Corporate budget planning, control and performance evaluation in Bahrain

Examines budget planning; implementation and performance evaluation practices by utilizing a questionnaire survey of 54 medium and large sized companies located in Bahrain. Most of the companies prepare long‐range plans and operating budgets, and they follow a definite budget procedure and implementation methodology. Uses budget variances to measure a manager’s ability, for timely recognition of problems, and to improve the next period’s budget. While both the listed and non‐listed companies have reported many similar budget practices, the main differences were specific purposes served by budgets, degree of budget participation, periodicity of variance reporting, and purposes and authority to evaluate budget variance reports. In certain cases, firm size influences budgeting practices. Contributes toward filling a gap in the literature on the use of budgets as a planning and control tool in developing countries. Most prior studies were mainly confined to advanced countries. The study findings suggest the need for research on attitudes held by the budgetees towards the use of budget variances in the context of advanced management accounting techniques.