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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Lana LiuORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Variance investigation is identified as an effective accountability-oriented control mechanism for reducing budgetary slack at ex-ante budgeting stage (e.g. Webb, 2002). This paper focuses on two further research questions: (1) the extent to which two different accountability-oriented control aspects (i.e. external investigation and self-reporting) of variance investigation impact on budgetary slack; and (2) the extent to which moderating effect of moral development places on the relationship between these two accountability-oriented control aspects and budgetary slack. Our experimental results show that both external investigation and self-reporting can generate accountability pressure to reduce propensity of creating slack at ex-ante budgeting stage, in particular the effect of external investigation is greater than that of self-reporting. This study further reveals that moral development moderates the effect of external investigation on budgetary slack. When comparing subordinates with low moral development with those with high moral development, our results show that the effect of external investigation on budgetary slack is stronger amongst the former group than the latter group. This study does not find any moderating effect of moral development on the relationship between self-reporting and budgetary slack. Our study sheds some new light on varying effects of two accountability-oriented control aspects of variance investigation on budgetary slack, which are also moderated by different levels of subordinates’ moral development. These results may be considered in design and implementation of management control systems.
Author(s): Deng DQ, Liu LYJ, Wen SB
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Frontiers in Psychology
Year: 2020
Volume: 11
Online publication date: 10/12/2020
Acceptance date: 12/11/2020
Date deposited: 13/01/2021
ISSN (electronic): 1664-1078
Publisher: Frontiers Research Foundation
URL: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.583643
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.583643
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