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Choice deferral (making no choice at all) is a common phenomenon, especially when individuals face a difficult decision. This is further exacerbated in the presence of negative incidental emotions which can have a wide-ranging influence on various aspects of decision-making. Previous research suggests that process (vs outcome) accountability might be more effective at mitigating the effect of irrelevant factors. This paper aims to examine whether accountability attenuates emotion effects on choice and examines the differences in the efficacy of the two accountability types.

The paper uses the appraisal tendency framework to propose differences between same valenced emotions on choice deferral and predicts the moderating role of process versus outcome accountability. Two experiments are conducted to test the predictions and the results analyzed using logistic regression.

The authors find that outcome and process accountability have different moderating effects on emotion and choice deferral relationship: under outcome accountability, angry individuals are more likely to defer choice while under process accountability, differences in choice across emotion conditions are attenuated. As predicted, differences between anger and fear on the certainty appraisal and thereby information processing, mediate the effects of emotion on choice deferral in the outcome (but not process) condition.

This research studies the intersection of two developing research streams, affect and accountability, by focusing on specific affective states (anger and fear) and specific accountability types (outcome and process) in the important context of decision avoidance in consumer behavior. Thus, theoretical understanding in both domains is advanced and the benefits of specific accountability types clarified. Key implications for consumers and future research directions are also discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate disaster accountability process, and it seeks to advocate for involvement of victims as salient stakeholders in the accountability process.

The authors adopt a case study of the 3rd June, 2015 flood disaster and fire that occurred in Accra, Ghana and draw mainly on interviews, as well as observations and a review of publicly available documents.

Several actors are involved in disaster management in Ghana. These actors play several roles as part of the disaster management process. Coordination is observed among some governmental actors. However, there is a little collaboration among these actors. There are, therefore, no clear accountability relationships between the actors. Moreover, the forms of accountability process are largely upward and internal. So, although we find the victims as salient stakeholders, their perspectives are not prioritised as part of the accountability process.

As a result of less engagement with victims in the accountability process, a central accountability concern, outcomes, namely, benefits for victims in terms of changes in their knowledge, status, attitudes, values, skills, behaviours or conditions were not promoted. Downward accountability should be encouraged to promote better outcomes.

Although some studies on accounting for disasters have been undertaken, there is none in our local context, and also this study has been able to uncover under-representation of victims in the accountability process using adaptive accountability lens.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how upward accountability processes can be enabling in, or constraining to, the effective deployment of development aid funding.

The paper derives its primary insights from in-depth interviews and focus groups with non-governmental organization (NGO) fieldworkers working and delivering development aid in Northern Ghana. It analyses inductively the perspectives of fieldworkers to explain their experiences of upward accountability.

The fieldworkers’ perception of upward accountability was mainly one of external control, in response to which they enacted a skilful form of compliance accountability. This perception of control failed to stifle their initiative and intrinsic commitment to beneficiaries. The fieldworkers craved “conversations for accountability”, in which they had a voice in the development of upward accountability metrics, thereby enabling them to fulfil their sense of felt responsibility to beneficiaries. While aspects of “conversations for accountability” were emerging in fieldworker-funder interactions, it was unclear to what extent funders were committed to further advancing them. Overall, the analysis unveils how felt responsibility mediates for, and partly diminishes, the perceived negative impacts on aid effectiveness of upward accountability processes informed by a focus on control.

The authors examine the potential of upward accountability processes using in-depth analyses of the actual experiences of those involved in delivering NGO services at the grassroots level. The authors contribute to emerging work in this vein by enriching the authors’ understanding of local constituencies’ experiences of accountability processes more generally, especially the impact these mechanisms have on NGO operational activities. The authors also unveil the mediating role fieldworkers’ “felt responsibility” to beneficiaries’ plays in moderating the perceived negative impacts on aid effectiveness of upward accountability processes.

This study aims to understand how project leaders' interactive use of the project management control systems (MCS) impact IT project performance, by examining the mechanisms through which this relationship is enacted.

Data were collected from a cross-sectional survey of 109 IT project managers working in Canadian and USA-based organizations. A moderated mediation model was analysed by hierarchical component reflective-formative measurement modelling using PLS-SEM.

Results suggest that the leader's interactive use of project MCS is associated with IT project performance, and this relationship is partially mediated by team learning behaviour. In addition, the relationship between the interactive use of project MCS and team learning behaviour is moderated by the organization's emphasis on process accountability, with the effect being stronger under the conditions of higher emphasis on process accountability.

This study contributes to the literature on the use of controls in the IT project-based business environments by explaining how the project leader's style of use of controls influences project team learning behaviour that in turn impacts project performance. Additionally, this study extends the project governance and accountability literature by identifying and empirically examining how the perceptions of project leader's institutionalized organizational accountability arrangements moderate the impact of the interactive use of control systems on team learning behaviour. A methodological contribution of the study is the scale development to measure leader's perceptions about the organization's emphasis on process accountability.

The purpose of this study is to present an in-depth examination of stakeholder engagement processes in non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from the perspective of NGO managers to enhance accountability and the effectiveness with which aid services are delivered. Specifically, demand-side (downward) accountability and the implications of an accountability system that is predominantly supply-side (upward) focused are explored.

This study draws on evidence gathered from 25 in-depth interviews with representatives of leading NGOs in Nigeria to explore and uncover the nature of stakeholder engagement and accountability processes in their respective organisations. This study shows prospects for entrenching organisational reform that balances power and influence that benefits the less economically powerful demand side of the stakeholders. A relevant aspect of stakeholder theory was used to frame the analysis.

The study reveals an overlay of a blanket engagement system and a seeming reluctance of NGOs to disclose critical information to the demand-side stakeholders (DSS), and suggests ways to meet sustainability demands and address the militating concerns. A perceived lack of understanding and prospects or outcomes of demand-side accountability are central to this; however, engagement outcomes that account for impact rather than output are explored and reported. The findings suggest that proper accountability involves adequate stakeholder engagement which is a prerequisite and paramount for sustainability.

This study primarily delineates NGO managers’ views on NGO engagement and accountability dynamics. Future research may explore the perspectives of downward stakeholders themselves. The study highlights the concern for NGOs to maintain a defined stakeholder engagement process that resists external forces that may impact on their operations and derail their mission, resulting in duplication of services.

The study shows the implications of donors’ influence on accountability practices which can be improved by re-structuring supply-side stakeholders to significantly include DSS accountability requirements in the key performance indicators of NGOs in developing countries. The authors present a nuanced perspective to aid delivery and access that ensures improved services and more effective, impactful and sustainable aid which is of practical relevance to NGOs and their accountability mechanism.

This study deepens the understanding of the dynamics of stakeholder engagement and accountability processes and shows that the most effective way to deploy aid funds to meet sustainability goals is to draw on the experiences and local knowledge of the DSS. This would require an effective and results-driven dialogue among all the stakeholders involved. The proposed engagement and management framework contribute to theory and practice by fostering multi-stakeholder cooperation, DSS accountability and the advancement of sustainable development

The purpose of this paper is to explore how actors take on and ascribe the role of accountor and constituent in the process of giving and demanding of reasons for organisational conduct.

The on-going interactions in supervision meetings between the supplier of outsourced elderly care in Sweden and a local government administration were examined through a longitudinal study.

The paper proposes the concept of role attribution to characterise a strategy for handling complexity in public sector accountability processes. This complements previous research, which has described three main strategies for handling competing accountability demands: decoupling, structural differentiation and compromising. Role attribution was found to involve the supplier and purchaser of public services pursuing a specific resolution to an accountability demand by positioning themselves as jointly aligned with certain prospective constituents in the environment. Thus, while inter-organisational relationships can be a source of complexity for accountors, as already documented in prior research, the findings of this paper show ways in which the dynamic and situation-specific accountor and constituent roles can serve as a resource. The two organisations moved back and forth between cooperating to handle accountability demands from actors in the environment and assuming different accountor and constituent roles within their relationship.

The paper discusses the need to move beyond the taken-for-granted roles of accountor and constituent in analysing outsourced public service relationships. Specifically, the findings suggest that researchers interested in public sector accountability processes would benefit from designing their studies in ways that makes it possible to observe and theorise dynamic and situation-specific accountor and constituent roles.

The studied supervision meetings served as an arena where on-going accountability issues played out and were mediated through role attribution. Seemingly, there are possibilities to complement formal role descriptions and contracts with systematic processes for addressing on-going operational accountability issues within and beyond individual, formalised accountor–constituent relationships. From a societal perspective, it might be relevant to mandate more systematic procedural structures to support on-going accountability processes, for example, the creation and maintenance of interactive inter-organisational forums which can serve as a mechanism for systematic, yet situation-specific, handling of operational and strategic issues. At an organisational level, this paper shows a need that such forums merit on-going managerial attention and conscious staffing to secure both competence and stability.

The authors find a dynamic and situation-specific attribution of accountor and constituent roles, in contrast to prior research’s routine consideration of these roles as being predetermined by existing relationships of hierarchy and influence.

This article aims to focus on one of the most intriguing issues related to the public sector reforms: the accountability systems. In particular the paper aims to deal with the relationships between accounting‐based reforms, forms of accountability, and people‐changing or people‐processing approaches to service provision within Italian social work.

The paper draws on the accountability and people changing/processing literature to interpret and discuss the evidence gathered in an in‐depth longitudinal case study conducted in a social service public organization between 2007 and 2009.

The article reveals that the case study site had developed two distinct groups of services: “Territoriali” and “Residenziali”. “Territoriali” engage in a traditional mode of social care, they provide professional support to clients with, sometimes, quite intractable problems, and aim to modify clients' characteristics, behaviour and attitudes. In contrast, “Residenziali” deal with, and often outsource, more standardized care packages in the form of residential care, day care and some home‐based services. The accounting reforms were received very differently in these two areas. “Territoriali” was resistant to the changes but, in large part, “Residenziali” embraced them. The article then argues that this reflected the extent to which each service area was willing and able to implement a people‐processing rather than a people‐changing approach. The adoption of the people‐processing method had profound implications for the ways that accountability was both experienced and delivered in the services.

This article deals with the under‐researched area of social care. It integrates two literatures not previously articulated together: accountability and people changing/processing. A three‐year longitudinal study is presented, enabling an in‐depth appreciation of the changes affecting social services and the differential responses to accounting and consequent shifts in accountability in two contrasting service areas.

The paper's purpose is to consider the challenges, a public sector organization faces combining both transparency and “intelligent” forms of accountability (cf. Roberts, 2009).

The authors conducted a case study of StatePol, a police service in an Australian state.

The data analysis revealed three themes. First, prior to 2013, transparency forms of accountability dominated, emphasizing crime statistics with the effect of reinforcing internal partitions and inhibiting collective action. Second, post-2013, a greater emphasis was placed on “intelligent” accountability with conversations around process and collective accountability at the operational level. Crime statistics were used less for operational-level accountability and more for attention-directing. Third, changing the emphasis from transparency to its combined use with “intelligent” accountability required strong leadership, clearly communicated strategy and middle-level managers with appropriate skills.

The authors identify a number of important factors in combining transparency and “intelligent” forms of accountability. The authors note the difficulties that fragmentation between forms of accountability and the somewhat amorphous nature of the accountability concept itself can cause. In doing so, the authors provide empirical evidence of the challenges changing from an emphasis on transparency, to combined use with an “intelligent” form of accountability.

This paper explores why and how, and in what context, individuals' accounting of self, ethics and morality and self-knowledge of the limits of accountability can frame their account giving and judging in an organisational formal performance evaluation process.

Building upon the Butlerian notions of accountability as advanced by Messner (2009) and Roberts (2009), the authors conducted a qualitative field study at a Vietnamese public university, involving face-to-face interviews, observation of performance evaluation meetings and examination of archival documents.

The authors found that individuals experience conflicting ethical and moral values when they rely on their self-knowledge of accountability (the ability to self-account) in their account giving and judging in the university's formal academic performance evaluation process. In addition, the authors found that when individuals want to provide the best account to the account demander, their understanding of their ability to self-account and the formal organisational accountability process influence their views on what authentic account giving means. As a result, enhanced ethics-to-others has the potential to be an ethical burden and may not lead to authentic or beyond minimum accounting of “self”. Yet, in the Vietnamese socio-cultural and political context within which the university operates, and in the situation of ethical and moral conflicts in self-accountability, the authors found evidence of individuals' self-accountability behaviours that is based on the co-existence of a sense of responsibility to others and self-knowledge of the limits of accountability.

Although this study was limited to one Vietnamese public university, its findings enhance the knowledge about how individual ethical and moral values, self-knowledge of the limits of accountability and the formal organisational accountability process connect with each other in the socio-cultural and political context within which an organisation operates.

The study highlights the role of the context of local socio-cultural norms and values and of physical social interaction in developing the sense of connection to others, which influences the way individuals' ethical and moral values are mobilised to shape account-giving and judging behaviours.

The emphasis on the role of the sense of connection to others on personal accountability and the emphasis on physical, face-to-face interaction in developing sense of connection to others leads to an interesting issue regarding the sense of connection in the virtual social interaction setting, which has become increasingly popular globally, especially during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, and its implication for the use of personal ethical and moral values in organisational accountability practices.

Adding to the conversation on how a formal organisational accountability process can be effective, this study identified (1) the unpredictable outcomes of using ethics as rules for accountability practices due to potentially conflicting ethical values; (2) the diverse understandings of self-accounting, leading to different ideas of authentic accounting; and (3) the possibility of moral accountability behaviours based on the co-existence of a sense of connection to others and an understanding of the limits of accountability.

This chapter examines organisational change processes that occur when accountability demands from powerful external stakeholders change. It investigates, firstly, whether these external accountability demands impact on the performance management systems of two different types of organisations. Secondly, it considers whether the goals for improved performance contained within the external accountability demands are realised. The chapter derives its primary insights from analysing in-depth interviews with managers working in a private sector company and in public sector organisations. The analyses reveal complex organisational responses. In the public sector case study, the organisations tended to reorient their performance management systems towards the external accountability demands; whilst in the private sector organisation, pressures from falling share prices forced managers to focus their decision making on the preferred performance measures contained in shareholders’ accountability demands. However, whilst there is some evidence of performance management system changes, the desires for improved performance subsumed by the external accountability demands are not necessarily realised through the performance management system changes.