Traditional budgeting, why does it persist? : A case study of Värmlandstrafik

Abstract: In recent decades, the traditional budget has come under heavy criticism with researchers and practitioners calling it a "relic of the past" as it hinders the ability of organizations to respond to and keep up with changing market conditions. As a result, alternative approaches to budgeting have been developed:beyond budgeting, activity-based budgeting and rolling forecasting. However, at the same time, traditional budgeting continues to be widely used. Therefore, the aim of the study is to understand and assess the reasons for the persistence of traditional budgeting, as well as to explore the ways traditional budgeting can be improved in repsonse to the criticism leveled at it. To achieve the aim, the study was carried out in the form of a case study. The case chosen was Värmlandstrafik, an organization responsible for organizing public transport in Värmland, Sweden. Research data was collected through interviews with the case study`s employees. A total of 10 interviews were conducted from different departments including Finance, Bus, Trail, Service, and IT. The results indicated that traditinoal budgeting is far from dead and remains valuable tool mainly for its planning, control, and performance management functions. Another finding was that traditional budgeting criticism can be addressed by incorporating already existing management tools (e.g. forecasting) rather than taking an "either-or" approach to the alternatives and budgeting. However, the study´s findings also suggest that budgeting approaches are context-specific, making it difficult to draw generalizable conclusions about their strengths and weaknesses.