This paper investigates four potential reasons for budgeting in organizations (operational planning, performance
evaluation, communication of goals, and strategy formation), their antecedents (e.g., organizational strategy and
structure), and several budgeting characteristics (e.g., target difficulty and budget emphasis) that potentially influence
these reasons-to-budget’s performance. While the idea of multiple uses of budgets in organizations is not new, the
rationale for this study is that prior research has tended to look at the same (one) reason for budgeting (primarily
performance evaluation), or at only one reason in isolation. Based on survey data from 57 managers responsible for
preparing the budget for their organizational unit, our analyses suggest that while the four reasons-to-budget exhibit
overlap, they are also substantively unique in their own use. Moreover, we demonstrate that the reasons-to-budget
arise in different circumstances and that each reason-to-budget’s performance is associated with different budgeting
characteristics.We also demonstrate a link between the performance of the individual reasons-to-budget and overall
budget satisfaction and organizational unit performance.
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