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Such as Milani 1975 suggested that attitude toward the job is offered as an intervening factor which lead to better performance. He also suggested that good
attitude toward company or organization will lead a more effective overall performance for the organization. Mia 1988 found that manager’s attitude
appear to be a contingent variable moderating the relationship between their budget participation and performance. The result revealed that budget
participation by managers who had a more favorable attitude was associated with improved performance while that budget participation by managers who had a less
favorable attitude was associated with hampered performance. In addition, Yuen 2007 found that employees’ work attitudes and their need for a sense of
achievement are confirmed as significant influencing factors to job performance during participation in budgetary activities. The present study examined the need
for achievement and work attitude as the antecedent of budgetary participation in order to enhance job performance.
B. Hypothesis Development
1. Need for achievement and budgetary participation
A need for achievement has long been thought to influence job performance. Locke in Alam and Mia 2006 suggested that a sense of
achievement promotes motivation and good job performance. The importance of a sense of achievement lies in the belief that one should work hard to accomplish
difficult but challenging goals at work.
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In terms of the budgeting process, these findings suggest that managers with a greater need for achievement are likely to set more challenging, but
attainable, budget targets. They are also likely to seek greater control over their working environment to maximize the probabilities of achieving or attaining their
goals, and the budgetary participation facilitates achievement such control. They are more likely to express a willingness to accept more challenges and to take
extra responsibilities voluntarily Yuen 2007. Given that budget participation is an important organizational process through which managers may exchange job-
relevant information, it is possible that managers’ need for achievement may affect their desire for participation in budget setting. The need for achievement
acts as a motivating factor for employees to participate in budget setting as it facilitates their performance improvement Alam and Mia 2006.
Steers 1975 also found that need for achievement does have an important effect on the relationship between performance and job attitudes. Findings
concerning need for achievement are consistent with the argument advanced earlier that high need for achievement subjects would exhibit a relatively strong
association between performance and satisfaction because superior performance in itself often represents a form of intrinsic reward for such persons and often
leads to the receipt of positively extrinsic rewards from the organization. Subramaniam 2002 stated that increasing participation in the budgetary
process becomes useful for managers with high need for achievement because participation helps them gain appropriate job-relevant information and set more
challenging yet attainable targets. Thus, from a psychological viewpoint,
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managers with high need for achievement would seek to have greater control over their work environment in order to maximize the probability of achieving or
attaining their goals, and budgetary participation facilitates achieving such control. So, it suggest that managers’ need for achievement may lead to or act as
an antecedent of their budget participation, which in turn may positively influence their performance. As results of the above discussion, Hypothesis H1
can be stated as follows: H1
: There is a direct and positive association between an employee’s need for achievement and employee’s budgetary participation.
2. Work attitudes and budgetary participation
