Department of Business Administration PhD defence: Catherine E. Batt
Budgeting and the impact of context: Developments and perspectives
Author: Catherine E. Batt
Supervisor: Dr. Páll M. Ríkharðsson
Date and Time: December 2 at 12:00 –
13:00
Location: Link to online stream
Catherine E. Batt will present and discuss her PhD thesis Wednesday, December 2 at 12:00. The presentation is in English and open to the public. The defence will be streamed online.
Abstract
Budgeting has been recognized to occupy center stage in most organizations (Covaleski, Evans, Luft, & Shields, 2003; Libby & Lindsay, 2010).
In recent years, practitioners and academics have criticized budgeting (Bogsnes, 2008; Hope & Fraser, 2003; Wallander, 1999) for being costly and time-consuming, increase budget gaming, and being harmful to organizations under certain conditions. There are two main starting points for most of these critiques. The first is the idea that when organizations become more complex, the less value budgeting methods add to their management due to the inflexibility and inertia designed into the budgeting process (Bogsnes, 2008; Hope & Fraser, 2003; Neely, Sutcliff, & Heyns, 2001). The second is the argument that when businesses face rapid changes and uncertainty in the environment, budgeting is unable to provide managers with the information necessary to react to these changes (Bogsnes, 2008; Hope & Hope, 1997).
This thesis focuses on the impact of context on budgeting through a contingency theory lens. Based on empirical evidences from a sample of 300 Icelandic companies it studies how the organizational environment impacts budgeting?
The study sheds light on budgeting in an environment faced with regular changes. It also includes a large variety of organizations in terms of size and industry. The study contributes to the budgeting literature, and the debate on the importance of budgeting in an uncertain environment.
