Participative Budgeting as a Communication Process: A Model and Experiment.

The purpose of this study is to develop a general model of participative budgeting and to initiate a systematic exploration of its operation and effects. The general model is developed to operate in any organizational setting. However, Hopwood notes that both managers and employees influence, and are influenced by, the budget and the assumptions underlying the rationale for participative budgeting suggest a broad range of interwoven questions. Thus the initial exploration of the model operation concerns only the upper levels of management and the investigation of its effects concern only the questions about the linkage between subordinate manager participation in the budgeting process and more favorable attitudes toward the budget.