Problem II

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Public sector budgeting: A European review of accounting and public-management journals

Eugenio Anessi-Pessina Carmela Barbera Mariafrancesca Sicilia Ileana Steccolini
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Eugenio Anessi-Pessina Carmela Barbera Mariafrancesca Sicilia Ileana Steccolini , (2016),"Public sector budgeting: A
European review of accounting and public-management journals", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 29 Iss
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Public sector budgeting: A European review of accounting and
public-management journals
1. Introduction
Budgeting plays a central role in public organizations. A large share of a nations income is allocated
and managed through public budgets (OECD, 2014). Traditionally, budgeting has been the process
through which governments decide how much to spend on what, limiting expenditures to the revenues
available and preventing overspending (Jones and Pendlebury, 1992). In a broader sense, budgeting
has increasingly been expected to perform further roles and functions, enforcing managerial
responsibility and discharging external accountability.
In the last few years, moreover, the expanding weight of entitlements, the demands of supra- and
international institutions, and the fiscal and economic crises have put enormous pressures on cutting
back expenditures, ensuring balanced budgets, and reducing the amount of accumulated public debt.
At the same time, governments have been expected to meet an increasingly strong, sophisticated, and
heterogeneous demand for services and to play a role in economic recovery and growth (Kickert
2012, 2013; Lodge and Hood, 2012; Peters, 2011; Peters et al., 2011). Under these circumstances, the
importance of budgeting is confirmed, but its roles and features may need to be discussed and
reassessed. This requires a sensemaking process whereby new meanings, labels, conceptual categories
are defined (Weick et al., 2005). However, this process cannot take place in a vacuum, but requires to
take stock and make sense of past experiences and studies.
To this end, a useful starting point is to review the concepts and methods through which public
budgeting has so far been tackled in the literature. No such review has yet been published. Existing
reviews mostly focus on other topics such as public performance measurement and management
(Modell, 2009; Van Helden et al., 2008). Those that try to cover budgeting within a wider range of
public sector accounting and financial management topics inevitably offer a general view (Broadbent
and Guthrie, 1992, 2008; Jacobs, 2012, 2013; Modell, 2013). The absence of reviews specifically
focusing on budgeting is remarkable also because, as suggested by Chan (2002) and Jones (2000)
budgeting has traditionally been viewed, studied, and practiced as a stand-alone topic, separate from
accounting, non-financial performance measurement, and reporting.
The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to review the literature on public budgeting in order to put
forward possible future research avenues. We further circumscribe the scope of our analysis in two
ways. First, given the wide interdisciplinarity of budgeting (Caiden, 1985; Jones, 2000), we limit our
1
analysis to academic journals that either (i) devote specific attention to public-sector accounting, or
(ii) are dedicated to public administration and management. Extending the analysis to public
administration and management journals allows us to better capture the relevance of budgeting for
management and governance and to identify possible distinctive features of the papers published in
the two groups of journals. Second, we limit our analysis to papers embedded in the European
context, based on both policy and research considerations. In terms of policy, public expenditure in
Europe is particularly large, averagely accounting for more than 50% of GDP (Barbier-Gauchard et
al, 2012; OECD, 2014). Moreover, Europe shows a rich diversity of administrative cultures across
countries, which has also produced different interpretations and implementations of managerialism
over time (Barzelay, 2001; Hood, 1991, 1995; Kickert, 2011; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004, 2011).
Finally, recent socio-economic dynamics have been particularly intense in Europe (Kickert 2012,
2013; Lodge and Hood, 2012; Peters, 2011; Peters et al., 2011; Pollitt, 2010; Raudla et al., 2013), and
the need to improve and redesign budgeting systems has consequently been perceived as especially
pressing: for example, Euro-zone countries have recently introduced balanced-budget amendments in
their Constitutions (or adopted similar domestic implementation laws) and strengthened the chain of
budgetary accountability across tiers of government. In terms of research, conversely, there is a sharp
difference in approach between European and other (especially North American) studies. Thus, we
believe it would not be particularly fruitful to compare these approaches before performing an in-
depth analysis of each individual approach. Similar considerations can be found in Broadbent and
Guthrie (2008), Van Helden et al. (2008) and Goddard (2010).
Our review shows that budgeting is simultaneously a tool for bargaining and allocating power and
resources, for planning and controlling, and for ensuring transparency and stakeholder involvement.
However, its multifacetedeness has often been downplayed. Consequently, we identify new key
research issues for putting budgeting back in the spotlight. The paper is structured as follows. Section
2 describes the review's methodology. Section 3 presents its results. Section 4 discusses possible
research avenues. Section 5 closes the paper.
2. Methods
To pursue our aim, we selected seven accounting (AC) journals that focus on public sector accounting
either predominantly (Financial Accountability and Management, FAM) or significantly (Accounting,
Auditing and Accountability Journal, AAAJ; Accounting Forum, AF; Accounting, Organizations and
Society, AOS; Critical Perspectives on Accounting, CPA; European Accounting Review, EAR; and
Management Accounting Research, MAR). Since public budgeting has traditionally been considered
as separate from accounting and is a key governance and management tool, we also selected eight
public administration and management (PAM) journals: Public Administration (PA), Public
Administration Review (PAR), Governance (GOV), Journal of Public Administration Research and
2
Theory (JPART), International Journal of Public Sector Management (IJPSM), International Review
of Administrative Sciences (IRAS), Public Management Review (PMR), and Public Money and
Management (PMM). This choice of journals is consistent with the interdisciplinary nature of
budgeting, enriches our analysis compared to existing work (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008; Jacobs,
2012; Van Helden, 2005), and is intended to highlight unexplored intersections across different
disciplinary fields.
The seven AC journals were selected following Broadbent and Guthrie (2008). The eight PAM
journals were selected on the basis of the ABS journal ranking. More specifically, we included rank-4
and rank-3 international journals (JPART, PA, PAR, GOV), as well as rank-2 journals that are based
in Europe (IJPSM, IRAS, PMM, PMR). The analysis was limited to academic journals, since papers
that have undergone peer review are more likely to meet the basic requirements of theoretical and
methodological rigour (Boyne, 2003)1.
Based on these premises, we collected all the papers on public budgeting in the European context that
were published in all the issues of the selected journals since 1980. This, we believe, is a sufficiently
long time span to capture evolutionary trends2. In order to identify the relevant papers, we first
browsed the titles and abstracts of all papers published in the selected journals and then cross-checked
the resulting list using the keywords budget and budgeting, matched with public.
After excluding (i) editorials, (ii) papers that focused on budgeting in private-sector, defence-sector,
or religious institutions, and (iii) papers that did not in fact focus on budgeting the resulting list
contained 83 papers (the complete list of papers is provided in the references). Table 1 shows the
number of papers from each journal.
INSERT TABLE 1 HERE
To analyse the papers, we interactively developed a coding scheme. To this end, we began by
individually reading the papers and suggesting a possible classification. The various classification
proposals were discussed in order to converge on a common coding scheme of analysis, which was
tested on a sample of papers and further refined to reach a final version. We then split into two
groups, each of which read and coded all the papers in order to ensure reliability. Finally, we
compared the work of the two groups in order to identify, analyse, and resolve all the remaining
differences. The final coding scheme includes the following dimensions, which will be presented and
discussed in the following Section: geographic area, tier of government, reference to NPM, inter- or
intra-organizational focus, main role attributed to budgeting, research method, theoretical framework.
3
3. Public budgeting at a glance
The results of the coding process are presented in the following Sub-sections, which focus on four
main aspects of public budgeting research: (i) where it is conducted, (ii) what it studies, (iii) what
theoretical frameworks it adopts, and (iv) what research methods it employs. For each aspect, we
discuss the main differences between AC and PAM journals, as well as the relevant evolutions over
time. In addition, we also discuss the differences between the papers that appear to have been
developed in the context of NPM ("NPM-related") and those that do not ("not NPM-related"). This
last classification needs further clarification.
NPM is a label that indicates a set of practices aimed at innovating the traditional model of public
administration by relying heavily on private-sector concepts and techniques (Hood, 1991, 1995). Its
theoretical bases include principal-agent theory, agency theory, property rights theory, public choice
theory, transaction cost economics, neoclassical economics (Gruening, 2001; Hughes, 2012). NPM
put new emphasis on topics like accountability, autonomy of managers and public organizations,
efficiency, effectiveness, economy, value for money, output- and market- orientation,
decentralization, and performance measurement and management. Given this emphasis, accruals
accounting and budgeting, cost accounting, and output-based budgeting all became central in the
implementation of the NPM agenda (Liguori et al., 2012; Skelcher et al., 2005). The advent of NPM,
in other words, has provided a specific context that appears to have significantly affected both the
study and the practice of public administration and public-sector accounting, including public
budgeting. Within our selected group of 83 papers, 61 (74%) were classified as "NPM-related", with a
particularly high percentage (86%) among the papers published in the 1990s (Figure 1). We
consequently found it fruitful to add a further and overarching lens of analysis by cross-tabulating
each classification against whether the paper was NPM-related.
INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE
3.1. Research setting: where is public budgeting investigated?

In terms of research setting, the public budgeting literature was classified by geographic area and by
tier of government (Table 2).
Geographically, following Pollitt and Bouckaert (2004), European countries were classified as Anglo-
Saxon (United Kingdom and Ireland), Mitteleuropean (Belgium, Estonia, Germany and Netherlands),
Scandinavian (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and Southern (France, Italy and Spain).
As to the tier of government, each paper was classified according to the type of public administration
where its analysis was performed: supra/international, national, and subnational, with subnational
governments further broken down into "intermediate" (e.g. states within federal countries) and
"local". Following prior reviews (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008; Goddard, 2010; Van Helden, 2005),
4
we also identified a separate category (called industry specific) for papers dealing with
organizations that provide specific public services (health, education, safety, etc.).
INSERT TABLE 2 HERE
Geographically, the great majority of papers (39) refer to Anglo-Saxon experiences and cases.
Scandinavian and Mitteleuropean countries are also significantly represented (respectively 15 and 12).
Ten papers are devoted to cross-country comparisons between European countries or between
European and non-European countries. Finally, Southern Europe accounts for only 7 papers. There is
thus a clear dominance of the Anglo-Saxon tradition, although slightly weaker than the one reported
by Broadbent and Guthrie (2008), according to whom the UK accounted for 63% of all European
papers on public sector accounting. On the one hand, this reflects the Anglo-Saxon centeredness of
many European journals (although with differences), combined with a traditionally low propensity of
some Mitteleuropean and Southern European academic communities to publish at the international
level. On the other hand, it seems to mirror the stronger level of commitment and impact of
managerial reforms in general, and budgeting reforms specifically, in the Anglo-Saxon context.
Indeed, the predominance of Anglo-Saxon experiences is particularly strong among NPM-related
papers.
Across types of journals, the percentage of papers referring to Anglo-Saxon experiences and cases is
very similar for both AC and PAM journals. The former, however, have published a comparatively
larger number of Scandinavian studies, while the latter show a greater frequency of Mitteleuropean
studies.
Over time, and specifically since the Nineties, both Southern European (mainly France and Italy) and
Mitteleuropean (namely Germany and Estonia) countries have received comparatively greater
attention than in the past, although Anglo-Saxon contributions still play the lions share both in AC
and PAM journals.
As to the tiers of government, the majority of studies focus on the national level (32), followed by
local governments (24) and specific industries (17). The intermediate level receives little attention (4).
Similarly, few papers (5) offer comparisons among different levels of government. Finally, only one
paper deals with supra/international organisations. The national level and the reference to specific
industries are particularly frequent in NPM-related papers, which may mirror a higher propensity by
these types of governments to adopt the public budgeting reforms proposed by NPM.
By type of journal, studies on the national level have mostly been published in PAM journals. AC
journals, on the contrary, have been the exclusive outlet of publication for studies that focused on the
intermediate level, specific industries, and the supra/international level. Local government, finally,
has been discussed by both types of journals.
5
Timewise, local governments were the main setting of research during the 1980s. This emphasis
decreased in the following decade and was counterbalanced by an increased interest in the central-
government level. Since the 2000s, finally, the two tiers have accounted for a similar number of
studies.
3.2. Research object: what is investigated about public budgeting?

When investigating public budgeting, researchers may view the budget as a tool to regulate
relationships across organizations (inter-organizational focus, typically across tiers of government) or,
alternatively, across units within the same organization (intra-organizational focus).
In our review, the majority of papers adopt the latter perspective (Table 3). Not surprisingly, this is
particularly true for NPM-related papers. The few (11) papers that combine both perspectives have
mostly been published in AC journals, and so have the even fewer (7) papers that focus exclusively on
inter-organizational relations. These patterns have remained fairly stable over time.
INSERT TABLE 3 HERE
Budgeting, moreover, may play different roles. A possible classification (Schick, 2009) identifies an
allocative, a managerial, and an external accountability function. Under the allocative function, the
budget is intended to set overall spending limits and break them down by purpose or organizational
unit. Under the managerial function, line managers are assigned objectives and later kept accountable
for their attainment. Under the external accountability function, a government is held accountable
towards its legislature and external stakeholders.
In our classification, the three functions were not treated as mutually exclusive. The managerial
function emerged as receiving the greatest attention (Table 4). Indeed, 30 papers focus exclusively on
this function. Another 30 papers combine the managerial function with the allocative function (25) or
with external accountability (5). Nineteen papers concentrate solely on the resource allocation
function of the budget, two solely on the external accountability function, and one on both functions.
Only one paper, finally, covers all three functions. As expected, the managerial function is
particularly predominant among NPM-related papers. External accountability also received greater
attention with the advent and development of NPM.
Across types of journals, the managerial function of budgeting has mostly been discussed in AC
journals, by itself or in conjunction with the allocative function. PAM journals, on the contrary, have
more frequently paid exclusive attention to the allocative function. The majority of papers focusing on
external accountability, finally, have also been published in PAM journals. That AC journals paid
greater attention than PAM journals to the budget's managerial function may have a three-fold
explanation3: first, confirming a feature observed by Broadbent and Guthrie (2008: 144) with
reference to overall public-sector accounting research, our AC journals are often particularly
6
interested in managerial accounting topics; second, many of our papers have focused on the
measurement dimension of managerial budgeting; third, PAM journals may be comparatively more
interested in the administration of spending programmes.
Timewise, finally, interest in external accountability has slightly increased since the 1990s, while the
relative importance of the other two functions has remained virtually stable.
INSERT TABLE 4 HERE
3.3. What theoretical frameworks does public budgeting research adopt?

With respect to theoretical frameworks, we, like Goddard (2010), observed little consistency in the
classifications used in prior reviews. This, in turn, reflects the use of multiple classifications in the
international literature (with reference to accounting studies, for example, see Baker and Bettner,
1997; Baxter and Chua, 2003; Bhimani, 2002; Chua, 1986; Covaleski et al., 1996; Hopper and
Powell, 1985; Laughlin, 1995; Roslender, 1992).
Drawing on Baxter and Chua (2003), and given the absence of papers distinctly identifiable as
critical in our selection, we chose to distinguish between positivistic and interpretive approaches.
Positivistic research is characterized by its objectivist and/or functionalist stance. Positivistic papers
refer to economic theories (for example, agency theory and transaction cost economics) and
objectivist organizational theories (for example, contingency theory and other functionalist
organizational theories). According to interpretive approaches, conversely, budgeting and accounting
systems, far from being neutral and objective processes and tools, belong to the organizational and
societal reality, reflect and are affected by institutional variables and, in turn, affect them, contributing
to rationalization and legitimation processes in public administrations (Covaleski and Dirsmith, 1986;
Hopwood, 1987).
To these two categories, we added another two: one for the absence of an explicit theoretical
framework and another for hybrid frameworks. With respect to the former, prior reviews have also
noted that many papers do not draw explicitly on theory and are often descriptions of accounting
practices. Scapens and Bromwich (2001) categorise these as "applied", Van Helden (2005) as "no
theory", Broadbent and Guthrie (2008) as "commentary/normative", Goddard (2010) as descriptive
or normative. We used the label no explicit reference to theory. As to the latter, by "hybrid" we
mean frameworks that combine positivistic and interpretive approaches4.
Following this classification (Table 5), most papers in our selection are either interpretive (29) or
lacking an explicit theoretical approach (38). The former are more frequent in AC journals; the latter
in PAM journals and in the NPM-related category. Admittedly, the large presence of NPM-related
papers that make no explicit reference to theory may partially occur because the theoretical
antecedents of NPM are assumed as given, especially in some journals5.
7
INSERT TABLE 5 HERE
Timewise (Figure 2), the number as well as the proportion of papers without an explicit reference to
theory sharply increased in the 1990s (15 papers, accounting for 79% of papers in the period), in
parallel with an increase in the number of NPM-related papers. These papers generally describe
NPM-related reforms at a system-wide level and present budgeting as one component of these
reforms. Since 2000, the number of theoretically-informed, and especially interpretive, papers has
increased. This probably reflects an evolution whereby the initial exploration of new practices opened
the way for more sophisticated analyses.
INSERT FIGURE 2 HERE
Interpretive papers share large similarities in that they generally look at the changes affecting public
budgeting processes, predominantly adopt a neo-institutional approach, and conclude that managerial
public-sector reforms are being jeopardised by the decoupling between ritualistic practices and actual
behaviours. Most, and especially those from the 1990s and the early 2000s, highlight the role of
institutional isomorphism in public sector reforms (e.g. Edwards et al., 1995, 2000, 2005; Groot,
1999; Pettersen, 1995), thus emphasising convergence processes and the external factors affecting
them. A limited number of more recent interpretive papers delve deeper into the internal
organizational dynamics of change processes related to budgeting (e.g. Hyvonen and Jarvinen, 2006),
adopting a processual view and considering the multiple and conflicting logics (Lounsbury, 2007) at
play (for example, Ezzamel et al., 2012). Some draw on alternative theories, concepts, and
frameworks, such as Foucaults (1991), Rose and Millers (1992), and Miller and Roses (2008)
governmentality (Kurunmaki and Miller, 2011), actor-network theory (Muniesa and Linhardt,
2011), and structuration theory (Seal and Ball, 2011). Interestingly three, explicitly (Seal, 2003; Seal
and Ball, 2011) or implicitly (Edwards et al., 1996), propose a hybridization of institutionalism with
incrementalism, suggesting that the latter has an institutional nature. In these studies, budgeting is
generally viewed not as a process per se, but in its changing roles and features related to reform
processes. A distinctive approach is offered by Goddard (2004), who draws on Bourdieus concept of
habitus to attempt a theorization on the relationship between budgetary practices and accountability
perceptions. Only three interpretive papers are not NPM-related (Czarniawska-Joerges and Jacobsson,
1989; Albert-Roulhac, 1998; Peters, 2001), and focus on the role of budgeting in the interactions
between the organization and the institutional environment.
The papers that adopt a positivistic approach, on the other hand, were common during the 1980s,
almost disappeared in the 1990s, but have resurfaced since 2000. However, they remain rather rare
(13 papers out of 83). Among them, incrementalism tends to play the lions share (e.g., Anessi-
Pessina et al., 2012; Boyne et al., 2001; Greenwood, 1983; Jonsson, 1982), both in PAM and AC
8
journals. Papers drawing on incrementalism generally test hypotheses and accumulate further
evidence on the validity or weaknesses of the incremental view on budgeting. Interestingly, Jonsson
(1982) and Greenwood (1983) test incrementalism in an austerity context. Minority approaches within
positivism are represented by punctuated equilibrium (John and Margetts, 2003; Mortensen, 2005),
resource-based view (Ridder et al., 2005, 2006), public choice (Jacobsen, 2006), as well as
management accounting in its functionalist (Pettersen and Solstad, 2007) and contingency
(Christensen and Laegreid, 2012) streams.
3.4. What methods does public budgeting research employ?

With respect to research methods, we identified three main categories (Flick, 2009): (i) empirical
qualitative research (analysis of issues, events, or practices by collecting non-standardized data and
analysing text and images rather than numbers and statistics); (ii) empirical quantitative research
(analysis of frequencies and distributions of issues, events, or practices by collecting standardized
data and using numbers and statistics); and finally (iii) normative papers (papers describing
normatively the expected features of budgets and budgeting systems). Within empirical research (be it
qualitative or quantitative), we further distinguished between descriptive and exploratory analyses,
which aim at illustrating or exploring phenomena, and explanatory research, which seeks to explain
why and under which conditions certain events occur6.
From a methodological viewpoint (Table 6), the large majority of papers (70) adopt an empirical
qualitative perspective, with a prevalence of descriptive works (39). This is particularly true for NPM-
related papers, whose objective is often to illustrate the implementation of budgeting innovations in a
specific country, level of government, or policy area. Qualitative, descriptive papers often lack an
explicit reference to theory and are mostly published in PAM Journals. Qualitative papers with a
stronger explanatory stance, on the contrary, have mostly been published in AC Journals. Quantitative
papers are much fewer (12), evenly distributed between PAM and AC journals, and clearly under-
represented in the NPM-related category. Purely normative studies, finally, are almost absent.
INSERT TABLE 6 HERE
4. Gaps in the literature and future research avenues

This review shows that budgeting has so far played a rather marginal role in European public
management and accounting research and, thus, that more studies may be required to close this gap.
This is consistent with previous remarks by, among others, Broadbent and Guthrie (2008), Goddard
(2010), and Jacobs (2013) that, despite the emergence of a rich diversity of new journals, public
sector accounting as a whole has been marginalized by mainstream and generalist journals. In fact,
looking only at accounting journals, Broadbent and Guthrie (2008) found 452 papers on contextual
9
public sector accounting topics between 1992 and 2006; Goddard (2010) identified 188 papers on
more general public sector accounting between 2005 and 2007; Jacobs (2012), looking at accounting
journals over a period of 16 year (1992-2008), found 758 papers on public sector accounting research.
Limiting his analysis to public sector management accounting research, Van Helden (2005) found 55
papers on between 1999 and 2001. Van Helden et al. (2008), considering both accounting and public
administration journals between 2000 and 2005, found 68 papers on public sector performance
management.
The review also highlights that the study and practice of public budgeting have been significantly
influenced by the NPM and modernization movements, especially in the last two decades. The overall
"history" of budgeting, however, displays a succession of phases as well as a continuous tension
between opposites such as expenditure expansion and cutback management, centralization and
decentralization, politically- and technically-led processes (Caiden, 2010). NPM has probably
represented yet another of these phases. Leaving aside the heated debate (Coen and Roberts, 2012;
Lapsley 2008; Osborne 2010; Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011) about the current status of NPM (is it
dead? Is it still the dominant paradigm? Has it evolved into Public Governance or is it reverting back
to neo-Weberianism?), the challenges that are emerging for both practitioners and scholars are now
different from those underlying most of the NPM-related papers in our sample. The current economic
and fiscal crises have put enormous pressures on governments to cut back expenditure and ensure
balanced budgets and, at the same time, to play an active role in economic growth. The subsequent
centralization of decision making processes towards national and especially supra-national
governments, the increasing reliance on technical fiscal rules to balance the budgets, the growing
inequalities emerging in many countries, the rising emphasis on inter-organizational collaboration, all
point to new and yet unexplored challenges for budgeters and budgeting scholars.
In addition, our review found that most studies have predominantly focused on the managerial
function and the intra-organizational role of budgeting, often viewing budgeting as a component of
wider reform packages, but generally underplaying its multifacetedness. In fact, budgeting is
simultaneously an important political medium (to bargain and allocate power and resources), a
fundamental governance and management device (to plan and decide, steer and control), and a central
accountability channel (to strive for transparency and stakeholder involvement). Among practitioners,
similarly, it is a shared territory where different players (politicians, managers, accountants,
economists, etc.) co-exist, but usually fail to fully interact because of strong differences in cultures,
perceptions, expectations, professional norms. For these reasons, the centrality and reach of budgeting
are often neglected, by both academics and practitioners. The end result is that budgeting tends to be
relegated to the interstices among different fields.
The question then becomes: what must be done for public budgeting research to give a greater
contribution and address the emerging challenges? This requires to identify the key issues to be
further investigated, in general and in the present context. The identification of new key research
10
issues, moreover, must be accompanied by a reflection on both theoretical premises and methods,
while also ensuring a stronger attention to relevance for practice and society. This also entails a more
intense engagement from accounting as well as public administration and management journals. All
these issues are individually addressed in the next sub-sections.
4.1. Key issues for future research: from interstices to intersections

To identify possible key issues to be investigated, we build both on the distinction between the intra-
and inter- organizational foci of budgeting and on the classification of its different functions (i.e.
allocative, managerial, external accountability) (Table 7). Moreover, consistent with our choice of
journals, we consider both the public administration/management and the accounting perspectives.
Naturally, this is not to say that the perspectives offered by other disciplines are less important: they
may become the subject of other contributions and studies, with this paper providing a first stimulus
for a broader dialogue among different disciplines.
Looking at the intersections across these dimensions, we identify and discuss some of the possible
themes that deserve further investigation.
INSERT TABLE 7 HERE
Taking a predominantly intra-organizational view, at the intersection between management and

accounting lie performance measurement and management, which have gained increased importance
over time, probably displacing the interest towards other topics (including budgeting). The literature
on performance (for a review, see Van Helden et al., 2008) rarely mentions budgeting at all. At most,
it makes a general reference to decision making processes. Conversely, the papers on budgeting rarely
link it to performance measurement and, when they do, it is usually within a broad description of
reform initiatives (see above) and with a predominant focus on the allocative function of budgets. A
possible explanation is that the literature on performance measurement and management may have
been excessively inspired by the private sector context, where some facets of budgeting (e.g., setting
appropriations) are not as important as in the public sector and others (e.g., managerial responsibility)
tend to be taken for granted. The integration of budgeting and performance management thus remains
a promising research avenue with respect to both the allocation and the managerial functions of
budgeting. Within this general topic, the relationship between politics, policy, and management
deserves particular attention, and so does the enduring issue of the relationship between availability,
formats, and uses of information in budget formulation and implementation.
Similar considerations apply to the wide literature on the adoption of accruals accounting (for
reviews, see for example Anessi-Pessina and Steccolini, 2007; Lapsley et al., 2009). The topic has
been extensively debated, but mostly with respect to financial reporting. Accruals-based budgeting is
usually ignored, rejected as inappropriate (for example, Guthrie, 1998), or discussed from a technical
11
viewpoint (for example, Likierman, 1995, 1998, 2003). Its implications for decision making processes
and for the relevant players and outcomes have generally been neglected. Even International Public
Sector Accounting Standards are almost exclusively focused on reporting. Interesting exceptions can
be found in Ezzamel et al. (2007) and Hyndman and Connolly (2011). Both these studies highlight a
possible hiatus between the availability of information on the one hand, the actual use of such
information in budget discussions on the other. They also show how accruals-based budgeting
increased the power of key players with financial expertise, who got a chance to manipulate power
relations to their advantage and to render their claims to knowledge more credible. Interestingly,
however, both these papers emphasize the implications of accruals accounting being simply other
than traditional public sector accounting, and thus reshuffling power relations by requiring new
knowledge and skills; neither of them, conversely, focuses on the specific representation of reality
that stems from the accruals basis and on the subsequent implications in terms of inter-generational
and inter-stakeholder resource allocation and equity, as well as external accountability.
More generally, looking at the allocative and managerial functions of budgets, there has been
surprisingly little interest in the dynamics of the budgeting process. On the one hand, this may stem
from the predominant view of public budgeting as a political process, the study of which is the
domain of political scientists. On the other hand, this reveals a scant consideration for the
organizational and managerial significance of these processes, as well as for the interactions between
the political and the managerial realms, which may represent yet another fruitful research avenue.
Only rare attempts at closing these gaps have so far been made. For example, Colville (1989: 89),
using the drama metaphor, points out that in order to understand accounting we need to understand
more than accounting and that [t]he budget itself represents a dialogue or discourse in which many
voices are heard and many parts played. Along these lines, Goddard (2004) uses a grounded theory
approach that allows him to study the relationships between budgeting, accounting, governance, and
accountability. Similarly, Ezzamel et al. (2012) look at the impact of multiple institutional logics
upon budgetary practices. Indeed, budgeting can be an area where different cultures, values,
rationalities, logics can meet, combine, enrich, but also conflict, compete, or ignore and avoid each
other. It would thus be fruitful to explore how budgeting can mediate among disciplines and actors,
offering a common language and field where their interactions and intersections are at play. However,
this requires that the multidimensionality of budgeting be perceived, studied, practiced, and presented
as a strength and not an aberration.
Particularly under-researched, finally, is the contribution of budgeting to external accountability.
Public sector reform initiatives have highlighted the need to go beyond traditional views of public
accountability (Sinclair, 1995). In particular, they have emphasized the importance of accountability
towards external stakeholders (Steccolini, 2004). The response to this need, however, has largely
relied on year-end reporting (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008). To some extent, this was warranted,
considering the negligible attention paid to reporting under the traditional bureaucratic approach. On
12
the other hand, the decisions made during budgeting can hardly be reversed at the reporting stage.
Transparency on budgeting, therefore, remains central. At the budgeting stage, moreover, external
accountability may require not only clear and comprehensive communication, but also forms of
citizen and stakeholder involvement and participation, despite the obvious challenges posed by the
virtual absence of interest by many stakeholders, and especially external ones (see, for example, Jones
and Pendlebury, 1992; Mack and Ryan, 2007; Steccolini, 2004). The potential contribution that
budgeting can offer to external accountability, in terms of transparency and communication, not to
mention opening of data, stakeholder involvement and participation, is virtually absent from the
papers reviewed and is thus a rich soil for developing further research. As suggested above, a fruitful
research avenue may be to simultaneously look at the accountability and allocation functions of
budgeting, emphasizing how formats and processes can affect inter-generational and inter-stakeholder
equity.
As to the inter-organizational view, its importance has recently been (re)emphasized by the
increasingly tangled relationships that converge on governments and by the emerging social, political,
and economic trends. More specifically, public service delivery increasingly requires the involvement
of multiple actors, including other governments or public sector entities, as well as private and
nonprofit organizations. On the one hand, this has produced new, often hybrid organizational forms,
bringing together various players with their different interests and logics. On the other hand, it entails
the development of practices and processes that ensure the proper running of these hybrid forms and,
thus, the effective provision of services. While hybrid organizational forms have attracted sufficient
scholarly attention, the need exists to further investigate the hybrid practices and processes (Miller et
al., 2008) that facilitate information flows and coordination across organizational boundaries. Among
these practices and processes, budgeting can play a major role in the allocation of resources and
responsibilities, as well as in the discharge of accountability in inter-organizational relationships. As
shown in our review, however, such role has so far been under-investigated. This opens up several
research avenues.
In general, there is a need to explore the balance among the three functions of budgeting, as well as
the variations of this balance over time and across different inter-institutional settings. This applies
both to intergovernmental relationships and to inter-institutional settings that also involve private-
sector players. With respect to the former, it would be worth investigating the actual and potential
roles of budgeting in the relationships between member states and inter- / supra-national institutions,
between national, intermediate, and local governments, and among governments of the same level, as
well as the impacts that these relationships exert on budgeting at the organizational level. With respect
to the latter, the increasing importance of the relationships involving public, private, and nonprofit
organizations requires a deeper analysis of the development, use, and impacts of such new tools as
pooled or consolidated budgets, as well as a better understanding of the factors affecting the choice
and design of the related practices and processes.
13
With respect to each individual function, at the inter-organizational level the allocative function of
budgeting has been investigated rather extensively, especially with an economics or public-finance
approach. However, there is still a need to disentangle the processes through which the allocation
takes place, their interactions with other variables such as power, institutional logics, players, as well
as their outputs. With respect to the managerial function of budgeting, the way responsibilities are
defined, distributed, negotiated, monitored, and accounted for in the inter-institutional web of
relationships is still an uncovered field of investigation. Finally, with respect to external
accountability, the tangle of relationships behind the joint provision of public services may negatively
affect transparency about outputs, outcomes, and related expenditures. This calls into question who
the stakeholders are; how they can and should be kept informed; how they can and should be involved
in the definition of the services to provide and the resources to use; who should be kept accountable to
them, for what, and how.
Finally, under both intra- and inter-organizational perspectives, it is also necessary to recognize that
public budgeting is a year-long process (Anessi-Pessina et al., 2012), encompassing not only the
budget's formulation and approval at the beginning of the fiscal year, but also its execution and
continuous adjustment during the year. This may become even more true and evident in the present
context, where budgets are approved and executed in an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable
environment and decision making processes are increasingly fragmented, despite the diffusion of
multi-year budgeting7. Thus, the study of budgeting inevitably requires to adopt a dynamic view, that
takes into consideration (and looks for ways for taking advantage of) the path dependence and
continuity of the related processes. More generally, there may be scope to investigate how to
reconcile the need for greater flexibility (and the potential benefits of greater flexibility in terms, for
instance, of motivation, empowerment and learning) with the inherent peculiarities of public-sector
organizations in terms of incrementalism, short-termism, focus on budgetary compliance and possible
adverse impacts on innovation. For example, in our analysis we do not find many papers focused on
the dynamics of budget execution during the year, or reference to the Beyond Budgeting
movement8. These may represent fruitful areas of further investigation.
A last possible development refers to the locus of the papers. Our analysis shows that most studies
have focused on Anglo-Saxon countries. More comparative research would be desirable, as well as
more research on Continental (especially Eastern and Southern) Europe and the European Union
(EU). Theory building and theory testing would benefit from empirical studies looking at new
contexts. Comparative research would add interesting insights, given the diversity of European
countries administrative cultures but also, for most of them, their EU membership (as well as, for
some, membership in the European Monetary Union). Eastern European countries may be a fruitful
field of study as they have shifted from former regimes to new democratic forms and have been (or
still are) in the process of joining the EU. These developments have generally implied significant
changes in administrative systems, and consequently in budgeting processes. Southern European
14
countries, on the other hand, have generally played a central role in the recent sovereign debt crisis
and this has often translated into budgeting reforms or changes affecting budgeting decisions. The
EU, finally, can itself represent an interesting arena in which to study the role of budgets and
budgeting processes in inter-governmental relationships at the supra-national level.
4.2. Improving the theoretical and practical relevance of budgeting studies

The existing papers on public budgeting appear to be rather under-theorized. Of the 83 papers we
analysed, only 54% are based on an explicit theoretical framework. Among the remaining 46%, most
provide a description of NPM reforms at a system-wide level (tier of government or policy field).
From a methodological viewpoint, likewise, descriptive papers account for 53% of our sample.
Therefore, public budgeting may need greater theorization. If, for accounting research in general,
there may be a need "to take a look outside the box" (Lukka, 2010: 110) the box being the dominant
functionalist paradigm , for public budgeting there may be no box to start with. In this pursuit of
greater theorization, however, the experience of accounting research highlights three major risks to be
avoided.
The first risk is to build too tight a box. This would presumably grant methodological rigour and
interesting research outcomes in the short run, but would also be inevitably subject to the law of
diminishing returns. Alternative approaches should not be ostracized (Lukka, 2010) and attempts
should be made to mindfully connect and combine different paradigms (Goddard, 2010; Modell,
2009, 2013; Jacobs, 2013). Theoretical pluralism can enrich the understanding of phenomena and the
construction of theories, and so can the triangulation of qualitative and quantitative research methods.
The distinction between paradigms, after all, is far from clear. In its European flavour, for example,
the combination of incrementalism and institutionalism is an interesting case of hybridization (see for
example Edwards et al., 1996; Seal, 2003; Seal and Ball, 2011). This approach, which we view as
potentially fruitful, needs support from journal editors, who should offer publication opportunities
also to authors that deviate from the mainstream. In the current context, the role of editors is
particularly important since the search for high productivity in publishing creates strong incentives to
become part of influential research communities, even at the expense of the innovativeness and
originality of research outputs.
The second risk is to lose relevance. With respect to public sector accounting research, a number of
recent papers have raised concerns that theoretical sophistication may be taking place at the expense
of the relevance of research findings to practitioners (Broadbent and Guthrie, 2008; Goddard, 2010;
Van Helden, 2005; Van Helden and Northcott, 2010). This is particularly critical because the practical
relevance of research is key for the roles and identities of researchers in society (Quattrone, 2009). In
this respect, Nicolai and Seidl (2010) draw an interesting distinction among instrumental, conceptual,
and legitimative relevance. Instrumental relevance concerns the impact of scientific knowledge on the
selection of the course of action and the control over the selected course of action. Conceptual
15
relevance refers to the impact of scientific knowledge on framing the decision (and control) situation
in practice: the larger the extent to which scientific knowledge modifies our understanding of decision
situations, the stronger its conceptual relevance. Legitimative relevance refers to the influence of
scientific knowledge on the enforcement or legitimation of the selected course of action. The authors
highlight that management scholars strive too much for immediate, instrumental relevance and tend to
overlook the importance of conceptual relevance. They consequently suggest a shift from the former
to the latter. The emphasis on conceptual relevance, in particular, would help to bridge the gap
between research and practice by focusing on the frame within which decision making processes take
place. It would also be particularly consistent with theoretical pluralism in that instrumental relevance
is strongly associated with the functionalist approach, whereas the framing of decision situations
requires complex understandings that may also benefit from interpretive and critical research. Under
these circumstances, a way of closing the gap between the scientific and the practice domains is to
invest on knowledge co-production, along two dimensions: among scholars and with practitioners
(Jacobs and Cuganesan, 2014). Knowledge co-production among scholars should involve research
that covers different relevant disciplines and paradigms although, in the short run, this may be
perceived as an inefficient way of producing research outputs. Knowledge co-production with
practitioners would also be useful, although notoriously difficult. In addition to the frequently
mentioned differences between academics and practitioners in terms of logics, languages, and styles,
the risk is for this kind of co-produced research to be driven by specific case studies rather than by the
research problems that were supposed to be tackled through the cases. This is part of a wider problem
within the accounting and managerial literature, whereby researchers often end up theorizing the case
rather than the research problem (Jacobs, 2013).
The third risk is for public budgeting scholars to become increasingly marginalized. The 1980s were
characterised by studies of budgeting in the public sector, with cases chosen in order to contribute to
the general literature on budgeting. Since the 1990s, on the contrary, studies have been produced on
the public sector, with the objective to achieve a better understanding of the reforms under way in the
public realm and with an explicit focus not on budget contents and processes per se, but rather on the
changes in public-sector budgeting that stemmed from such reforms. This has definitely helped to
understand change processes and budget reforms. Moreover, it has also contributed to a more general
advancement of knowledge. At the same time, however, this accumulation of contextual studies may
have diverted attention away from theorising on public budgeting processes. Scholars conducting
research on public budgeting should be aware that their studies can and should contribute both to the
public sector accounting and management community and to the broader (i.e. not only public sector)
accounting and management research communities. Consistently, they should articulate and
communicate the value of their theoretical contributions in a way that takes advantage of the
context under study (George, 2014: 2). The peculiarities and complexities that characterize the public
sector make it an ideal setting to study advanced topics of wider relevance. Examples of the
16
peculiarities and complexities that are typical of the public sector, but can increasingly be found
elsewhere, include: the co-existence of multiple rationalities and institutional logics (political,
professional, and managerial); the strength of internal and external constraints; the multiplicity of
goals, tiers, activities, and stakeholders; the importance of non-financial information for both internal
and externals users. This may also serve as a reminder to journal editors - especially those of
generalist accounting journals - that studies on the public sector can provide insightful ideas for
accounting scholars. Moreover, public management journals should be more interested in budgeting
in that it is a key component of the public sector's governance arrangements (both at the inter- and the
intra-organisational levels), a fundamental management tool (in its political, instrumental, and cultural
roles), as well as the potential locus of innovative research. Finally, journals with a focus on public-
sector accounting should be interested in budgeting in that budgeting is profoundly and inevitably
intertwined with accounting and reporting.
5. Conclusions
Budgeting is central in public organizations. From a research viewpoint, it is an extremely
multifaceted and potentially rich field to investigate and develop. The changing institutional and
socio-economic landscape, moreover, requires a profound reassessment of its roles and features. So
far, however, budgeting has been remarkably under-investigated and under-theorized. The aim of this
paper has been to review and make sense of the existing European literature on public budgeting,
looking at how public administration, public management, and accounting have contributed to current
theories and practices and, more importantly, how they can individually and jointly contribute in the
future.
In terms of locus of research, our analysis shows a predominance of Anglo-Saxon papers, along with
a good presence of Scandinavian cases, while only minor attention has been devoted to Southern and
Eastern European countries. In terms of topics, most papers tend to look at the intra-organizational
aspects of budgeting, and to emphasize its managerial and allocation functions, while downplaying
the role of budgeting in inter-organizational settings and its external accountability function. With
reference to theories, most papers are either interpretive or lack an explicit theoretical framework,
with positivistic approaches being quite rare. Over time, the papers have become theoretically more
sophisticated, probably reflecting an evolution whereby the initial exploration of practices and
reforms has paved the way for conceptually stronger analyses. In terms of methods, we found a
predominance of qualitative analyses, with a prevalence of descriptive works; quantitative papers are
much fewer. By types of journal, accounting journals were found more likely to publish research
carried out in Scandinavian countries; to focus on the intermediate level of government, specific
industries, and the supra/international level; to adopt an interpretive background with a prevalence of
qualitative-explanatory studies; and to focus on the managerial role of budgeting. Conversely, public
17
administration and management journals have been more prone to focus on Mitteleuropean contexts
and on the national level of government; to publish descriptive papers; and to focus on the allocative
function of budgeting. Our analysis also shows that most studies tend to look at budgeting as a
component of wider reform processes, often sacrificing depth for breadth. This has allowed the
accumulation of knowledge on reform processes in the public sector, as well as the gradual refinement
of this knowledge in terms of both theories and methods. Such accumulation and refinement,
however, have not been paralleled by similar developments on understanding budgeting per se, for
example in terms of features, processes, and actors.
To the extent that budgeting has been analyzed in depth, moreover, the existing studies have generally
downplayed that it lies at the interface among different disciplines and professions. As a result,
budgeting has often been relegated to the interstices between different fields. On the contrary, we
think that budgeting is an important arena where different cultures, values, rationalities, logics can
meet, conflict, but also combine and enrich one another. Developing public budgeting research may
thus require to take into account how budgeting is affected by (and, in turn, affects) the changing
social, political, economic landscape as well as to consider the possible intersections between
disciplines and professions. Along these lines, we build on the distinction between the intra- and inter-
organizational foci of budgeting, between its different functions (i.e. allocative, managerial, external
accountability), and between the accounting and the public administration and management
perspectives to propose possible future research topics. These include: the integration of budgeting
and performance management, in general and with specific respect to the relationship between
politics, policy, and management, as well as between availability, formats, and uses of information in
budget formulation and implementation; the implications of accruals based budgeting for decision
making processes and for the relevant players and outcomes, with a particular emphasis on the
specific representation of reality that stems from the accruals basis; the dynamics of the budgeting
process, including the interactions between the political and the managerial realms and the
implications for governance and accountability; the potential contribution of budgeting to external
accountability and the tools available to encourage transparency and stakeholder involvement; the
contribution of budgeting to the development of practices and processes that ensure the proper
function of inter-organizational arrangements for the provision of public services; the interaction
between budgeting and rebudgeting, budget formulation and budget execution.
Finally, we call for greater theorization, while highlighting a few risks to be avoided. In this last
respect, we underline the potential richness of theoretical pluralism; we discuss the conditions for
gaining conceptual relevance and exerting a stronger impact on practice; we emphasize the
importance of influencing the broader, generalist accounting and management literatures by
communicating the value of the public sector as an ideal research setting to study advanced topics of
wider relevance.
18
Defining the scope and boundaries of a literature review is necessarily a subjective process. Our
choice has been to (i) limit our analysis to international academic journals that either focus on public
administration and management or devote significant attention to public-sector accounting, and to (ii)
consider only the papers that are embedded in the European context. At the same time, our emphasis
on intersections clearly implies that further studies should enrich our analysis by looking beyond
public accounting and management journals and towards other disciplines such as political science,
sociology, psychology, public finance, public policy, and economics. Similarly, the focus on Europe,
while arguably valuable per se, should also be used as a basis for wider comparisons. Finally, much
could also be learned about the richness and diversity of country-specific contexts by extending the
analysis to qualified national journals.
Notes
1
This criterion also excludes studies published by government agencies and international organisations such as the Organisation for
Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank.
2
This threshold excludes the earliest issues of AOS, IRAS, PA and PAR, which were established before 1980. The other eleven journals
were all established after 1980, and specifically: PMM in 1981; FAM in 1985; AAAJ, GOV, and IJPSM in 1988; CPA and MAR in 1990;
JPART in 1991; EAR in 1992; and AF and PMR in 1999.
3
We are thankful to one of the reviewers for suggesting one of the possible explanations.
4
In the literature the combined use of theoretical approaches has been defined and labelled in different ways. Consider for example the
subtle distinction drawn by Jacobs (2012: 17), according to whom [w]hile there were relatively few examples of the use of multiple
theoretical approaches in the form advocated by Young and Preston (1996) there were many examples of a multi-paradigm approach where
different theoretical approaches and sources were blended.
5
This was suggested by one of the reviewers.
6
Our categorization is similar to those used in previous reviews, but not identical. For example, some authors (e.g. Van Helden, 2005) have
classified descriptive analysis as a specific research method (together with survey, archival, literature review, case/field study, description,
reflection and others), whereas in our paper it is considered as alternative to explanatory analysis within both qualitative and quantitative
research.
7
We thank one of the reviewers for pointing out the increasing relevance of multi-year budgeting.
8
We are indebted to one of the referees for this insightful comment.
19
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Acknowledgements
The authors are listed in alphabetical order. Previous drafts of this paper were presented at the 2012 EIASM
conference on Public Sector Reforms in Milan, the 2013 IRSPM conference in Prague, the 2013 CIGAR
conference in Birmingham and at seminars at Manchester Business School and Nottingham Business
School. The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers and Susana Jorge, Noel Hyndman, Jodie
Moll, Sven Modell, Peter Murphy, Paul Posner, Anne Stafford, Bob Scapens for their useful comments on
first drafts of the paper.
List of Tables
Table 1. Number of selected papers, by journal
Table 2. Research settings, by outlet of publication
Table 3. Research object: intra- or inter-organizational focus, by outlet of publication
Table 4. Research object: budget function, by outlet of publication
Table 5. Theoretical approaches, by outlet of publication
Table 6. Research methods, by outlet of publication
Table 7. Key issues for future research in public budgeting: an overview
List of Figures
Figure 1. Percentage of NPM-related papers, by decade
Figure 2. Evolution of theoretical approaches
31
Figure 1. Percentage of NPM-related papers, by decade

Figure 2. Evolution of theoretical approaches

2 Tables
Table 1. Number of selected papers, by journal
Accounting Journals
AAAJ 6
AF 0
AOS 4
CPA 2
EAR 1
FAM 24
MAR 9
sub-total 46
Public Administration and Management Journals
GOV 5
IJPSM 1
IRAS 5
PA 12
PAR 4
PMM 9
PMR 1
sub-total 37
Total 83
Table 2. Research settings, by outlet of publication
NPM-related papers Not NPM-related papers

Grand
AC PAM PAM Total
Total AC Journals Total
Journals Journals Journals
Geographic area
Anglo-Saxon 19 13 32 3 4 7 39
Mitteleuropean 4 6 10 1 1 2 12
Scandinavian 7 2 9 4 2 6 15
Southern 3 2 5 1 1 2 7
Other (*) 2 3 5 2 3 5 10
Total 35 26 61 11 11 22 83
Tier of government
Local 8 5 13 4 7 11 24
Intermediate 3 3 1 1 4
National 8 19 27 2 3 5 32
Industry specific 15 - 15 2 - 2 17
Supra/international - - 0 1 - 1 1
Other (**) 1 2 3 1 1 2 5
Total 35 26 61 11 11 22 83
(*) Includes cross-country comparisons.
(**) Includes comparisons among different tiers of government.
Table 3. Research object: intra- or inter-organizational focus, by outlet of publication

PAM AC PAM Grand Total
AC Journals Total Total
Journals Journals Journals
Inter
4 4 1 2 3 7
organizational
Intra
24 25 49 8 8 16 65
organizational
Inter and Intra
7 1 8 2 1 3 11
organizational
Total 35 26 61 11 11 22 83
Table 4. Research object: budget function, by outlet of publication


Grand
AC PAM AC PAM Total
Total Total
Journals Journals Journals Journals
Allocative 3 4 7 3 9 12 19
Managerial 16 10 26 4 - 4 30
External accountability - 2 2 - - 0 2
Allocative & Managerial 15 5 20 3 2 5 25
Allocative & External
- - - 1 - 1 1
accountability
Managerial & External
1 4 5 - - - 5
accountability
All functions - 1 1 - - - 1
Total 35 26 61 11 11 22 83
Table 5. Theoretical approaches, by outlet of publication

Grand Total
AC PAM AC PAM
Total Total
Interpretivism 20 2 22 5 2 7 29
Positivism 2 2 4 2 7 9 13
Hybrid
(interpretivism & 3 - 3 - - - 3
positivism)
No explicit
reference to 10 22 32 4 2 6 38
theory
Total 35 26 61 11 11 22 83
Table 6. Research methods, by outlet of publication

Grand Total
AC PAM AC PAM
Total Total
Empirical
qualitative 32 24 56 9 5 14 70
research
Descriptive 10 20 30 5 4 9 39
Explanatory 22 4 26 4 1 5 31
Empirical
quantitative 3 1 4 2 6 8 12
research
Descriptive 2 1 3 1 1 2 5
Explanatory 1 - 1 1 5 6 7
Normative papers - 1 1 - - - 1
Total 35 26 61 11 11 22 83
Table 7. Key issues for future research in public budgeting: an overview
Functions Allocation Managerial External Accountability
Organizational
Focus
Intra organizational Roles of performance and Roles of performance and accruals- Transparent and open budgets
focus accruals- based measures in based measures in public-sector Participation and involvement
public-sector decision-making decision-making and budgeting of internal and external
and budgeting processes processes (managerial view) stakeholders
(allocative view) Managerial, behavioral, and Budgeting and inter-
Performance budgeting organizational aspects of public generational and inter-
Relationship between politics, budgeting processes stakeholder equity
policy and management in the Dynamics of budgeting and interactions
allocation of resources between managerial and political
Relationship between availability, dimensions and logics
formats, and uses of information Relationship between availability,
in the allocation of resources formats, and uses of information in the
Budgeting and inter-generational enforcement of managerial
and inter-stakeholder equity responsibility
Inter- organizational Inter-institutional resource Definition, distribution, negotiation of, Transparent and open budgets
focus allocation processes and their monitoring, and accounting for and stakeholder participation in
interactions with organizational responsibilities in the inter-institutional settings where service provision
decision making and budgeting web of relationships involves multiple actors
practices Relevant interactions with the
configuration of power relationships
and institutional logics
Hybrid practices and processes that
facilitate information flows and
coordination across organizational
boundaries

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Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal

Public sector budgeting: A European review of accounting and public-management journals

*Related content and download information correct at time of download.

INSERT TABLE 1 HERE

INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE

3.1. Research setting: where is public budgeting investigated?

INSERT TABLE 2 HERE

3.2. Research object: what is investigated about public budgeting?

INSERT TABLE 3 HERE

INSERT TABLE 4 HERE

3.3. What theoretical frameworks does public budgeting research adopt?

INSERT FIGURE 2 HERE

3.4. What methods does public budgeting research employ?

INSERT TABLE 6 HERE

4. Gaps in the literature and future research avenues

4.1. Key issues for future research: from interstices to intersections

INSERT TABLE 7 HERE

Taking a predominantly intra-organizational view, at the intersection between management and

4.2. Improving the theoretical and practical relevance of budgeting studies

Hepworth, N. (2003), Preconditions for successful implementation of accrual accounting in central

Likierman, A. (2000), Changes to managerial decision-taking in U.K. central government, Management

Serritzlew, S. (2005), Breaking budgets: an empirical examination of Danish municipalities, Financial

Wooldridge, B. (1984), Exemplary practices in local financial management: an international perspective,

Caiden, N. (2010), Challenges confronting contemporary public budgeting: retrospectives/prospectives from

Jones, R. and Pendlebury, M. (1992), Public Sector Accounting, Pitman, London.

OECD (2014), National Accounts at a Glance 2014, OECD Publishing, Paris.

Table 1. Number of selected papers, by journal

Table 2. Research settings, by outlet of publication

Table 3. Research object: intra- or inter-organizational focus, by outlet of publication

Table 4. Research object: budget function, by outlet of publication

Table 5. Theoretical approaches, by outlet of publication

Table 6. Research methods, by outlet of publication

Table 7. Key issues for future research in public budgeting: an overview

Figure 1. Percentage of NPM-related papers, by decade

Figure 2. Evolution of theoretical approaches

Figure 1. Percentage of NPM-related papers, by decade

Figure 2. Evolution of theoretical approaches

Table 1. Number of selected papers, by journal

Table 2. Research settings, by outlet of publication

NPM-related papers Not NPM-related papers

NPM-related papers Not NPM-related papers

Table 4. Research object: budget function, by outlet of publication

NPM-related papers Not NPM-related papers

Table 5. Theoretical approaches, by outlet of publication

NPM-related papers Not NPM-related papers

NPM-related papers Not NPM-related papers

Table 7. Key issues for future research in public budgeting: an overview

Functions Allocation Managerial External Accountability

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