Heurísticas e Práticas Orçamentárias : Um Estudo Experimental (Heuristics and Budget Practices: An Experimental Study)

The aim of this study was investigate the heuristics presence in budgetary practices. The initial hypothesis highlighted was the heuristics use in budgetary processes, where the change in the level of bias was analyzed according to the level of individual's involvement. The second hypothesis attest that the professionals with higher level of involvement with the budgetary activities should be more trained than the others in the rationality exercise, revealing a lower prevalence of cognitive biases. Then, we conducted an experiment involving 99 graduate students in Salvador, Bahia. Furthermore, the findings indicated a significant occurrence of heuristics. Additionally, the evidence indicated that the level of engagement with budgetary processes was directly related with respondent's heuristics use. These results legitimize other empirical research in this area, signaling the need for improvement on existing understandings of cognitive failures in decisions related with business budget