays in spending and the accumulation of significant underexpenditures. Contrary to what many people may believe, we contend that this somewhat odd problem arises not because the new budgeting system has exercised too much control but rather because the new system is not yet effective in exerting budgetary controls.

Little is known about the strategies used by state courts during the appropriations process. This article examines court budgetary practices in the state of Oklahoma. It reveals how court funding works in Oklahoma, what strategies are used by the state courts, and which factors are most important in determining the success of the courts in getting the funds they need. It shows that the judiciary is not necessarily at the mercy of the other branches of government when seeking resources. The findings provide the first glimpse at court budgeting strategies and determinants of these strategies’ success at the state level.

The central concern of this monograph is to generate an understanding of the processes of control in industrial relations. Traditionally, the literature has tended to merely reflect the instrumental interests of management and has thus been preoccupied with the problem of improving the techniques, rather than penetrating the social processes of control. The authors contend that this preoccupation has resulted in a neglect of examining the conditions and consequences of control for production.

Lobbying of politicians by business and other organisations has spread across the Atlantic and is now working strongly in Brussels. With the recent expansion of the European Union (EU) to 25 member states, the number of lobbyists in Brussels will soon equal those in Washington. The expansion of lobbying has mirrored the increase of the powers of central governments. Key components of effective lobbying are universal: intelligence, strategy and implementation. Implementation of lobbying strategies can now be as intensely developed as marketing or advertising campaigns. Lobbying has developed beyond the pursuit of individual and defined objectives to the development of corporate reputations. Attitude research in the sector suggests that lobbyists have become an intrinsic part of the political process. The debate over the influence of lobbyists on policy continues on both sides of the Atlantic.

The federal budget process is a compilation of many rules and procedures, enacted primarily over the past century. Initially neutral as to budget outcome, that process, by the mid-1980s, had evolved to emphasize reducing the deficit. And the budget enforcement procedures put in place to control deficits, combined with robust economic growth, helped to produce historic budget surpluses by the end of 1990s. But in 2001, the economy slowed significantly. The budgetary effects of that slowdown, of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and other factors, brought a return of the deficit in 2002--- ironically, just as the budget enforcement framework put in place to control deficits expired. Now, lawmakers face the question of what new framework should take its place. This article discusses the evolution of federal budgeting, emphasizing the major characteristics of each period and what factors drove reform efforts at each stage.

Three rival internal change theories of budgeting have characterized the twentieth century. Internal change theories consider the importance of change made inside governments; exogenous factors do not have a significant bearing on outcomes in these approaches. The century started out with the rational/scientific, then moved to incrementalism by mid to latecentury. The century ended with the garbage can model. This paper tests the descriptive power of each of these models on budget outcome data. The methods used in this study were time series modeling of monthly U.S. national government budget outcomes from 1968 to 1999. The results provide support for both incrementalism and rational/scientific budgeting. There was no support found in this study for the anarchical tendencies associated with the garbage can theory of budgeting. These results suggest that the garbage can model may not deserve its reputation as the dominant budgeting paradigm at the close of the twentieth century.