Antecedents of participative budgeting

Abstract

This paper has four purposes. First, it analyzes 47 published studies on participative budgeting. Almost all of these studies focus on the effects of participative budgeting and not on its causal antecedents. Second, to provide insight into these antecedents, we report the results of a survey which identifies reasons why managers participate in setting their budgets. Third, we report how these reasons are associated with four theoretical antecedents - environmental and task uncertainty, task interdependence and superior-subordinate information asymmetry. The results indicate that participative budgeting is most important for planning and control, specifically vertical information sharing and co-ordinating interdependence, and that specific reasons for participative budgeting are correlated with three of the antecedents. Finally, directions for future research on participative budgeting are presented. © 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.