Beyond budgeting since inception: what is the status?

Abstract

The Beyond Budgeting idea as developed by Hope and Fraser (1997) has been in existence for almost twenty years, yet, the research community still has divergent views on whether the concept is a better management accounting tool for organizations’ management control system or not. Also, whether it has received attention in research community like other management accounting tools such as Traditional Budgeting and Balanced Scorecard. On this notion, this study is developed to investigate the status of the research discourse on the concept to gain relevant knowledge. Inspired by Scapens and Bromwich (2001) and built on Actor Network Theory and Diffusion of Innovation Theory, 34 published peered reviewed articles on Beyond Budgeting for a period between 1999 and 2017 was reviewed. The review offers an imprint of how the concept has diffused and been adopted in the research community. Results show that researchers have examined the concept theoretically and empirically, but theoretically discussed papers were dominant. In addition, there seems to be an overweight of positive attitude towards Beyond Budgeting in the research community. Despite this, there is little research, which could be identified to have proffered the best solution to all issues yet. Subsequently, this study identifies some limitations of the review approach applied, gaps in the research status of the Beyond Budgeting and suggests some directions for future research relating to the concept. Keywords: Beyond Budgeting; Diffusion; Research community; Management control system.