The perception of budgeting in Czech firms - results of a survey

Research background: Budgeting was developed during the Great Depression as a managerial tool to help enterprises survive a critical period characterized by fluctuations in macroeconomic indicators. Now, after more than eighty years, budgeting is criticized for the same reason why it was created - for lack of adaptability to unexpected changes in the business environment. Based on these facts, the presented study focuses on the specifics of budgeting in the current business environment. Purpose of the article: The aim of the work is to explore selected aspects of budgeting process in Czech firms, and to assess how the budgetary process is influenced by the progression of the business environment. Methods: To achieve presented target, the authors designed the questionnaire survey submitted to employees of companies in the Czech Republic. Findings & Value added: The first part of this paper displays the state of knowledge on budgeting, the following part presents results of the survey. The study identified several trends, especially in the use of budgeting in Czech firms, characteristics of budgets in these subjects and evaluation of the sustainability of a company's environment.Czech Science Foundation [GA 17-13518S/P403]; Internal Grant Agency of Tomas Bata University in Zlin [IGA/FaME/2016/005

How Czech firms deal with operational budgets? – Survey results

In recent decades, academics and practitioners started a deep discussion about the limitations and perspectives of enterprise budgeting systems. Traditional budgets are frequently criticized due to their inflexibility, weak connection to corporate performance and demand on manager’s time. Recently, we have observed more frequent examples of firms which have undertaken budgeting system transformation and the adoption of modern, flexible and performance-based budgets. In this study, we have studied some trends in the budgeting of Czech firms with a focus on the manager´s behaviour. This paper contributes to the existing knowledge in two fields: Firstly, it summarizes the existing state of the art regarding the budgeting transformation; secondly, it presents the survey results focused on the operational budget utilization and its impact on the manager’s behaviour. Overall, the study presents some findings regarding the impact of an operational budget on the manager’s behaviour. We have tested how frequently situations occur, more specifically those frequently discussed in literature, in a given Czech firm´s budgeting practices. © Foundation of International Studies and CSR, 2017.17-13518S/P403, GA, FP7 Coordination of Non-Community Research Programmes; IGA/FaME/2016/005, UTB, Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlín

Factors with a major effect on the budgetary control process – An empirical study from the Czech Republic

Superlatives are commonplace in descriptions of traditional budgeting. Within managerial accounting techniques, it is one of the most frequently used, the most researched, but also the most criticized. While academics are largely united in criticism of traditional budgeting practices due to their inflexibility and consumption of resources, the existing studies have not identified universal assumptions to improve this system. The inconsistent conclusions in current literature create a need to explore approaches to mitigation of budgetary weaknesses. Furthermore, this incomplete knowledge is an impulse to examine factors influencing the choice of these approaches. The authors conducted a review of the literature to amass information on approaches developed to enhance traditional budgeting methods. Subsequently, research was conducted on the extent of utilization and the subjective perception of such methods at a sample of companies operating in the Czech Republic. The authors additionally attempted to determine which factors influenced the decisions of managers in selection of such a tool. A web-based survey was devised with the aim of gathering data, followed by analysis of correlation between selected variables through application of Pearson's chi-square test. The literature review revealed the importance of conducting a budgetary review in improving the budgetary control. In total, 136 Czech companies took part in the survey, and it was discovered that a significant number of them had implemented traditional budgeting methods. More than 80% of respondents monitored any variation within their budgets. In the following part, the share of foreign capital was identified as the factor that influenced choices made in budgetary control. Since no correlation was discerned between revision of a budget and subsequent perception of its efficiency, the results lend support to arguments that minor improvements do not radically affect budgeting overall.Grantová Agentura České Republiky, GA ČR; Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlíně: IGA/FaME/2020/010Czech Science FoundationGrant Agency of the Czech Republic [GA 17-13518S/P403]; Internal Grant Agency of Tomas Bata University in Zlin [IGA/FaME/2020/010

The budgeting processes of Czech companies: The role of the ownership structure and foreign capital

Research background: The study investigates the initial phase of budgeting process conducted in corporations. The basic concept correlates with findings in scientific literature that describe budgeting as an inefficient tool, burdened by considerable regulation in the preparation and compilation stages. As a consequence, the majority of academics and practitioners have concluded that producing a budget is merely a formality that minimizes wrinkles on the faces of their initiators, while reaping debatable benefits for managerial control. Purpose of the article: This paper compares data from the literature with the actual budgetary practices of companies operating in the Czech Republic. The attention was paid to the detailed aspects of the budgeting process, factors affecting the time it takes to prepare a budget, and the impact of ownership structure, especially the role of foreign ownership and foreign capital, on the level of decentralization in the budgeting process. Methods: The authors examined these topics through a questionnaire completed by 136 respondents, primarily industrial companies based in the country. The subsequent hypotheses were assessed via application of the Z-test. Findings & Value added: The results presented show that the budgeting practices of the Czech firms are not only influenced by traditional factors (e.g. the size of the company and its given economic sector), but also certain other aspects. Essential facets comprise the ownership structure and the share of foreign capital involved, the latter affecting the extent of autonomy of the business as to the budgetary process. This submitted paper can extend the current theory with new findings on the specific nature of budgeting in post-socialist countries with an open economy and the significant influx of foreign capital. © 2021 Nicolaus Copernicus University. All rights reserved.Czech Science FoundationGrant Agency of the Czech Republic [GA 17-13518S/P403]; Internal Grant Agency of Tomas Bata University in Zlin [IGA/FaME/2020/010]Grantová Agentura České Republiky, GA ČR; Univerzita Tomáše Bati ve Zlíně: IGA/FaME/2020/01

Process costing methods as a tool of financial risks prevention

The paper focuses on the issue of the process costing methods as a potential tool to eliminate financial risks. Current surveys point to the fact that majority of Czech companies allocate overhead costs by historical prices or a percentage surcharge to the chosen representative of the direct costs. But there is no premise that direct and indirect costs should develop proportionally. Companies, using these out-date methods, risk the wrong managerial decision which will be identified late. Tools to eliminate this risk are currently processing costing methods. These methods react to harder demands of managers to raise information not only about situation in past, but also to get information in time and quality to interference actual decision-making process. The paper is supplemented by an practical application through a case study

Nástroje pro efektivní dotazování nad RDF daty

The RDF is one of the basic building blocks of the Semantic Web. It is a low-level data format intended to be used by software developers to create semantic-enabled applications. The ability to place and efficiently evaluate queries is key in this scenario. In this thesis, we approach the problem of RDF querying from three different angles. First, we present an RDF visualization tool, that the developer can use to get an idea about the structure and contents of the data. Second, we have designed extensions of the XQuery language that allow us to give it RDF handling capabilities. The main contribution is introduction of records into the language. Third, to cover query evaluation, we have designed the Bobox parallel framework, which can be used to simplify development of parallel data processing applications. It provides both task and data parallelism.RDF je jedním ze základních stavebních kamenů sémantického webu. Je to nízkoúrovňový formát, který lze pouít pro vývoj sémantických aplikací. Schopnost položit a efektivně vyhodnotit dotaz je při tvorbě těchto aplikací nezbytnou podmínkou. Tato práce přistupuje k problému dotazování nad RDF daty ze tří stran. Za prvé, popisuje nástroj pro vizualizaci RDF dat, který umožňuje vývojářům získat lepší představu o struktuře a obsahu dat. Za druhé, práce popisuje rozšíření jazyka XQuery, které nám umožnilo přidat do něj možnost zpracování RDF dat. Hlavní myšlenkou je zavedení záznamů jakožto nového druhu hodnot. Posledním aspektem zahrnutým v této práci je otázka efektivního vyhodnocení dotazů. Za tímto účelem jsme navrhli platformu Bobox, která výrazně zjednodušuje vývoj aplikací pro paralelní zpracování rozsáhlých dat a podporuje kódovou i datovou paralelizaci.Katedra softwarového inženýrstvíDepartment of Software EngineeringFaculty of Mathematics and PhysicsMatematicko-fyzikální fakult

Methods for effective querying of RDF data

The RDF is one of the basic building blocks of the Semantic Web. It is a low-level data format intended to be used by software developers to create semantic-enabled applications. The ability to place and efficiently evaluate queries is key in this scenario. In this thesis, we approach the problem of RDF querying from three different angles. First, we present an RDF visualization tool, that the developer can use to get an idea about the structure and contents of the data. Second, we have designed extensions of the XQuery language that allow us to give it RDF handling capabilities. The main contribution is introduction of records into the language. Third, to cover query evaluation, we have designed the Bobox parallel framework, which can be used to simplify development of parallel data processing applications. It provides both task and data parallelism

RDF querying

The RDF is one of the basic technologies of the Semantic Web. It is a language describing resources on the web. It de fines the format and semantics of such data but does not provide query capabilities. The aim of this thesis is to create system capable of querying RDF data. We have created a partial implementation of the SPARQL query language. The SPARQL standard is currently being developed by the W3C Consorcium. We have chosen the Oracle relational database to store the RDF data. The proposed database schema allows us to evaluate SPARQL queries by translating them into SQL queries. The proposed methods have been tested on a large set of RDF data. We have created several examples of SPARQL queries, translated them to SQL, and measured the evaluation time of the translated queries. Afterwards, factors with negative impact on the evaluation speed have been analyzed. We have proposed two ways of improving the evaluation times based on this analysis, implemented one of them, and measured its eff ects

RDF querying

The RDF is one of the basic technologies of the Semantic Web. It is a language describing resources on the web. It de fines the format and semantics of such data but does not provide query capabilities. The aim of this thesis is to create system capable of querying RDF data. We have created a partial implementation of the SPARQL query language. The SPARQL standard is currently being developed by the W3C Consorcium. We have chosen the Oracle relational database to store the RDF data. The proposed database schema allows us to evaluate SPARQL queries by translating them into SQL queries. The proposed methods have been tested on a large set of RDF data. We have created several examples of SPARQL queries, translated them to SQL, and measured the evaluation time of the translated queries. Afterwards, factors with negative impact on the evaluation speed have been analyzed. We have proposed two ways of improving the evaluation times based on this analysis, implemented one of them, and measured its eff ects.Jazyk RDF je základním stavebním kamenem Sémantického webu. Je to nástroj pro popis zdrojů na webu. De nuje však pouze formát a sémantiku dat, ne však způsob, jak se na tato data dotazovat. Cílem této práce bylo vytvořit systém, který by umožnil dotazování nad RDF daty. Byla vytvořena částečná implementace jazyka SPARQL. Standard SPARQL je v současné době vyvíjí jen konzorciem W3C. Pro uložení RDF dat byla vybrána relační databáze Oracle a bylo navrženo relační schéma, které umožňuje přeložit SPARQL dotazy na SQL dotazy. Navržené postupy byly otestovány nad rozsáhlými RDF daty. Pro ukázkové SPARQL dotazy byla provedena měření rychlosti vyhodnocení převedených dotazů. Analýza faktorů negativně ovlivňujících rychlost vedla k návrhu dvou možných vylepšení. Jedno z nich bylo implementováno a jeho přínos byl otestován nad daty.Department of Software EngineeringKatedra softwarového inženýrstvíFaculty of Mathematics and PhysicsMatematicko-fyzikální fakult

Budgeting process in the business environment

Budgeting is a managerial accounting tool which primarily focuses on the future. Traditional budgeting methods are widely used across many different businesses, however they remain the subject of much discussion among managers, economists and academics alike. Over the last few decades a growing scepticism can be observed with regards to the efficacy and poor adaptability of budgeting in the current business environment. The criticisms centre around the annual basis of budgets and the preference to use budgeting as a control tool. The introduction to this paper presents an overview of the trends within the discipline of budgeting on the basis of a literature review of publications and information garnered from scientific databases. The main part of the study presents the results of a survey focused on the budgeting process in the business environment. The sample consists of medium-sized and large Czech companies. The main objective of the survey was to assess the predictability of selected factors in the business environment through the budgeting process and to assess how effectively budgeting can adapt to market changes.Internal Grant Agency of Tomas Bata University in Zlin [IGA/FaME/2016/005