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Electronic government (e-government) is perceived as an effective tool to enhance accountability in public organizations. However, e-government implementation to enhance accountability is still unclear and involves many complex processes because of the multiple accountabilities disorder. The e-government elements that contribute to mitigate the disorders and dysfunctions of accountability relationships are still underdeveloped in the current literature. This paper aims to provide understanding on how e-government enhances public organizations’ accountability by highlighting the key elements of e-government that mitigate the disorders and dysfunctions of accountability relationships.

This study adopts a qualitative case study approach by using the case of Jordan Customs. Data were collected using a triangulation approach that involved semi-structured interviews, document reviews and observation.

The findings revealed that the e-government elements that mitigate the disorders and dysfunctions of accountability relationships are classified into three contexts, namely, technological, environmental and organizational aspects. The technological elements include systems integration, single window and electronic connectivity. The environmental elements embrace public participation and partnership council. The organizational elements comprise having well-defined strategic plan and risk management approach.

This study contributes and gives further insight into how to address the confusion, fuzziness and dysfunctions in accountability relationships existing in the literature by providing several success elements that mitigate the problematic of disorder between accountability relationships in public organizations. The paper highlights the need to investigate further elements, particularly, in the organizational context, to assist public organizations in improving their performance to enhance accountability in their operations.

This study provides guidelines for future e-government implementation strategy in public organizations, particularly, in the context of developing countries, as most of the recent studies of e-government in developing countries indicated that they are suffering from difficulty of managing e-government implementation to promote accountability successfully and are struggling with a lack of resources and experiences to handle this new trend of technology.

This study is of a significant value, as it is one of the preliminary studies that empirically extend the accountability dimensions suggested by Koppell (2005) with the key success elements of e-government that enhance accountability proposed by Heeks (1998b) and other current literature. This paper enriches the body of literature by providing some new key success elements of e-government that enhance accountability in public organizations. It also contributes to the expansion of the boundaries of knowledge by adding further interpretation on how these elements reduce the existing confusions and dysfunctions in accountability relationships.

Community-based social enterprises (CBSEs), a spatially defined subset of social enterprise, are independent, not-for-profit organisations managed by community members and committed to delivering long-term benefits to local people. CBSEs respond to austerity and policy reforms by providing services, jobs and other amenities for residents in deprived communities, thus contributing to neighbourhood regeneration. This paper aims to develop a better understanding of how CBSEs perceive accountability, how they apply it in the management and representation of their business and why.

Nine case studies of CBSEs across three European countries (England, the Netherlands and Sweden) are analysed, using data from semi-structured interviews with initiators, board members and volunteers in CBSEs.

CBSEs shape accountability and representation in response to the needs of local communities and in the wake of day-to-day challenges and opportunities. Apart from financial reporting, CBSEs apply informal strategies of accountability which are highly embedded in their way of working and contingent upon their limited resources.

Although research has shown the complex governance position of CBSEs, their application of accountability to target communities and other stakeholders is unclear. The paper coins the term “adaptive accountability,” reflecting a relational, dialectic approach in which formal, costly accountability methods are only applied to legally required forms of accounting, and informal practices are accepted by funding agencies and governments as valid forms of accountability, assessing CBSEs’ societal value in more open terms.

Drawing on an accountability framework developed for social enterprise organizations (SEOs), this paper examines the annual report disclosure practices of SEOs in the United Kingdom in order to investigate the types of accountability disclosed by SEOs.

After developing a SEO database, and utilizing a bespoke document coding checklist, the annual reports of 129 SEOs were examined.

The results indicate that while SEOs would be expected to account in line with normative stakeholder theory, many do not provide constructive and voluntary accountability information to their stakeholders, at least through the annual report, and that their focus is on satisfying legal obligations.

In response to calls for research to better understand accountability in new organizational contexts, this paper makes two contributions: firstly, by extending prior accountability research in the NFP sector to consider organizational hybrids, it raises questions about organizational accountability and how it is discharged in situations where an organization operates as a business and yet is accountable for its social mission; secondly, assuming these organizations are driven by their business and social logics, the findings suggest that SEO accountability disclosure practices are inconsistent with the social objectives on which they are based.

This paper aims to analyse performance measurement ambiguities in hybrid universities. In accounting research, performance measurement of universities has been discussed in detail, and there is some research on impacts of hybridity in institutional systems. However, there is a particular need in accounting research for more sophisticated theorizations of the ambiguities associated with measuring performance in hybrid organizations. Moreover, there is a dearth of accounting-related interdisciplinary studies conceptualizing the hybridity of universities with important implications for measuring and reporting performance. This paper fills this research gap by providing more elaborate basis for conceptualizing performance measurement ambiguities through the lenses of hybrid universities.

The authors critically scrutinize the promise of performance measurement in hybrid universities and explore why it may result in new policy problems. Questions asked are as follows: How can we better understand those institutional mechanisms through which the promise of performance measurement may ultimately result in new forms of ambiguities and unexpected outcomes, and what are the specific characteristics of hybridity that make those mechanisms possible in universities?

The authors propose a conceptual model for studying universities in hybrid performance settings. The model provides a new inter-disciplinary approach for conceptualizing performance measurement ambiguities in universities when they are influenced by hybridity, hybrid arrangements and hybrid governance.

This paper provides more elaborate basis for understanding hybridity of universities, not only through reforms for combining business, government and collegial professional logics (e.g. corporatization, marketization) or through new hybrid mixes of professions but also as a more comprehensive, inter-disciplinary understanding of institutional structures, logics and practices at modern universities.

This research paper comparatively reviews online accountability practices in public, private and nonprofit organizations, using the hospital industry as a case of analysis.

The authors conducted a quantitative content analysis of 240 US hospital websites, sampled from the 2016 American Hospital Association (AHA) database. Online Accountability Practices (OAP) instrument was utilized, and it included five dimensions as follows: accessibility, engagement, performance, governance and mission.

There were statistically significant differences in online accountability practices among the three sectors. Nonprofit organizations were leading the way in their overall online accountability practices. They were more likely to score higher on engagement, performance and mission dimensions. We explain this finding through the prism of multiple accountabilities, guided by the stakeholder theory. Private organizations had the lowest scores on every online accountability dimension, except for accessibility. Consistent with previous literature, private organizations were more likely to make information accessible in the online sphere, but not necessarily meaningful or reliable for evaluating organizational performance. Public organizations had the strongest scores within the governance dimension, placing importance on disclosing organizational leadership and sharing information on their governance structures.

This project contributes to theory building on accountability in the online environment. It argues that the distinction between two forms of accountability (functional and holistic) is applicable in the online environment, while accessibility and performance dimensions of online accountability closely align with the functional (hierarchical) form of accountability, and a more holistic approach to accountability includes dimensions like engagement, governance and mission. In addition, this project is the first of its kind to apply the stakeholder theory to accountability practices in three sectors of the economy and how the stakeholder theory provides guidance as a basis of understanding the forms of accountability (functional and holistic) that are most likely aligned with organizations in three sectors of the economy.

The results of this study point to a number of implications for hospital patients, families, hospital administration, healthcare professionals and policymakers. These implications can be broadly divided into two groups as follows: policy implications and management implications. Policy implications pertain to the national dialog and interorganizational deliberations of sector-wide policy to enrich accountability practices; while management implications are concerned with local, intraorganizational discussions among administrators and organizational leaders on formulating specific strategies and tactics.

This research paper contributes to empirical studies on organizational accountability in the online environment. It enriches our understanding of how organizations in different sectors present themselves to the public.

The purpose of this study is to examine the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative’s (NEITI) ineffectiveness in delivering public accountability to Nigerian citizens. Although this failure is recognised in prior literature, the authors contend that NEITI’s role is obscured by one-sided links to external factors.

The conceptual framework presented in this study is built around Dillard and Vinnari’s (2019) distinction between different accountability systems and Brown and Dillard’s (2020) complimentary insights on the technologies of hubris and humility. The analytical framework draws from Grant and Keohane’s (2005) modes of accountability, which the authors use to articulate conflicting accountability demands (to-whom and for-what) of NEITI’s operating relationships. Combined, the authors analyse official documents, media, reports and interview responses from members of NEITI’s National Stakeholders Working Group.

This study surfaces a variety of intersecting interests across NEITI’s operational relationships. Some of these interests are mutually beneficial like that of Donors and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Others run counter to each other, such as NEITI’s relationship to the Presidency which illustrates a key source of NEITI’s ineffectiveness. In discussing these interests, the authors articulate their connection to NEITI’s design as an accountability system and its embedded limitations.

The authors provide incremental understanding of prior insight regarding NEITI’s ineffectiveness by drawing attention to its fundamental design as an accountability system and its failure to deliver public accountability. To illuminate these failures, the authors also map NEITI’s competing accountability demands – the nexus of accountability – to demonstrate the complex socio-political reality within which NEITI is expected to operate. The authors posit that NEITI’s ineffectiveness has as much to do with NEITI itself, as it does with external factors like the quality of information disclosed and the unique Nigerian context.

A considerable proportion of donor aid is dedicated to technical assistance to support developing countries in their development initiatives. The majority of this aid comes from globally-operating international donors including the World Bank and the European Union. In spite of several harmonization attempts, there still exist major differences in their procurement regulations and standard contracts. Based on an extensive literature review on consulting services and an in-depth analysis of the standard forms of contract, it was found that divergence between both forms is not only clear but also paradigmatic owing mainly to market orientation paradigm differences. The findings and recommendations help advance research on and practice of various types of consultancy services in general.

This paper aims to explore how accountability to members is practised within credit unions. In particular, this study examines formal and informal practices and underlying approaches regarding accountability to members.

Adopting a case study approach, this study explores accountability within two credit unions in the lightly-regulated context of Indonesia through focus group discussions with credit union practitioners and documentary analysis.

Findings reveal both credit unions prioritised accountability to members for financial and social performance, underpinned by a socialising, relational approach and driven by a strong sense of social mission. Various mechanisms were adopted to directly address accountability to and empowerment of members, facilitating their participation and education. Further, several mechanisms of and approaches to accountability to other stakeholders indirectly enhanced the credit unions’ accountability to members.

This study highlights the interrelated nature of credit unions’ accountability mechanisms to members. Further, empowerment through participation, education and small business development, suggests valuable investment in members’ social, intellectual and financial capital.

This study examines the socialising nature of accountability to credit union members and other stakeholders to support members’ interests, providing insights into how third sector organisations more broadly might enhance accountability to those the organisation seeks to serve.

This paper aims to explore the financial and non-financial accountability disclosure patterns of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), as hybrid organizations.

Adopting the hybridity concept and resorting to stakeholder theory, this paper works on a comparison between the accountability disclosure patterns of hybrid and private organizations operating in the same industry. European national news agencies are selected as units of analysis and an extensive web content analysis is performed on three categories of information.

SOEs are found to disclose a broader spectrum of information than private organizations, and differences between them have been found. Nevertheless, both financial and non-financial disclosures are underdeveloped in the two organizational types.

This paper illustrates how hybridity explains SOEs’ accountability disclosure patterns. Results could not be complemented through information on disclosure through alternative channels. Future studies are encouraged to perform simultaneous comparisons among hybrid, public and private organizations, as well as considering industry specifics.

As web accountability disclosure helps to address the demands of distant stakeholders, efforts are needed to enhance SOEs’ web accountability disclosures and not to undermine democratic accountability relationships.

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the accountability mechanisms and style of SOEs. Using a framework for hybrid organizations provides an understanding of how SOEs, as hybrid organizations, disclose information for accountability. In turn, this allows, and then promotes, the investigation of social phenomena by conceiving hybridity as a standalone institutional space.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the contribution of external auditing to accountability in the Tanzanian local government authorities (LGAs).

This paper uses content analysis of the external audit reports of the LGAs for the past ten years. Corroborative evidence was gathered through interviews with external auditors, councillors, Parliamentary Committee members and selected internal auditors of the LGAs.

The study finds that external auditing had marginally contributed to the enhancement of accountability within the LGAs. This is mainly attributed to the limited scope and failure of the responsible officials to address audit recommendations. In the light of agency theory, the findings suggest that external auditing has not sufficiently enabled the stakeholders to hold LGAs’ officials accountable.

The findings indicate that external auditing can enhance accountability when the scope is widened to provide relevant information and also when audit recommendations are implemented by responsible officials.

Most studies of external auditing and accountability have focussed on the developed countries; this is one of the few papers which explores the phenomenon in the context of emerging economies.