ABSTRACT: Based on Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan and Deci 2000b; Gagne´ and Deci 2005), the present research proposes and tests a motivation-based model of participation in budgeting that distinguishes among intrinsic motivation, autonomous extrinsic motivation, and controlled extrinsic motivation for participative budgeting. The proposed model was tested using a survey conducted among managers of an international bank. The results suggest that while intrinsic motivation and autonomous extrinsic motivation for participation in budgeting are positively related to performance, controlled extrinsic motivation is negatively associated with performance. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing among various forms of motivation in participative budgeting research and suggest that the mechanism by which the information benefits of participation in budgeting are obtained may be more complex than assumed. The results also provide evidence of the viability of using the proposed model to study commonly assumed reasons for participative budgeting within a general theoretically based framework of motivation.
