Tham khảo tài liệu 'pearson education of management accounting_8', kinh doanh - tiếp thị, quản trị kinh doanh phục vụ nhu cầu học tập, nghiên cứu và làm việc hiệu quả | 240 CHAPTER 7 ACCOUNTING FOR CONTROL Demanding yet achievable budget targets tend to motivate better than less demanding targets. It seems that setting the most demanding targets that are acceptable to managers is a very effective way to motivate them. Unrealistically demanding targets tend to have an adverse effect on managers performance. Once managers begin to view the budget targets as being too difficult to achieve their level of motivation and performance declines. The relationship between the level of performance and the perceived degree of budget difficulty is shown in Figure . Figure Relationship between the level of performance and the perceived degree of budget difficulty At a low level of budget difficulty performance also tends to be low as managers do not find the targets sufficiently motivating. However as the degree of difficulty starts to increase managers rise to the challenge and improve their performance. Beyond a certain point however budgets are seen by managers as being too difficult to achieve and so motivation and performance decline. The participation of managers in setting their targets tends to improve motivation and performance. This is probably because those managers feel a sense of commitment to the targets and a moral obligation to achieve them. It has been suggested that allowing managers to set their own targets will lead to slack that is easily achievable targets being introduced. This would make achievement of the target that much easier. On the other hand in an effort to impress a manager may select a target that is not really achievable. These points imply that care must be taken in the extent to which managers have unfettered choice of their own targets. Conflict can occur in the budget-setting process as different groups may well have different agendas. For example junior managers may be keen to build slack into their budgets while their senior managers may seek to impose unrealistically demanding budget targets. .
