Capital Budgeting Theory and Practice: A Review and Agenda for Future Research

Purpose The main purpose of this research was to delineate unearth lacunae in the extant capital budgeting theory and practice during the last two decades and ipso facto become springboard for future scholarships. Design/methodology/approach Web of science search and iCat search were used to locate research papers published during the last twenty years. Four criteria have been applied in selection of research papers: be an empirical study, published in English language, appeared in peer reviewed journal and full text research papers. These papers were collected from multiple databases including OneFile (GALE), SciVerse ScienceDirect (Elsevier), Informa Taylor & Francis (CrossRef), Wiley (CrossRef), Business (JSTOR), Arts & Sciences (JSTOR), Proquest ,MEDLINE (NLM), and Wiley Online Library. Search parameters covered capital budgeting, capital budgeting decision, capital budgeting theory, capital budgeting practices, capital budgeting methods, capital budgeting models, capital budgeting tools, capital budgeting techniques, capital budgeting process and investment decision. Thematic text analyses have been explored to analyses them. Findings Recent studies lent credence on the use of more sophisticated capital budgeting methods along with many capital budgeting tools for incorporating risk. Notwithstanding, it drew a distinction between developed and developing countries. Moreover, factors impinging on choice of capital budgeting practice were identified, and bereft of behavioural finance and event study methodological approach were highlighted. More extensive studies are imperative to build robust knowledge of capital budgeting theory and practice in the chaotic environment. Policy recommendation – This research was well thought out in its design and contributed by stating the known and unknown arena of capital budgeting during the last two decades. This scholarship facilitates to academics, practitioners, policy makers, and stakeholders of the company Limitations Limitations of this study were primarily concerned with Tower of Babel Bias and time constraint.


Problem Statement
During the past twenty years , the theory of capital budgeting has been characterized by the many increased applications on the basis of risk and uncertainty resulting from global economic, technological and advanced educational changes e.g: inflation risk, interest rate and exchange rate risk. Capital budgeting is the backbone of the financial management. Modern financial management theory generally assumes that the primary objective of a firm is to maximize the wealth of its owners (Atrill, 2009). Uncertainty and risk are the major influence in making investment decision and thus Mao (1970) says 'a central aspect of any theory of capital budgeting is the concept of risk ' (p.352). In order to implement the objective of modern financial management theory, 'financial executives need criteria for choosing between alternative time patterns of project evaluations within his planning horizon (Mao, 1970).' There are complexities in making investment decision and the theory could not always applicable in all situations. Problem statement of this study is how far capital budgeting theory differentiates with practice and to demonstrate the nature of the gaps in existing capital budgeting literature.

Research Questions
On the basis of background of research, the following research questions have been developed as the way to attain research objectives.
i. What are the capital budgeting theories and practices used by firms? Are there any disparities between the capital budgeting theories and practices? If so how? ii. What are the factors determines the use of capital budgeting practices? Are there different across countries? If so how? iii. What are the gaps in the existing capital budgeting literature?

Methodology
The main objective of this study is to find out gaps in extant capital budgeting literature during the past 20 years of study. The methodology covers research philosophy, research approach, research strategy, methods of data collection and data analysis. These entire methodological spheres used throughout the research have been below discussed in details.

Research Philosophy
One of the dominant philosophical concepts is the 'ontological assumption' that enquires about nature of reality, and any study absence of this assumption would be treated as "blinded" (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Lowe, 2002, p. 27). This research assumes that capital budgeting practices are different across firms/ nations and the ways of looking at capital budgeting practices are not same at all the time. It can be further articulated that even when there are number of capital budgeting theories, we cannot expect similar application at all situations and thus it is subject to changes.Thus, the ontological assumption is of constructionism. Constructionist ontology's view that world is being internally constructed and both individually and collectively generate meaning where we are not sure about what is real! Consequently, people guess reality of the world with the experience of external indicators.
Another important philosophical assumption is the epistemological assumption. It enquires about what should be taken as acceptable knowledge in a particular field (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe and Lowe, 2002). The traditional practices do not applicable in the contemporary borderless global businesses and thus try to understand the factors determine the use of capital budgeting practices. It guides how can we understand and determine capital budgeting practices in different context and in different geographical location. The knowledge can be attainable by text analysis with subject methods. Thus, it offers what is already known about capital budgeting practices and captures the gaps in extant literature by systematically reviewing literature.
This research takes interpretive approach on epistemology for answering research questions. The reality is not independent of individual thought and thus all the research findings are not similar with one another (Blaikie , 2007). Thus, this multiple reality is called 'subjectivism'. Findings could vary in different context such as nature of measurement tools, geographical location, company's size, organizational practices, types of sectors and form of methodology used. Thus, this research is organized by collecting relevant literature review and interpreting concepts of relationship between researchers and research. Inductive approach is thus suited by exploring thematic text analysis. Education(5), Management Accounting Research(5), The Journal of Finance(5), Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance (4), Management Decision (4) and The Review of Financial Studies. All of these journals represented 62.20 % of research papers in capital budgeting in the last two decades. The reminder of the research papers appeared in many journals. Capital budgeting is thus multi-disciplinary aspects and applied across many discipline. The table 1 below summarizes entire list of journals contained capital budgeting research papers.  (Graham and Harvey, 2001;Brounen, De Jong and Koedijk, 2004;Bennouna, Meredith and Marchant, 2010). Of these methods, discounted payback considers time value of money but it still ignores cash flows after initial outlay recovered. Value-at-risk (VAR) is to measure "the worst expected loss over a given horizon under normal market conditions at a given confidence level" (Jorion, 2006;p.12), is a relatively new method. The adjusted present value (APV) additionally covers the value of financial side-effects of an investment to NPV, and treated as having no drawbacks principally (Ross et al., 2005).
The greatest problems of the traditional present value models are that its complete reliance on quantifiable cash flows. However, in a contemporary high tech world, many new projects entail complete redesign of the manufacturing environment and computerized design is of paramount important to be innovative, higher qualities and speedier response (Cooper et al., 2002). And thus, the theory of capital budgeting is diverged from its practices.
The complex nature of the capital investment in today's world incubates many new models into practices including multi-attribute decision model, and analytical hierarchy process that are more subjective (Cooper et al., 2002). Modern theoretical developments in finance views that DCF methods are not the best methods to select capital investment projects: they have severe drawbacks in the analysis of investment projects if the information about future investment decision is not available (Brennan and Schwartz, 1992;Trigeorgis, 1993;Dixit and Pindyck, 1994). In such a situation, Real Options Reasoning (ROR) and Game Theory (GT) serves as better analytical tools to evaluate such investment projects (Smit and Ankum, 1993). GT stresses that firm is having an incentive to invest early in the case of fear of pre-emption (Smit, 2003) Real option theory: Real option is closely related to corporate capital investment decision-making and has been introduced as an alternative approach for investment appraisal under uncertainty. The starting point for real options research was the criticism of traditional strategic investment decision-making and capital budgeting methods. In general, a real option represents or reflects the option or options that a company has when it comes to deciding whether to invest in a project, delay, put it on hold, expand or reduce an investment, or any other flexibility that it may have (Rigopoulos, 2014). ROT involves the use of investment evaluation tools and processes that properly account for both uncertainty and the company's ability to react to new information (Verbeeten, 2006). ROT has operating flexibility (which enables the management to make or revise decisions at a future time, such as expansion or abandonment of the project) and the strategic option value (resulting from interdependence with future and follow-up investments, such as implementation in phases and the postponement of investments) (Verbeeten, 2006). Many researchers have argued that the use of real options analysis has an advantage over NPV, since NPV is not able to capture the value of managerial flexibility (e.g., Ingersoll and Ross, 1992;Trigeorgis, 1993;Dixit and Pindyck, 1994). For example, the management could delay, expand, abandon, temporarily close or alter the operation during the project' life. Ross et al. (2005) argued that most capital investment projects have options (i.e., the option to expand, the option to modify, the option to abandon), which have value per se. Although this method has not been applied on a large scale in practice (Hermes, Smid and Yao, 2007), it is mostly applicable in specific industries or situations. DCF techniques are used concurrently with real options in order to determine the true NPV (Amram and Howe, 2002). Many research scholars have found that only a few firms have employed real options (Graham and Harvey, 2001;Ryan and Ryan, 2002;Brounen, de Jong and Koedijk, 2004;Block, 2007;Truong, Partington and Peat,2008;Verma, Gupta and Batra,2009;Bennouna, Meredith and Marchant,2010;Shinoda,2010, Singh, Jain andYadav,2012;Andres, Fuente and Martin,2015).
It is obvious that widespread use of sophisticated capital budgeting during the last two decades. Many earliest studies investigated about capital budgeting decision rule, in contrast, recent researches attempted to focus on the use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices (e.g., Miller and Waller, 2003;Chatterjee et al., 2003). Application of sophisticated capital budgeting is more complex, and required the firms to be able to expend cost, time and effort (Busby and Pitts, 1997;Miller and Waller, 2003). Thus, it is important to think about the appropriate level use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices to the net benefits against costs. Anyhow, theory, in contrast, suggests that if uncertainty exists, use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices is valuable and the costs would be offset by the gains from successful investments (Verbeeten, 2006). If uncertainty exists, additional information needed to solve the problem of investment dilemma (Miller and Waller, 2003). It was identified that Canadian firms seem to be increasingly using sophisticated methods when dealing with risk (for example, sensitivity analysis, decision-tree analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, ROR, GT) (Bennouna, Meredith and Marchant , 2010). Nowadays, there are number of other methods including the project-dependent (risk-adjusted) cost of capital (PDCC), the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), the cost of debt (CD) used in capital budgeting practices. Among them PDCC and WACC are said to be sophisticated method and CD is the least sophisticated method (Hermes, Smid, and Yao, 2007).

Classification of Capital budgeting Practices
Capital budgeting practices help managers to select n out of N investment projects with the highest profits and an acceptable 'risk of ruin' (Verbeeten, 2006, p.108). By and large, all capital budgeting practices can be subsumed into the categories of sophisticated, advanced and naive (e.g., Haka, 1987;Haka, Gordon and Pinches, 1985;Verbeeten, 2006;Wolffsen, 2012). Naive practices includes PB, the adaptation of required payback and ARR, and the advanced /NPV based, including Sensitivity analysis/break-even analysis, scenario analysis, the adaptation of required return/discount rate, IRR, NPV, uncertainty absorption in cash flows, MIRR and PI. Farragher, Kleiman and Sahu (2001) suggested that a degree of sophistication is represented by the use of DCF techniques and incorporating risk into the analysis. Sophisticated capital budgeting methods generally include Monte Carlo simulations, GT, RO, using certainty equivalents, decision trees, CAPM analysis / ß analysis, and adjusting expected values (Verbeeten, 2006;Wolffsen, 2012).

Capital budgeting theory and practices in developed countries
This section clearly discusses the capital budgeting theory and practices especially in developed countries. As aforementioned, the capital budgeting practices are the investment decision taken for increasing shareholders value (Dayananda et al., 2002).
Many studies have been conducted about capital budgeting practices in U.S. and Europe (e.g., Pike, 1996;Sangster, 1993;Block, 2007;Hermes, Smid and Yao, 2007). Chadwell-Hatfield et al., (1997) conducted a survey among 118 manufacturing firms in the U.S. Results showed that NPV (84%) and IRR (70%) were preferred primary methods. However, it was clearly observed that two thirds of firms relied on shorter PB periods rather IRR or NPV. A seminal study carried out by Graham and Harvey (2001) about 'the theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field' and the sample consisted of 392 CFOs in the USA. In larger firms with high debt ratio, CFOs with MBA were more likely to use DCF (75% NPV and IRR) than their counterparts. Larger firms applied risk-adjusted discount rate whereas small firms opted for Monte Carlo simulation for adjusting risk. In addition, their findings further argued that PB method has not used as a primary tool, however, it kept as a vital secondary tool. Very similar results were reported in Ryan and Ryan's (2002) study where sample consisted of Fortune 1000 companies. Results were found that NPV was most popular technique, followed by IRR. Most of the firms used sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, inflation adjusted cash flows, economic value added, and incremental IRR along with NPV and IRR. Block (1997) studied about capital budgeting techniques across small business firms operating in the United States. The most popular method was the PB (42.7%), followed by ARR (22.4%). Notwithstanding, researchers connotes that small business owners seemed to be increasingly using DCF as the primary method for evaluating. Cooper et al.,(2002) studied capital budgeting practices in fortune 500 companies in America. Sample consisted of 102 chief financial officers reported that commonly used primary capital budgeting model is the IRR and the second is the payback. Ken and Cherukuri (1991) found that IRR was mostly preferred method in larger companies operating in the U.S. NPV was the next preferred method. The widely used discount rate was the WACC (78%) and the risk was commonly measured by sensitivity analysis (80%).Almost similar results were reported in the survey of Fortune 100 firms by Bierman in 1993. Arnold and Hatzopoulos (2000) conducted a study on "The gap between theory and practice in Capital Budgeting: Evidence from the UK for 300 UK companies (comprising 100 large, 100 medium and small 100). Results of study indicate that UK companies have increasingly adopted the analysis of financial textbooks prescribed. Stage has been reached in which only a small minority do not make use of discounted cash flows, formal risk analysis, adjustment corresponding inflation and post-audit in their study. Study reported however, managers still using simple rules of thumb techniques in UK Jog and Srivastava (1995) conducted a survey of capital budgeting practices in Corporate Canada and the results showed that the most preferred method was the PB. Similar results were found in the UK in Pike's (1996) study. Further results indicated that decreased use of ARR in Canada and the United Kingdom, respectively. It was identified that Canadian firms seem to be increasingly using sophisticated methods when dealing with risk (for example, sensitivity analysis, decision-tree analysis, Monte Carlo simulation, ROR, GT) (Bennouna, Meredith and Marchant , 2010). Drury, Braund and Tayles (1993) surveyed 300 manufacturing companies in the UK about their capital budgeting practices. Results showed that PB (86%) and IRR (80%) were mostly preferred methods across the sample. The widely used risk analysis was the sensitivity analysis. In a seminal study of Brounen, DeJong and Koedijk (2004), four European countries viz., U.K., France, Germany and the Netherlands consisting of 313 companies during 2002 and 2003 were examined. Their result showed that 47% and 67% of the UK companies were used NPV and PB respectively as a primary tool for evaluating capital budgeting decision whereas companies in Netherlands were used 70% of NPV and 65% of PB methods. However, companies in France and Germany reported lower usages of both methods (42% for NPV, 50 % for PB and 44% for NPV, 51 % for PB respectively). Previous studies have mainly conducted in the U.S. and the UK and limited number of studies are also available for the Netherlands (e.g., Herst, Poirters and Spekreijse, 1997;Brounen, De Jong and Koedijk, 2004).
Many researches recognized that DCF is the dominant in capital budgeting evaluation methods in the UK (e.g., Arnold and Hatzopoulos, 2000), the USA (e.g., Ryan and Ryan, 2002) and in Canada (e.g., Payne et al., 1999). However, most of the US firms use DCF techniques in comparison with firms in European countries (e.g., Brounen, DeJong and Koedijk, 2004). There is still some reluctance in this field due to the technical aspects of DCF (e.g., Cary, 2008;Magni, 2009). In 1993, Bierman and Smidt opined that the DCF methods are the preeminent investment decision tool and thus, it is imperative to manager to learn about its uses. Anyhow, NPV, IRR and PB are the most popular methods among North American and Western European companies (Graham and Harvey, 2001;Brounen, DeJong and Koedijk, 2004). Sekwat (1999) studied capital budgeting practices among 321 Tennessee municipal governments. His results showed that most of the municipal government's organizations are using benefit cost ratio (62.5 %) and payback methods (61.5%), and financial officers were in reluctant using IRR, ARR and even NPV methods. Holmen (2005) conducted a survey of capital budgeting techniques, used for FDI's by Swedish firms and found that larger firms were preferred to use NPV and IRR methods. However, the most preferred method was the PB (79%). In a survey of capital budgeting practices of Australian listed companies, Truong, Partington and Peat, 2008 found that NPV, IRR and PB were the most popular capital budgeting evaluation methods. Researchers were also identified the use of real option across the sample but not yet part of the mainstream.
In 2009, Kester and Robbins surveyed about capital budgeting techniques used by Irish listed companies. Results revealed that they use DCF methods and reported that most prevalent method was NPV, followed by PB, and IRR. Scenario analysis and sensitivity analyses were found to be most important tools for incorporating risk. WACC was the most important widespread method employed for calculating discount rate. On the other hand, Lazaridis (2004) studied capital budgeting practices in Cyprus. The PB was found as the most preferred method and not NPV. Shinoda (2010) carried out a survey of capital budgeting in Japan. Questionnaire has been administered to collect data from a sample of 225 companies listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange. Results showed that firms were using combination of PB and NPV for evaluating capital investment projects.
In summary, many studies have found that increasing use of sophisticated capital budgeting techniques among many developed countries: US, UK, European and Australian companies (Freeman and Hobbes, 1991;Shao and Shao, 1996;Pike, 1996;Herst, Poirters and Spekreijse , 1997;Brounen, DeJong and Koedijk, 2004 ;Truong, Partington and Peat, 2008). However, US companies seem to be using more DCF methods as compared to European countries.

Capital budgeting theory and practices in developing countries
There is dearth of studies carried out on capital budgeting practices in developing countries during the last two decades. In comparison with developed countries, the results of the most studies show a different picture. In most of the developing countries, PB method was the dominant methods in evaluating capital investment.  Kester et al. (1999) surveyed a total of 226 companies across six countries: Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore. Results showed that PB is still important method and the DCF methods have become increasingly important. In five Asian countries, 95% of firms used PB method and 88% of them use NPV in evaluating projects. However, both methods were treated as equally important. Kester, et al. (1999) noted that sophistication of capital budgeting techniques within the developing countries in Asia has been increased very rapidly during the last decade. Babu and Sharma (1996) studied Indian industries' capital budgeting practices and the findings showed that 90% of the companies were using capital budgeting methods. Of them 75% of companies reported that they were adopting DCF methods in evaluating capital budgeting, among them IRR was most popular. Sensitivity analysis was found to be popular in assessing risk. In 1998, Jain and Kumar studied about comparative capital budgeting practices: the Indian context and sampled 96 nongovernment companies where listed in Bombay Stock Exchange and five companies of South East Asia. They observed that most preferred capital budgeting techniques was the PB (80% companies), followed by NPV and IRR. Sensitivity analysis was the preferred risk assessment method. Cherukuri (1996) surveyed about capital budgeting practices: a comparative study of India and select South East Asian countries," with those of Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore and a sample consisted of top 300 non-government companies. This study found that of DCF methods, 51% of companies used IRR, followed by NPV (30%). Of non DCF methods, PB (38%) is the dominant method and the next widely used method was ARR (19%). The non DCF methods were used as supplement to DCF methods. WACC is the widely used discount rate and Sensitivity analysis was mainly used for risk assessment. A recent survey of capital budgeting Practices in corporate India, conducted by Verma, Gupta and Batra (2009), took a sample of 30 manufacturing companies in India. The results confirmed findings of Cherukuri (1996). This study showed that most preferred method is IRR (56.7%), followed by NPV (50%) and PB (36.7%). WACC (43.3%) is the widely used discount rate and Sensitivity analysis (36.7%) was mainly used for risk assessment. Researchers further observed that increasing adoption of DCF rather traditional use of non-discounted techniques. In 2012, Singh, Jain and Yadav studied on capital budgeting decision sampling from 31 listed companies in India. Albeit capital budgeting decision continued in India, all sampled firms reported that they are using discounted cash flow (DCF) techniques in combining with non-DCF techniques. Of discounted cash flow techniques, more than three quarters of the sampled companies use Internal rate of return (IRR)which more preferred than net present value (NPV) that used by half of the sampled companies. Further it has been reported that half of the companies use real option techniques in selecting their capital investment projects. Long term capital is of financing source to finance fixed assets (net) and working capital (net) in India. Most of the variables are country specific, researchers call for further detailed research considering sectorial analysis of the constituent sectors of the sample companies would be shed new light on this area. Hermes, Smid, and Yao (2007) carried out a comparative study of the Dutch and Chinese firms about capital budgeting practices. 66.7% of the Dutch CFOs stated that they used WACC and only 9.5 % of them used PDCC. Small firms use CD most often (22.7%) in comparison with larger firms (5.0%). In the Dutch firms, 89% of CFOs reported that they used NPV methods however, 2% of CFOs stated that they used the ARR which is the least popular method. In contrast, 53.3% of Chinese firms indicated that they use WACC, and just 15.7% of CFOs of Chinese firms use PDCC. However, 28.9% of CFOs reported that they use CD which is higher than that of the Dutch counterparts. Chinese CFOs stated that they more likely to use NPV and PB methods (89% and 84% respectively) in evaluating capital budgeting projects. Thus, on average, Dutch Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) use more sophisticated capital budgeting techniques than Chinese CFOs do.
In 2008, Leon, Isa and Kester conducted a survey of capital budgeting practices of listed companies in Indonesia. DCF was mainly adopted methods in those companies as primary evaluation tool for capital investment projects. . The most prevalent risk assessment tools were Scenario and sensitivity analysis. Results supported that CAPM was not so popular Recently, a survey of capital budgeting practices have been conducted by Khamees, Al-Fayoumi, and Al-Thuneibat (2010) in Jordan. Results reported that both DCF and non DCF method were still popular in evaluating capital budgeting investment. Surprisingly, the most popular method was PI, followed by PB.
Most recently, Maroyi and Poll (2012) conducted a survey of capital budgeting practices in listed mining companies in South Africa. Results showed that NPV, IRR and PB were the most prevalent methods in evaluating larger investment projects. Results further indicated that PB was found to be continual use of method. Following table summarizes the key findings on capital budgeting literature   Smid, and Yao , 2007) . Among the U.S. sample, there was a positive association has been found between CEO education and use of IRR (Graham and Harvey, 2001) and the findings has been confirmed in the Netherlands, Germany and France, but not in the UK (Brounen, DeJong and Koedijk, 2004). The reasons for more widespread use of DCF are the availability of computer software that used in computation (e.g., Pike, 1996) and increased level of formal education of managers (e.g., Pike, 1996;Sangster, 1993).
A few studies found that age of the CFOs was also a determinant of capital budgeting methods. For example, older CFOs could be reluctant to adopt new techniques, and instead prefer to relaying on older methods (e.g., Hermes, Smid, and Yao , 2007).
Since capital investment involves in long term, uncertainty /risk would play a vital role in capital investment decision making. Generally, uncertainty refers to as the gap between information available and information required to make any decision. Complete information is unavailable in long run and thus, uncertainty is the dominant factor in capital investment (Simerly and Li, 2000;Zhu and Weyant, 2003). Nature and type of uncertainty could be, including raw material uncertainties, input market uncertainties, labor uncertainties, political uncertainties, production uncertainties, output market uncertainties, liability uncertainties , interest uncertainties, inflation uncertainties, policy uncertainties, exchange rate uncertainties, competitive uncertainties and society uncertainties. Uncertainties have been treated with adopting sophisticated capital budgeting practices, for example, use of ROR and/or GT tools (e.g., Bowman and Hurry, 1993;Zhu and Weyant, 2003). The main concepts of the ROR demonstrates that specific uncertainties (rather than in general) that would affect capital budgeting practices (Dixit and Pindyck, 1994). Game theory specifies that the optimal investment criterion can also be changed by specific uncertainties (Smit, 2003). Thus, specific uncertainties need to be tackled with using different capital budgeting methods. The research findings supported that sophisticated capital budgeting practices are crucial and useful if financial uncertainties i.e., exchange rate, interest exist. However, social uncertainties, market uncertainties, and input uncertainties have not sufficiently supported to influence on use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices. Rather, theoretical background, many experts in capital budgeting area is expected to offer the capacity and willingness to adopt contemporary capital budgeting practices (e.g., Libby andWaterhouse, 1996, Williams andSeaman, 2001). Theory and a few empirical research states that specific uncertainties affect capital budgeting practices, for example, Ho and Pike (1998) found that there is a positive relationship between socioeconomic uncertainty (i.e., governmental regulations, trade unions actions) and the application of risk analysis techniques, however, the empirical evidence on these relationship with sophisticated capital budgeting practices are scarce (Verbeeten, 2006).
Recognition, assessment and reflection of the risk/uncertainty are intriguing. Nowadays, there are number of risk analysis method available such as sensitivity analysis, scenario analysis, decision trees, computer simulation and Monte Carlo analysis. In Graham and Harvey's (2001) study, participants recognised market risk and they also reported other risk factors including interest rate, inflation, size, foreign exchange rate. Surprisingly, they found that at least half of the firm did nothing to adjust WACC (firm's average risk) to incorporate project risk. However, in 1996, Shao and Shao reported that firms employed more on risk adjusted cash flows than risk-adjusted discount rates. Across their sample, they found that sensitivity analysis was the principal assessment technique. In contrast, Gitman and Vandenberg (2000) found in their study that 39 % of firms were adjusting their rates against adjusting risk for cash flows. Through there are number of sophisticated risk analysis models available, the applicability of those models were prone to barriers. The reasons for their reluctant have been reported as; it is not practical, depending on unrealistic assumption, difficulties in explaining to the top management and the difficulties in applying (Trahan and Gitman, 1995). Notwithstanding progress in risk identification, assessment and adjustment has been reported, none of the studies have not been looked at actual risk analysis, its process and management inputs to improve or usage of existing risk assessment and adjustment models. Sophisticated capital budgeting practices would help to identify many different types of investment projects in terms of uncertainty. A range of risk across the many investment projects would create diversification. Diversification generally helps to maximize the income from investments at minimum risk. A positive relationship has been found between diversification and use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices (Verbeeten, 2006). Recently, Holmen and Pramborg (2009) reported that the use of payback method has been positively combined with political risk. Klammer (1993), and Shank and Govindarajan (1992) suggested that nonfinancial consideration have been integrated into capital budgeting practices. For example, corporate management integrated into capital budgeting and thus the decision depends on some of the strategic management tools such as value chain analysis, cost drivers analysis, and completive advantage analysis. According to Carr and Tomkins (1996), the most successful companies were found to be using nonfinancial strategic information in making investment decision among their sample of 51 case studies in the UK, the U.S., and the German companies. However, it is argued that nonfinancial methods were prevalence when the firms did not adequately implement DCF methods (Carr and Tomkins 1996). However, any studies have not been carried out the use of non financial methods linking to DCF analysis. It has been argued that increasing acceptance of DCF analysis ignores the use of nonfinancial Research Journal of Finance and Accounting www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1697(Paper) ISSN 2222-2847(Online) Vol.7, No.1, 2016 methods (e.g., Graham and Harvey 2001;Ryan and Ryan, 2002).
Capital budgeting practices are different and may have "country effect" influence. This can be attributed to the some level of economic factors that determine choice of capital budgeting practices. It is recommend furthering research in indentifying country effect on capital budgeting practices with respect to the level of economic, human, financial and technological improvement. Shahrokh (2002) argued that capital budgeting is very complex, determined by many factors including: terminal values, foreign currency fluctuations, long-term inflation rates, subsidized financing, and Political risk. In Sekwat's (1999) study of capital budgeting practices in Tennessee municipal governments, the decision in using capital budgeting techniques are based on simple, versatile and flexibility of those techniques. Notwithstanding, he further argued that the usage of techniques in practices is in conjunction with qualitative factors such as ethical, legal, or political considerations. He concluded that since government funds the capital projects, political factors plays a critical role in making capital investment decisions.

Disparities between capital budgeting theory and practices
Capital budgeting theory recommends in using DCF methods (NPV, IRR, MIRR, PI and DPB) and non DFC methods (PB and ARR) for making capital budgeting decision. However, all most all the firms in developed and developing countries inclined to use sophisticated capital budgeting methods along with many capital budgeting tools for incorporating risk (i.e., sensitivity analysis, real options) and sophisticated discounted rate (i.e., Weighted Average Cost of Capital, Cost of Debt, CAPM) (e.g., Arnold and Hatzopoulos, 2000;Graham and Harvey, 2001;Ryan and Ryan, 2002;Cooper et al., 2002;Brounen ,deJong and Koedijk, 2004;Hermes, Smid, and Yao, 2007;Bennouna, Meredith and Marchant, 2010;Maquieira , Preve and Allende, 2012).
Nemours factors have been identified as the determinant of capital budgeting during the last two decades including size of the firm, ownership structure, nature of industries, educational qualification of CFOs, experience of CFOs, age of CFOs, uncertainty(for example, interest rate, inflation, foreign exchange rate), nonfinancial consideration and other factors (i.e, economic, human, technology, finance, ethical and political). Among them, some factors (for example, size of the firm, educational qualification of CFOs, experience of CFOs, age of CFOs) were positively associated with the use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices. However, in some cases, economic, political and technological factors directly and indirectly affect choice of the capital budgeting practices. (e.g., Bowman and Moskowitz, 2001;Zhu and Weyant, 2003;McGrath and Nerkar, 2004;Verbeeten, 2006;Donker, Santen and Zahir, 2009). Moreover, the factors determining capital budgeting practice connotes that to certain extent capital budgeting practice prone to 'country effect influence', for example economic factor, cutting edge technology (i.e., decision support system), political factors, accounting policies, accounting standards and other infrastructure facilities. Although capital budgeting theory was applicable regardless of countries, to certain extent the actual practices of capital budgeting (for example selection of capital investment) vary (e.g., Graham and Harvey, 2001;Shahrokh , 2002). 'In practice uncertainty, information asymmetry, multiple (conflicting) objectives, real options and multi -period multi project considerations greatly complicate capital budgeting beyond the focus of the theory' (Arnold and Hatzopoulos, 2000, p.609). A consideration of the impact of information asymmetry, real options and other complications on the capital budgeting exercise gives one the view that there is no unique correct technique and that there is a need for multiple methods (Arnold and Hatzopoulos, 2000). Thus, all these factors impinge on choice of the capital budgeting practices, and consequently, there are disparities between theory and practices.
Studies on the practice of capital budgeting in many countries have found that firms increasingly employ more sophisticated capital budgeting techniques to make investment decisions over several years (Klammer, 1973;Klammer and Walker, 1984;Pike, 1988;Klammer, Koch and Wilner, 1991;Jog and Srivastava, 1995;Gilbert and Reichart, 1995;Farragher, Kleiman and Sahu, 1999;Arnold and Hatzopoulos, 2000;Graham and Harvey, 2001;Mustapha and Mooi, 2001;Ryan and Ryan, 2002;Brounen, de Jong and Koedijk, 2004;Hermes, Smid, and Yao, 2007;Truong, Partington and Peat, 2008;Baker, Dutta and Saadi, 2011;Singh, Jain and Yadav, 2012). When comparing a developed economy with an emerging economy, the developed economy has highly developed capital markets with high levels of liquidity, meaningful regulatory bodies, large market capitalisation, and high levels of per capita income (Geary, 2012). An emerging market, is in the process of rapid growth and development with lower per capita income, less mature capital markets and very small capital projects, compared with developed countries. Therefore, obviously, emerging market economies pose challenges in applying capital budgeting techniques, owing to less developed capital markets and the difficulty of setting key parameters.

Answering to the research questions: Summary of the findings
It is crucial to answer the research questions in order to attain research aims. The first question enquired about "what are the capital budgeting theories and practices used by firms? Are there any disparities between the capital budgeting theories and practices? If so how?" The answers for these questions have been well documented during the last twenty years of studies. Capital budgeting theory recommends in using DCF methods (NPV, IRR, MIRR, and DPB) and non DFC methods (PB and ARR) for making capital budgeting decision. However, all most all the firms in developed and developing countries inclined to use sophisticated capital budgeting methods along with many capital budgeting tools for incorporating risk (i.e., sensitivity analysis, real options) and sophisticated discounted rate (i.e., WACC, CD, CAPM) (e.g., Arnold and Hatzopoulos, 2000;Graham and Harvey, 2001;Ryan and Ryan, 2002;Cooper et al., 2002;Brounen ,DeJong and Koedijk, 2004;Hermes, Smid, and Yao, 2007;Bennouna, Meredith and Marchant, 2010;Maquieira , Preve and Allende, 2012). Thus it can be concluded that there are some disparities between capital budgeting theory and practice. The next research's question further backs up to this question.
The second question asked about "what are the factors determines the use of capital budgeting practices? Are there different across countries? If so how?" Nemours factors have been identified as the determinant of capital budgeting during the last two decades including size of the firm, ownership structure, nature of industries, educational qualification of CFOs, experience of CFOs, age of CFOs, uncertainty(for example, interest rate, inflation, foreign exchange rate), nonfinancial consideration and other factors (i.e, economic, human, technology, finance, ethical and political). Among them, some factors (for example, size of the firm, educational qualification of CFOs, experience of CFOs, age of CFOs) were positively associated with the use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices. However, in some cases, economic, political and technological factors directly and indirectly affect choice of the capital budgeting practices. (e.g., Bowman and Moskowitz, 2001;Zhu and Weyant, 2003;McGrath and Nerkar, 2004;Verbeeten, 2006;Donker, Santen and Zahir, 2009). Moreover, the factors determining capital budgeting practice connotes that to certain extent capital budgeting practice prone to "country effect influence", for example economic factor, cutting edge technology (i.e., decision support system), political factors, accounting policies, accounting standards and other infrastructure facilities. Although capital budgeting theory was applicable regardless of countries, to certain extent the actual practices of capital budgeting (for example selection of capital investment) vary (e.g., Graham and Harvey, 2001;Shahrokh , 2002). Thus, all these factors impinge on choice of the capital budgeting practices, and consequently, there are disparities between theory and practices.
The last question asked about "what are the gaps in the existing capital budgeting literature?" Traditional financial theory suggests that the decision makers are rational, however, modern theory suggests that decision have influenced by many cognitive illusions (Leon, Isa and Kester, 2008;Tayib and Hussin, 2011). Thus behavioral finance came into play in capital budgeting decision making. Capital budgeting research connected with behavioral finance have not been studied any developing countries during the last twenty years. Literature says behavioral finance is a dominant theory determining capital budgeting decision, confirmed in many studies carried out in developed countries. Thus, there is a complete dearth of research in Asian studies in case of behavioral finance penetration on capital budgeting practices.
No studies have been attempted to identify relationship between supportive capital information system (software products to make the required analysis easier in comparison with manual system) and capital budgeting decision making. Thus it has been identified as a gap between information system and choice and practice of capital budgeting (Bennouna, Meredith and Marchant, 2010). Similarly, the environment in which organization are working impact on quality decision. Thus, researcher should concentrate on scanning organizational environment to make good investment decision rather purely depends on financial theory. Thus it is paramount important in the current context. Almost all the research carried out during the last two decades adopted limited methodological aspects. For example, cross sectional research design, case study and some form of qualitative study were more popular (e.g., Butler et al., 1993;Verbeeten, 2006;Hermes, Smid and Yao, 2007;Maquieira , Preve and Allende, 2012). However, in modern world, some form of event study methodology would be seminal for providing greater insights into capital budgeting practices. Thus, a gap has been identified in use of methodological concepts.
Renowned researchers found that nowadays most of the large companies are inclined to use sophisticated capital budgeting practices. However, it is intriguing question whether SCBP are important to all types of investment (e.g. expansion, replacements, mergers and takeovers) and all type of industries, and those techniques outperform than non SCBP. Thus, these conundrums need to be well investigated.
Many research scholars have argued that capital budgeting influenced by "country effect influence" (e.g., Graham and Harvey, 2001;Shahrokh, 2002;Hermes, Smid and Yao , 2007), for example, economic policies, taxation system, accounting policies, conductive social climate, culture of people, technological factor (i.e., decision support system), government control, political factors, infrastructure facilities. Therefore, more extensive studies are imperative from unsearched countries to build robust knowledge.
Many studies conducted in developed counties have found that firms use more sophisticated capital budgeting practices (Graham and Harvey, 2001;Brounen, de Jong and Koedijk, 2004). Nonetheless, when comparing with developed countries, more sophisticated capital budgeting practices are not prevalent in developing countries. Thus, future research scholars need to consider the challenges faced by CFOs with regard Research Journal of Finance and Accounting www.iiste.org ISSN 2222-1697 (Paper) ISSN 2222-2847 (Online) Vol.7, No.1, 2016 to the use of sophisticated capital budgeting practices (i.e. organisational barriers/knowledge gap of CFOs, technological challenges) as they lead to increased performance.
Another opportunity for future research is the investigation of other organisational characteristics (e.g. business unit strategies, reward and incentive structures, distribution of decision rights and financial structure) that have been shown to affect capital budgeting practices. Renowned researchers have found that nowadays, most large companies are inclined to use sophisticated capital budgeting practices (SCBP).

Policy recommendation
Many research scholars criticized that many researches on capital budgeting were opt-testing the methods of capital budgeting and its practices. They were purely finding that actual what methods were in practice. However, in practice, there are enormous factors affecting the capital budgeting practice and it has "country effect" too. In line up with this argument, this research was well thought out in its design and become springboard for future research. This study contributed by stating the known and unknown arena of capital budgeting during the last two decades.
In the cutting edge technology world, the way of doing things have been changed and challenging. For example, decision support system become more prevent in making decision and more advanced technological sphere penetrates into assessing capital budgeting practices than ever before. Thus, this research would make awareness to top management, policy makers, practitioners and stakeholders of the company.