The Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 made the production of an annual comprehensive budgetary framework the central focus of the federal budget process. Before 1974, the budget process had allowed legislation from each of the revenue committees and each of the appropriations subcommittees to come to the floor separately. Congress judged the merits of individual programs without considering the overall budget. The 1974 budget act changed the organizational ethos of the budget process from incremental change to comprehensive review and from fragmented, ad hoc decision making to coordinated decision making. It helped sort members into ideologically homogenous groups by transforming many battles over separate policy priorities into one grand battle over the biggest question in American politics: What is the role of government? The 1974 shift to comprehensive budgeting, along with subsequent additional controls on budget practices, has magnified and accelerated the effects of the many polarizing forces that have characterized the last 40 years of American politics. With this conclusion come unanswered questions regarding the merits of a distinct two-party system, as well as the potential need for comprehensive budgeting despite its political challenges.

Bakgrund och problem: Under 1980-talet riktades hård kritik mot  konomistyrningen i den såkallade ”Relevance Lost” - debatten. Kritiken styrdes senare mer specifikt mot budgeten, där kritiker som Jan Wallander (1995) samt Hope & Fraser (2003) menade att budgeteringen tillförde lite värde i modern affärsverksamhet och att den borde avskaffas helt. Trots kritiken visar nyare studier av Ekholm & Wallin (2000) samt Libby & Lindsay (2009) att majoriteten av företag fortfarande använder sig av budget som en viktig del av sin ekonomistyrning trots att företagen är medvetna om budgetens nackdelar. Detta fenomen kallar vi för ”budgetparadoxen” och kan sammanfattas i studiens huvudfråga ”Varför lever budgeten och budgetsliknande processer vidare trots all kritik som riktats mot den?” Syfte: Studiens syfte är att beskriva och förklara hur två företag valt att hantera kritiken riktad mot den traditionella budgeteringn samt att konstruera en förklarande modell som visar hur budgeten kan ersättas eller utvecklas. Metod: En kvalitativ metod användes, baserad på semistrukturerade intervjuer med fyra respondenter i två fallföretag. Analys och slutsats: Med hjälp av studiens två fallföretag samlades information in om hur de hanterat kritikpunkter som riktats mot budgeten. Intressant var att se vilka komplement som användes till den traditionella budgeten och vilka anledningar man haft att behålla eller ersätta budgeten. De två fallföretagen ansågs inledningsvis befinna sig på var sin sida i frågan, där det ena företaget använder sig av traditionell budgetering medan det andra valt att överge budgeten helt. Vid en närmare analys av företagen kunde däremot flera likheter utskiljas. Analysen visade att inget av de två fallföretagen hade valt en tydligt ”antingen-eller” ståndpunkt i budgetfrågan, utan att de snarare liknar varandra vad gäller utformning av sina styrmedel. Analysen har mynnat ut i en förklarande modell som visar hur budgeten kan utvecklas eller kompletteras, där tre nya begrepp: ”budgetliknande processer”, ”utvecklad budgetering” samt ”situationsbaserad budgetering” formulerats. I slutsatsen poängteras att det inte finns någon standardutformning för budgetanvändningen i företag utan att företag snarare befinner sig någonstans mellan dessa begrepp beroende på vilka specifika verksamhetsförutsättningar och krav som ställs på ett företag.

This study estimates the demand for domestic air travel services in the United States in order to calculate the fare and expenditure elasticities of demand. We segmented the market according to number of operating airlines, distances and traveler types. Using Seemingly Unrelated Regression to estimate the Almost Ideal Demand System (AIDS), we find that the expenditure and uncompensated own-fare elasticities are around unity and consistent with the previous literature. Results reveal a tendency of uncompensated own-fare elasticity to decrease as distance increases, and a tendency of uncompensated own-fare elasticity to increase as number of airlines increases. Due to few observations, business travelers' results are not reliable to make any conclusion. Leisure travelers' results are closer to all travelers' results.

<p><p>Political disenchantment and detachment is proven to be growing in well established democracies. This development brings along concerning behavior regarding general political participation. Fewer citizens participate in elections, parties are losing members, and the trust in politicians is steadily decreasing. IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) has been registering voter turnout worldwide for the last 60 years and their publications show a decline in voter participation since the 1980s.</p><p>During the same period of time another development has caught attention, namely the fast progress of the medium Internet. The new generation of Internet functions is called Web 2.0 and allows users not only to create content, but also to interact with each other.</p><p>This dissertation aims to explore the possibilities emerging when integrating Web 2.0 in political processes. To study this, a case study approach is used and participatory budgeting is the chosen case. Effects on political disenchantment are analyzed from the perspective of Robert Dahl’s democratic criteria.</p><p>The analysis underlines the importance of making political processes more accessible to the citizens, e.g. by supplying online functions for political contribution. Several signs indicate an expanded integration of Web 2.0 functions, which might lead to a turning point for political disenchantment. However, the result also shows that other factors, such as composition of participants, and conditions of usage should to be taken in consideration while increasing the online dependency.</p></p>

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Robert F. Dell, William J. Tarantino, Eva D. Regnier. Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-47). Also available online.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2003. / Advisor: Dr. Ricahrd Chackerian, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, School of Public Administration and Policy. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Feb. 26, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1986.

Participative budgeting plays an important role for information communication among hierarchies in organizations. In this study, I use a lab experiment to examine three research questions and investigate the role of supervisors in influencing subordinate honesty. First, I predict and find support that supervisory behavioral integrity, i.e. the alignment between a superior’s communication of a value of honesty and the superior’s behavioral honesty, is an effective informal control mechanism to influence employee honesty. However, the effectiveness of supervisory behavioral integrity in influencing employee honesty depends on the presence of shared financial interests between the superior and the subordinates, such that high supervisory behavioral integrity may promote employee honesty only in the presence of shared financial interests. In the absence of shared financial interests, supervisory behavioral integrity is no longer effective in influencing employee honesty. Finally, I investigate whether supervisory behavioral integrity, compared to supervisory behavioral honesty, has incremental effect on subordinate honesty. The results suggest that, compared to supervisory behavioral honesty, supervisory behavioral integrity has a stronger influence on subordinate honesty. Furthermore, high supervisory behavioral honesty is shown to have a demotion effect on subordinate honesty, i.e. subordinate honesty is lower when superior’s honesty is high than when it is low. Supplemental analysis provides potential explanations for the demotion effect. The implications of the findings for management accounting research and practice are discussed.

Weber and Linder (2005) have enlightened that the focus of the current debate on the budget’s to be or not be, has been on trying to find a general tool, which fits best in all situations. They argue that the budget may be more appropriate for organizations in certain circumstances, than for others. They claim that there is a gap in research concerning the situations in which the budget may be appropriate, or when Beyond budgeting is preferred. It is this gap we are trying to fill with our thesis. The purpose of the thesis is to explain which situational factors that affect the organization's use of budgets for the functions the budget can fulfill. We examined various organizations to explain the situation dependent factors that affect the organization's use of budgets. Since the budget is a tool that can fulfill multiple functions, we have chosen to examine the use of budgets for the three functions - Planning &amp; Coordination, Responsibility allocation, and Control &amp; Evaluation. We chosed not to investigate the function for Motivation, since we be-lieve that motivating the employees is a function of the reward system. To be able to generalize our conclusions, we constructed a model of factors that could affect the use of budgets. To test the model, we have made a survey, which was sent to about 700 organizations. Using the responses of the survey we tested the model with regression analysis. The conclusions we have reached through our empirical study is that the organizations' over-all use of budgets is affected by the environmental turbulence, its competitive situation, the degree of formalization and the size of the organization. The organization's information sys-tem also affects the use of budgets positively, but only for the functions Planning &amp; Coordi-nation and Responsibility allocation. We also came to the conclusion that the corporate cul-ture affects the use of budgets negatively, but only for the function Planning &amp; Coordination. With our results and conclusions, we believe that we have filled a part of the gap in research concerning the budget’s to be or not be. We have identified situational factors that affect the use of budgets for its functions and they show when budget tends to be used.

Companies and organizations must make decisions concerning capital budgeting. Capital budgeting is a decision-making process that determines whether a firm should purchase equipment to be used on a long-term basis. The initial investment in the equipment is predicted to be returned through revenue gained by the use of the equipment over its lifetime. However, there is inherent risk associated with these investment decisions. Therefore, potential purchasers must decide whether the risk involved with investing in the equipment is justified. This dissertation addresses risk-based technology assessment for capital equipment acquisition decisions in small firms. Technology assessment, here, is concerned with understanding the uncertainty associated with assessing the value predicted in the capital budgeting process. When analyzing the risk for a given technology, we assign a probability law to its net present value. Our primary research contribution is providing an analytical framework together with a computational strategy to support capital equipment budgeting in firms where the value of candidate technologies can represent nearly all the firm’s value. Since small firms typically have limited budgets, spending for technology is always a difficult budgeting decision. The organization’s administration must decide which, if any, among the available technologies will be best for their operation. The process for acquiring technology in many small firms can be filled with challenges. Most important among them is that capital budgeting is typically a “one-off” decision. These decisions are difficult since the candidate technologies may not have operational data available. Thus, decision makers need some means to predict how the proposed technology (e.g., equipment or machinery) will be used. Hence, firms should follow techniques and procedures based on appropriate normative principles and well-established theory. Senior company executives and/or governance boards are often authorized to approve capital equipment purchases. However, these company leaders may not have adequate expertise in the operations of candidate technologies or may lack the understanding necessary to determine how new technologies may impact other company operations. Appropriate financial evaluation measures and selection criteria that incorporate risk are critical to making sound, quantitative acquisition decisions. The research reported here offers an analytical framework for comparing different technology alternatives in capital budgeting decisions. Comparison is based on the expected net present value and the risk (i.e., probability law on net present value) associated with each decision alternative. To this end, the operational characteristics of each technology alternative are connected to their potential revenue and cost streams. The framework is embedded within a computational architecture that can be customized to account for operations and technologies in specific application scenarios. One major barrier addressed by this research is overcoming the fact that new technologies typically have no historical operational data. Therefore, characterizing the uncertainty of operations (e.g., distribution of the equipment lifetime) can be very difficult. Discrete- event simulation is used to generate potential revenue and cost estimates. We demonstrate the tractability and practicality of the analytical framework and computational architecture via a healthcare technology assessment decision. Data extracted from a published journal article detailing a hospital’s technology assessment decision are used to find the risk of the medical technology using the computational architecture developed. Widely-available, no-cost software tools are employed. Results of the health care example suggest that the financial analysis in the original technology assessment was in- adequate and simplistic. Small firms may find this research particularly beneficial because potential investments can be a significant portion of a small firm’s value.