Openness in Communication and Budgetary Information in the Participative Budgeting Research. The Case of Italian Public Healthcare Organizations

In the last decades, the diffusion in Italian Public Healthcare Organizations (PHOs) of accounting and managerial practices, centered on planning and budgeting, have increased doctors’ presence into management roles. Clinical heads of units, becoming budget holders, have to face new accountability purposes. However, PHOs still struggle in implementing effectively hybrid professionalism, due to doctor-managers’ resistance to use budgetary information for decision-making. To overcome these criticalities, doctor-managers’ involvement in PHOs’ budgeting process may be beneficial, as highlighted by Behavioral Management Accounting research on budgetary participation. Nevertheless, without the support of openness in communication with top management, doctor-managers’ hybrid nature might lead them to develop a cognitive distance that may do not fit their predisposition to participate. A strengthening of their involvement in the budgetary information features design might mitigate these risks. In the BMA perspective, this paper explores the role of perceptions of openness in communication in improving the predisposition of doctor-managers to participate in the budgeting process, via the indirect effect of perceived utility of budgetary information. Data were collected administering a questionnaire to 332 doctor-managers of Italian PHOs. The response rate was of 37.95%. Hypotheses were tested through a regression analysis. Our study contributes to the interpretative research on the organizational factors affecting the involvement of doctor-managers in PHOs’ management, offering new insights into the psychological antecedents of budgetary participation. Results show that: perceptions of openness in communication have a positive effect on perceived utility of budgetary information; this latter has a positive effect on budgetary participation of doctor-managers.