Local Government Budgeting Practices in a Traditional Setting

This thesis demonstrates the interactions of key players in government budgeting, i.e. Executive and Legislative in a traditional setting. Drawing on Weber's (1964) traditionalism and Black's (2008) legitimacy and accountability relationships guided by Archer's (1995) morphogenetic approach as the broad methodology, it seeks to understand the interactions of key players in government budgeting practices situated in a traditional setting, and to explain how and why traditional domination in organisations continues to survive or is at least perceived as legitimate amidst the wave of modernity through the enhancement of formal rationality. This study undertakes a case study in a local government in Indonesia. Amidst the absence of a study of the interactions of Executive and Legislative in the budgeting process, this case study provides an in-depth picture of how the key budgeting players undertake budget decision making. It also depicts that formal bureaucratic control of the local government is also influenced by the control logic imposed by strong family groups, promoting the intervention of familial control over the formal bureaucratic mechanism, thus causing budgeting practices to also serve the whim of family groups. Interestingly, contrary to previous studies on accounting in traditional settings, this thesis found the strategic role of government budgeting as an accountability mechanism to maintain the legitimacy of strong family groups to ‘rule’ the local government or to maintain the status quo. The frameworks of both Weber and Black are very useful in explaining why the budget is also used to serve familial interests and as an accountability mechanism. This thesis contributes further to the study of the interaction of Executive-Legislative in the budgeting process, depicting how they interact and exercise their power to achieve a consensus on the budget. It also contributes to accounting studies in traditional settings, exploring the role of accounting as an accountability mechanism, a finding contrary to that of previous studies.