The management accountant occupies a conspicuous position in the management system of firms. If there is anything that makes his presence felt in an organization, it is the budget. His values inclination, zeal for motivational budgeting, readiness to imbibe contemporary theories, preferred budgetary system design (authoritarian or humanistic) will determine to a large extent the nature of budget prepared in business organizations and the resulting work behaviours. Employees will normally react negatively to authoritarian accountant’s budgets brewing up counterproductive and antisocial work behaviours. But productive and social work behaviours coupled with organizational effectiveness are often the results of budgets prepared by humanistic management accountant. While conceding the fact that certain organizational settings may require a certain degree of authoritarian management, many accounting literature and related empirical evidence are in support of the fact that in a majority of cases, the humanistic (participatory) approach to budget formation produces better results as far as effectiveness and efficiency of organizations are concerned. This conference paper employs historical and descriptive research methods. It seeks to establish relationship between the management accountant, motivational budgeting, work behaviours management and contemporary theories. It draws much from the works of distinguished theorists in the classical and neo classical era and also from the research pack of Usen Paul Umo in the first quarter of the 21supst/sup Century. In total, the unconcerned attitudes of management accountants towards current researches in motivational budgeting and related contemporary theories have raised serious concern. The trend in employees’ work behaviours (especially in developing economies) is dwindling. Strategic innovations in the budgetary system of firms is inevitable. The human element of the budget is not given proper concern. This paper stresses the motivating function of budgeting. It emphasizes the human elements of a budgetary system, related theories and associated benefits. But the benefits do not automatically arise from the budgeting process. They must be worked for. This is because budgeting is a much wider term than mere technique and procedure. It is being seen as part of a process that both influences and in turn is influenced by managerial and employees’ attitudes and behaviours. A humanistic management accountant in motivational budgeting, his inclination to contemporary theories and the zeal for work behaviours management can be described as the panacea: a fruitful cure for all the many ills associated with budgetary system designed by authoritarian management accountant, traditional motivational theories and resulting counterproductive and antisocial work behaviours.
Usen Paul Umo (Thu,) studied this question.