Hossein Nouri
The College of New Jersey
B Douglas Clinton
Northern Illinois University
Abstract: To provide evidence regarding the effects of product and process complexity as important antecedents to participative budgeting, multi-level participation variables were examined to determine whether antecedent effects on participative budgeting broadly are consistent with results provided by the participative decision making (PDM) and justice literature. Justice theory suggests that participation constructs other than just decision choice (e.g., information sharing and voice) can produce beneficial outcomes. Understanding the decision making tendencies for specific types of participation chosen given specific contextual antecedents should help us to better predict and evaluate consequences such as job performance.
Using a role-playing judgment task in the context of a laboratory experiment, subjects responded as superiors regarding what specific forms of participation (i.e., information sharing, voice, and choice) they would allow in various contexts involving differential levels of high/low product/process complexity. Findings show that contexts characterized by high (low) product and process complexity revealed decision maker preferences for the highest (lowest) type/level of participation, while in mixed contexts subjects were more likely to prefer consultative methods such as information sharing and voice. Overall, process complexity was considered more important to subjects than product complexity in shaping participation preferences. Implications of these findings are discussed
Back to Program
