What is budgetary slack? What are the pros and cons of building slack into the budget from the point of view of (a) an employee and (b) a senior manager?

What will be an ideal response?

Answer: Budgetary slack occurs when subordinates (a) ask for excess resources above and beyond what they need to accomplish budget objectives and (b) distort information by claiming they are not as efficient or effective at what they do, thus lowering management's performance expectations of them.

Employee's point of view: There are two benefits from this point of view. First, the subordinate may be able to obtain excess resources to achieve desired goals. This may take a lot of pressure off the subordinate and reduce job anxiety. Second, the subordinate may be able to convince senior management to lower their work expectations of him or her. This may also lead to lower pressure on the subordinate to perform. Both of these types of slack building are designed to reduce job stress for the subordinate. However, if incentives are graduated in such a way that achieving higher and higher goals provides the subordinate with more and more compensation in the form of bonuses, then the subordinate may lose income by selecting lower goals.

Senior management's point of view: When subordinates build in slack, they are either using unnecessary resources to achieve a goal that they should have been able to achieve with fewer resources, or they are understating their performance capabilities. Thus, the organization is either not running as efficiently as it can, or is losing potential productivity from employees who are not working as hard as they can. In some cases, senior management may believe that subordinates build in slack to relieve job pressure. If burnout of employees has been happening in the organization, then perhaps senior management may be more forgiving and view some slack building as necessary to keep their employees from quitting.