University Budgets and Organizational Decision Making

September 1978, volume 23 This paper seeks to determine the nature of budget decision making in a university. Using a research design employing cross-sectional and longitudinal data, the analysis explores whether budgeting conforms more closely to a bureaucratic model of organization or to a coalitional model of organization. The data suggest that coalitional behavior is most easily discernible in budget decision making when resources are relatively scarce. Thus, decisions about resource allocation tend to conform more with behavior predicted by coalitional theory, at least during periods of relative scarcity of resources.