Are annual budgets being abandoned by companies operating in Portugal?: Evidence from the 500 “Maiores e Melhores”

Abstract

Budgets have traditionally played a central key role in most companies in activities such as: planning, coordinating, communicating, motivating, controlling and evaluating operations (Drury, 2000). However they become a topic of critics and debate among academics and practitioners, leading to the development of the idea of beyond budgeting i.e. the implementation by managers of alternative approaches. This study aim to present the results of a survey conducted to the 500 largest companies operating in Portugal to: 1) collect empirical evidence on how their managers see the budget as a tool to accomplish its purposes; 2) study if companies abandoned or plan to abandon the budget; 3) study, if not abandoning the budget, whether alternative approaches are being use to complement it; and 4) understand whether the beyond budgeting practices have recently changed in Portugal. Overall, we find that the majority of surveyed companies still use the budget and it is perceived to be very important. Whilst some problems are appointed to budgets, surveyed companies are complementing them with alternative approaches rather than abandoning budgets.