Abstract A bibliometric and science-mapping review is performed in this study to display the intellectual structure and track the thematic evolution of studies on the relationship between budget processes and firm performance. Two hundred twenty-two documents published between 1990 and 2025, indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection, have been retrieved. Performance analysis, keyword co-occurrence analysis, co-citation analysis, and bibliographic coupling analyses are conducted using VOSviewer. Three main theoretical foundations are revealed by the findings: agency theory, contingency theory, and resource-based view. Their influence evolves from a traditional financial control approach toward behavioral, contextual, and strategic conceptualizations of budget. Thematic analysis further highlights emerging research foci related to digitalization, sustainability, governance, and strategic alignment of budgeting systems. A convergence trend among these theories in recent studies is also found by the results of this study-in particular relation to digitalization, sustainability, and strategic alignment. This paper systematizes highly fragmented literature; discovers unexplored research gaps; provides academic insight as well as practical implication for those academics or practitioners who intend to re-design budgetary systems as one of the strategic drivers enhancing organizational performance.
T. Nguyen (Sun,) studied this question.