Central America: The effect of organizational complexity, competitive fears, budgetary workrole importance and budget criticality on budgetary motivati

Playing devious games, budget‐emphasis in performance evaluation, and attitudes towards the budgetary process

“…Budget‐emphasis in performance evaluation may increase the tendency to play devious games to obtain extra budget requests, and playing devious games to obtain extra budget requests may have less favorable attitudes towards the budgetary process. Although Otley (1978) and Collins et al (1996) find significant and positive relationships between budget emphasis and attitude towards the budgetary process, this study expects that playing devious games to obtain extra budget requests will moderate the relationship between budget emphasis and attitudes towards the budgetary process. Specifically, at low levels of playing devious games, this relationship will be strong and positive.…”

“…Otley (1978) finds that managers who stress the importance of meeting budgets are more likely to actually meet those budgets. Collins et al (1996) provide evidence that managers with higher perceived budget emphasis have more favorable attitudes towards the budget such as working hard to achieve their budgets, encouraging other managers to achieve their objectives, protecting the accuracy of the budgetary process, and maintaining the proper functioning of the budgetary system. However, Hartmann (2000) notes that high emphasis on budgetary performance may not always be beneficial, and may lead to increase job‐related tension among subordinate managers as well as dysfunctional behavior and performance.…”

“…In this study, we focus on overstated expenditure. Although past research finds significant and positive relationships between budget emphasis and attitude towards the budgetary process (Otley, 1978; Collins et al , 1996), these findings may have been attenuated if managers are playing devious games to obtain extra budget requests in the budgetary process. The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating effect of playing devious games on the relationship between budget‐emphasis in performance evaluation and attitudes towards the budgetary process.…”

“…According to Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975) attitudinal model, a person's attitude toward an object is a function of his beliefs. Thus managers' attitudes toward the budgetary process may be affected by their beliefs about how they perceive budgetary work to be important for evaluating job performance (Collins et al , 1996). Otley (1978) finds that managers who stress the importance of meeting budgets are more likely to actually meet those budgets.…”

“…The budget‐emphasis in performance evaluation was measured using questions developed by Collins et al (1996). The questionnaire comprised two items: “my superior considers budgetary performance to be an important factor in my evaluation”, and “my superior considers the preparation of budgets an important factor in the evaluation of my performance”.…”