This volume of Advances in Management Accounting (AIMA) begins with a
paper by Kowalczyk, Rafai, and Taylor on a new budgeting format, strategic budgeting, based on the notion that incorporating information symmetry into budgeting processes can reduce slack. This study incorporates
information symmetry via mutual monitoring through a ‘‘group budget
buffer.’’ They compare this budget format to a traditional format, which
does not incorporate information symmetry, and investigate differences in
spending decisions among managers. The results show that groups using
Strategic Budgeting spent less of the budget excess than those using Traditional Budgeting. This study is the first to experimentally examine the
effects of this new type of budgeting technique, as compared to Traditional
Budgeting, on managerial budgeting behavior