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Developing economies often lack sufficient state regulation to encourage corporations to engage with environmental sustainability challenges. Environmental NGOs fill this vacuum but this relationship is fraught with challenges, linked to each party’s competing interests. This paper examines how an environmental NGO operating in a developing country manages such challenges.

A longitudinal case study, from 2017–2022, based on semi-structured interviews and documentary analysis, with the main periods of field work in 2017 and 2020.

We unravel nuanced dynamics of accountability within an NGOs collaborative ecosystem. Our findings reveal a web of interlinked obligations and expectations, strategically adopted to reconcile environmental and CSR logics fostering trustworthy partnerships with firms. Despite aiming for transformative change, the NGO made gradual initiatives, to meet the challenges of fostering systemic change in developing nations. Institutional logics of professionalism and development allowed NGO members avoid mission drift and realign upward accountability relations into lateral ones.

The study provides insight into successful NGO-corporate partnerships and illustrates how accountability is negotiated, upheld, and reconceptualized in such collaborations.

This paper follows the call for more future-oriented practices within organisations, particularly in relation to how they respond to growing concerns about Earth’s sustainability and life on the Planet. This study aims to explore how the data produced by major scientific projects in the Space sector can support future-oriented accountability practices by enabling both a projection and an imagination of a more or less distant future, thereby feeding into accountability practices.

We rely upon a multiple interpretative case study analysis and interview-based data from three main organisations in the Earth observation (EO) value chain: an International Space Company, a Research Centre of Energy Transition and a European Private Equity Firm.

We find that future-oriented accountability practices can be fed by a creative assemblage of scientific data provided by Space sector’s programmes with different sources of knowledge and information. These data are embedded into a broader accountability system, connecting different actors through a “value chain”: from the data providers, gathering data from Space, to the primary users, working on data modelling and analysis, to the end users, such as local authorities, public and private organisations. The predictive data and expertise exchanged throughout the value chain feed into future-oriented accountability efforts across different time-space contexts, as a projected and imagined, more or less distant, future informs the actions and accounts in the present.

This research extends the literature on the time dimension of accountability. We show how a creative assemblage of scientific data with different sources of knowledge and information –such as those provided by Space sector’s programmes and EO data – enable organisations to both project the present into (a more or less distant) future and imagine this future differently while taking responsibility, and accounting for, what could be done and desired in response to it. We also contribute to the limited literature on accountability in the Space sector by examining the intricate accountability dynamics underpinning the relationships among the different actors in the EO data value chain.

Previous research on auditors’ processing of nondiagnostic evidence demonstrates the existence of a dilution effect – the tendency to underreact to diagnostic information when accompanied by nondiagnostic information. Prior audit studies find that accountability, a prominent feature in audit settings, does not affect the magnitude of the dilution effect exhibited by auditors. Based on more recent theories about accountability, this line of research is extended by exploring whether (1) the dilution effect previously identified is a robust phenomenon that can be replicated, (2) accountability has an impact on both the frequency and magnitude of dilution effect, and (3) the impact of accountability on both the frequency and magnitude of dilution effect is conditional on the degree of accountability experienced by the participants through various reporting levels. The experimental results from a sample of internal auditors provide evidence supporting the first two propositions; however, the results related to reporting levels are not significant. A discussion of the implications of these findings for audit research and practice follows.

This chapter, which is in themes, starts with a survey of the rise of environmentalism for the purpose of sustainability. It then evaluates the roles of nongovernmental organisations' (NGOs') self-regulation and government regulation on the need for accountability that ensures sustainability. NGOs' accountability is a way of making sure that stakeholders' social, environmental and economic sustainability are protected and rigorously evaluated. This chapter further examines what the enduring mechanisms should be if true accountability, which leads to sustainability, will be achieved to suggest a holistic accountability that involves downward and upward accountability. In doing so, this chapter utilised the identified five mechanisms that ensure the continuity of world sustainability, which is prima-facie, the objective of funders/donors, beneficiaries/stakeholders and the NGO's loop.

Purpose – This chapter aims to identify stakeholder perceptions on the service performance accountability of Malaysian local authorities.

Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire survey provides the primary source of information, and both descriptive and analytical methods are employed to support the analysis of the empirical findings.

Findings – The chapter shows that despite a strong interest amongst stakeholders for greater accountability of Malaysian local authorities, a standard definition and scope of accountability has not emerged. However, the findings do indicate a new bond of accountability emerging between local authorities and its broader public than previously existed.

Research limitations – The findings and discussion are limited to the propositions put forward in the questionnaire. Alternative research methods would complement the findings.

Originality/value – The findings contribute to our understanding of accountability as interpreted by key stakeholders of local authorities located within the context of a developing country. This could potentially assist Malaysian public sector administrators whereby, and arguably, enhancing the public accountability of local authorities may contribute to an improvement in the performance management of Malaysian local authorities.

This chapter argues that failure to secure accountability can be costly because it raises doubts about the fairness, salience, and impact of cocreation. Cocreation must establish accountability with respect to four different audiences: sponsors, relevant stakeholders, affected citizens, and the general public. The chapter discusses the challenges of trying to solely hold cocreation networks and partnerships accountable based on formal accountability mechanisms. It argues that these formal mechanisms must be supplemented with social and more informal strategies of accountability. Finally, the chapter considers how changemakers can strengthen social and informal accountability in and around cocreating networks and partnerships.

The purpose of this research is to investigate how different accountability practices might be observed in the annual reports of non-government organisations (NGOs) in Bangladesh. The study further aims to understand whether such accountability disclosures support NGO legitimacy in Bangladesh and if so, in what form.

To fulfil this objective, a content analysis was conducted on the annual reports of 24 selected leading NGOs operating in Bangladesh. The data were then analysed through the not-for-profit accountability framework of Dhanani and Connolly (2012). Theoretical constructs of legitimacy were further mobilised to corroborate the evidence.

It was found that NGOs operating in Bangladesh discharged all four types of accountability, i.e., strategic, fiduciary, financial and procedural (Dhanani and Connolly, 2012) through annual reports. The findings further suggested that carrying out these accountabilities supported the legitimation process of NGOs. Moreover, we found that NGOs took care of the needs of both primary and secondary stakeholders although they widely used self-laudatory positively charged words to disclose information about their accountabilities.

The study contributes to the limited accounting research on the public disclosures of NGOs and not-for-profit firms particularly in emerging economy settings. Also, we contribute to the limited research on the accountability-legitimacy link of NGOs evident in public disclosures like annual reports.

Public trust in institutions in Iceland plunged after the country’s banking sector collapsed. The political system wobbled under outrage and anger when the general public took to the streets. The Parliamentary Special Investigation Commission conducted a ground-breaking crisis-induced investigation, delivering a report that was a milestone in Iceland’s history of politics and public administration. Yet, despite this endeavour and the fact that subsequent investigations have disclosed ample information intended to restore trust in institutions, public trust remains unsteady. This chapter addresses the following questions: How has public trust in institutions progressed after the crash? Why is it taking so long for trust to return? In Chapter 3 in this volume, we examine data on public trust in Icelandic institutions from Gallup surveys over the 15 years from 2002 to 2017 in order to identify and explain patterns of trust in the aftermath of the crisis. Our interpretation of theory in this chapter suggests that elements of mistrust inherent in the principal–agent approach to accountability in public administration, implemented in previous New Public Management reforms, undermined the creation of a climate of trust necessary to ensure effective accountability mechanisms. We argue that in the absence of a climate of trust, accountability mechanisms of culpability that conflict with mechanisms of answerability, combined with a succession of post-crisis scandals, mainly explain the slow return of the public’s trust.

This study attempts to answer the question: “how are the two drivers, accountability focus and organizational learning, independently and interactively associated with public agencies’ proactive policy orientation?” The first driver is the multiple accountabilities that public agencies pursue: (1) bureaucratic, (2) legal, (3) professional and (4) political. The second driver is the organizational learning activities of public agencies: (1) socialization, (2) externalization, (3) combination and (4) internalization.

For data, 800 respondents from the public agencies in South Korea were surveyed.

The analysis provided several findings: (1) the discretionary accountabilities (professional and political) have a greater positive influence on the proactive policy orientation; (2) the conventional accountabilities (legal and bureaucratic) tend to have negative impacts on the proactive policy orientation and (3) among the four types of accountability, legal accountability can be more significantly complemented by organizational learning activities, which can enable both visionary and realistic administration in a balanced manner.

This study provides a unique insight on how organizational proactivity can be ensured through the interactions of organizational accountabilities and organizational learning.

Purpose: Online gaming (OG) has become an increasing societal phenomenon during the current Pandemic times. This is due to lockdowns and people being confined to home environments. This chapter sheds light on the attraction of OG, from the perspective of it being a virtual immersion tool of emancipation. There has been an increasing amount of working from home arrangements during Pandemic times and more time is being spent in virtual immersion. As discussed in the article, there is a potential conflict between individual accountabilities, for example, to attain a certain degree of work-related performance and the hedonistic pleasure attained from OG (which is the type of focus of virtual immersion in this chapter). OG bears personal, business and societal costs, which are discussed in this chapter.

Need for this study: This study provides a picture of the implications of an individual’s virtual reality immersion for the purpose of OG, from the perspectives of personal and social accountabilities in the virtual and physical worlds in the current Pandemic environment.

Methodology: This is a concise overview of the theoretical underpinnings, impacts on accountabilities and implications relating to OG. The chapter provides a survey and discussion of the literature on increasing trends of OG, profit-making potential of OG and the related accountability perspectives.

Findings: This chapter has extended on the Internet accounting and accountability research literature by considering OG accountabilities and costs and benefits. OG supports an individual’s emancipation. From the perspective of OG, there are numerous forms of emancipations that can be achieved and that may result in ‘sacrifices’ by others including other online gamers. There is a substantial risk of a lack of accountability towards the others in the online and real-life environment on behalf of the one who is emancipated through escape.