Une étude empirique sur les débats et conflits lors de l'élaboration du budget

In this article, we try to study the phenomena of debates and conflicts during the budgeting process, in order to improve the literature on the conditions that are favourable to the performance of the budgeting process and on the value of conflicts on organizational performance. A quantitative study, based on 151 questionnaires collected among managers with various profiles and analyzed with structural equations modelling, enable us to conclude that the performance of the budgeting process is influenced much more by factors that have been identified in the literature on conflict as favouring a constructive resolution of oppositions (common vision, superior common goal, willingness to cooperate, belief in the possibility of resolution) than by the intrinsic level of debate or conflict. This research thus suggests for practice that debates or even conflicts among managers are not appropriate if cohesion factors, favourable to the constructive resolution of conflicts, are not at first present and effective. Complementary to the hierarchical vision of the budgeting process, our results also show that debates or conflicts between peers are the most efficient interactions to draw up a budget. Hence our work underscores the importance of the informal factors of cohesion as well as the managerial skill of team-management to prevent some of the flaws of the formal control devices, especially budgeting, as they have been identified in the literature.