How Czech firms deal with operational budgets? – Survey results

Abstract

In recent decades, academics and practitioners started a deep discussion about the limitations and perspectives of enterprise budgeting systems. Traditional budgets are frequently criticized due to their inflexibility, weak connection to corporate performance and demand on manager’s time. Recently, we have observed more frequent examples of firms which have undertaken budgeting system transformation and the adoption of modern, flexible and performance-based budgets. In this study, we have studied some trends in the budgeting of Czech firms with a focus on the manager´s behaviour. This paper contributes to the existing knowledge in two fields: Firstly, it summarizes the existing state of the art regarding the budgeting transformation; secondly, it presents the survey results focused on the operational budget utilization and its impact on the manager’s behaviour. Overall, the study presents some findings regarding the impact of an operational budget on the manager’s behaviour. We have tested how frequently situations occur, more specifically those frequently discussed in literature, in a given Czech firm´s budgeting practices. © Foundation of International Studies and CSR, 2017.