Individual Accountability

Individual accountability is a ubiquitous phenomenon that connects persons to their social context and enables coordination between multiple actors in organizations. This book discusses the components of accountability: those related to task characteristics (responsibility and clarity), social context (evaluators and feedback) and personality attributes. A number of outcomes of accountability are discussed. Results show that accountability works differently for people with different motivational orientation: performance oriented individuals seem to profit more from it than mastery oriented individuals. An important implication for the goal-setting theory is that when goal setting elements (task clarity and feedback) are taken in the context of accountability, their motivational properties become contingent on the social context variables and personal goal orientation. The way the accountability factors work together implies that the phenomenon of accountability is generally a potent tool if all its elements are fine-tuned to the specific situation in which this tool is applied.