Abstract:
Government agencies go through a budgeting process every year that guides the success or failure of numerous programs that affect our lives. Most research on this process has analyzed budgets at the organizational-level, which does not consider the myriad of factors that influence the people doing the actual budgeting. This dissertation utilizes an original experiment to test how framed communication can affect budget recommendations. It finds that message framing, personality characteristics, and even demographics can influence budget recommendations. It uses these results to recommend organizational policy to improve the budget process.
