Deng Deqiang, Liu Lana Yan Jun, Wen Subin
College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, China.
Business School, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2020 Dec 10;11:583643. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.583643. eCollection 2020.
Variance investigation (VI) has been identified as an effective mechanism to reduce budgetary slack at the budgeting stage. 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 VI affect budgetary slack and (2) the extent of the moderating effect of moral development 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 reduce the propensity of creating slack at the budgeting stage. More specifically, the effect of external investigation on reducing the propensity of creating budgetary slack 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 among 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 VI on budgetary slack, which are also moderated by different levels of subordinates' moral development. These results may be considered in the design and implementation of management control systems.
差异调查（VI）已被视为在预算编制阶段减少预算松弛的一种有效机制。本文聚焦于另外两个研究问题：（1）差异调查的两种不同的以问责为导向的控制方面（即外部调查和自我报告）在多大程度上影响预算松弛；（2）道德发展对这两种以问责为导向的控制方面与预算松弛之间关系的调节作用程度。我们的实验结果表明，外部调查和自我报告都能降低在预算编制阶段制造松弛的倾向。更具体地说，外部调查在降低制造预算松弛倾向方面的效果大于自我报告。本研究进一步揭示，道德发展调节了外部调查对预算松弛的影响。在比较道德发展水平低的下属和道德发展水平高的下属时，我们的结果表明，外部调查对预算松弛的影响在前一组中比后一组更强。本研究未发现道德发展对自我报告与预算松弛之间的关系有任何调节作用。我们的研究为差异调查的两种以问责为导向的控制方面对预算松弛的不同影响提供了一些新的见解，而这些影响也受到下属不同道德发展水平的调节。在管理控制系统的设计和实施中可考虑这些结果。
