The Impact of Managers ’ Related Variables and Department Features on Budget Characteristics: The Case of Private Jordanian Universities

This study investigates the influence of manager and department variables on budget characteristics in private Jordanian universities. This paper aims to study the relationship between the departments ’ heads characteristics and department features with the budget participation, information sharing, budget adequacy, goal clarity, and budget feedback in private universities in Jordan. It draws on relevant prior studies in the management accounting particularly budget issues to formulate the research questions and implementing survey method with seventy seven functional managers in five private Jordanian universities to shed light upon the perceptions of proposed budget participants. The results indicate that there is no such a relation between the department type and size with the budget characteristics, and no significant association between most of the manager related variables and budget characteristics. In contrast, the results indicate that the experience earned in the university has a significant strong relation with budget characteristics and weak relation has been found between manager budget experience and budget characteristics. The data suggest that the department factors and the manager factors except the experience earned in the university and the budget experience have no impact on budget characteristics. Hence, the budget characteristics may influence other factors such as the management style, departmental autonomy