Investigating the effects of budgetary control system on budgetary performance considering the mediating role of budgetary perception in public hospitals (Case Study: Hospitals in Fars province)

In management accounting, the budget is cornerstone of management control process and one of the unresolved issues. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of hospital budgetary control system on budgetary performance considering the mediating role of budgetary perception.

This is a descriptive and correlational research in terms of nature and method. The statistical population of study is the managers of public hospitals in Fars province. 400 questionnaires were distributed among members of statistical population and 103 questionnaires were collected. For statistical analysis, structural equation modeling technique have been used.

Findings showed that with increasing managers' budgetary evaluation, budgetary attitude (0.895) and budgetary motivation (0.280) increases. Also, managers' budgetary performance by increasing budgetary motivation (0.305) and managers' propensity to budgetary slack (0.382), will increase. However, increasing budgetary participation have no effect on managers' budgetary perception in terms of budgetary attitude (-0.085), propensity to budgetary slack (0.208) and budgetary motivation (-0.1). Budgetary feedback also has not the power to influence managers' budgetary perception in terms of budget attitude (-0.220), propensity to budgetary slack (0.271) and budgetary motivation (0.066). In addition, between budgetary evaluation and managers' propensity to budgetary slack (0.139) and also between budgetary attitude and budgetary performance (-0.055) have no significant relationship was observed. The results of the Sobel test also confirmed the mediating role of the budgetary motivation (3.050) in the relationship between budgetary evaluation and budgetary performance.

Hospital managers and policymaker via giving more importance to budget evaluation can improve managers' budgetary motivation and attitude; Also, they can improve the performance of hospital budgets by improving budgetary motivation.