Mid Sweden University

This paper addresses the long-standing question of how budgetary participation (BP) affects budgetary outcomes. Information technology for enhanced communication (ITEC) and activity-based costing (ABC) are taken into consideration as moderators that might affect the relationship between BP and budgetary outcomes in manufacturing firms. Based on moderated and polynomial regression analyses, the study’s findings indicate that the main effects of BP, ITEC and ABC on budgetary outcomes are not significant, and that while ABC significantly moderates the relationship between budgetary participation and budgetary slack, ITEC does not moderate this relationship. Results also indicate that both ITEC and ABC significantly moderate the relationship between budgetary participation and managerial performance. These findings suggest that the effect of budgetary participation on budgetary outcomes can be contingent on ITEC and ABC although their impact varies with the nature of budgetary outcomes.