weLEAD Online Magazine
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Copyright
2006 ã weLEAD, Inc.
January
2006 Editorial: Accountability in Organizations
Editor of the E-Journal of Organizational Learning and
Leadership
The
purpose of a New Year’s resolution is to improve a pattern of thinking, a habit
or decision making process in order to obtain a successful result. For most, a New Year’s resolution is intended
as a transformational activity. For
instance, a typical resolution identified by many people is to lose
weight. In order to help the dieter with
this resolution, it is a common recommendation to keep a record of eating
habits and behaviors in a food journal.
The food journal allows the dieter to work through the process of
reconciling what is planned to be eaten versus what actually is eaten and to
better understand what causes failures to occur. By keeping a written account of what is
consumed and why it is consumed, the dieter documents overt behavior and
results. In addition, a food journal can
also help a dieter to understand the process of how intentions, motivations and
feelings affect the results, thus increasing self-awareness and improving
decision making. Keeping a food journal
is a method of accounting for success and failure and also increasing
understanding of how the process of successful dieting works for that
individual. The food journal clarifies
both what the results are and how those results occurred.
When a
dieter uses a food journal as described, this represents acceptance of two
forms of accountability, public and internal.
Taking responsibility for the results of dieting is an example of public
accountability. Taking responsibility
for the process of dieting is an example of internal accountability. When accountability is conceptualized on
these two levels in an organization, the organization’s capacity for success is
increased.
Public accountability is
defined as an element of organizational culture that relies on the demands and
expectations of its external stakeholders to determine appropriate
performance levels. Every organization
has external stakeholders, those interested in its effectiveness or profitability. Public accountability is the coagulation of
externally-based economic, financial, political and societal demands faced by
an organization. Like dieting for weight
loss to “look good,” public accountability focuses on results obtained and how
the external stakeholders perceive those results. The benefit of public accountability to an
organization is obtained by implementing improvements to meet the demands of
external stakeholders. On the downside,
if the expectations of public accountability are misguided, then the
organization will pursue non-salient results.
For
instance, educational institutions are currently subject to high levels of
public accountability because student achievement levels as determined by
standardized testing programs are lackluster.
Based on a constitutional right to enjoy “life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness,” society in general agrees that schools should provide an
education that equips all students to do so.
Parents and communities expect schools to deliver effective instruction
and equip students to be successful as adults in a democratic society. Federal policies and legislation, such as the
No Child Left Behind
Act, have been crafted to ensure all children learn. This legislation ties federal funding for
schools to the attainment of certain levels of student achievement testing
results. The benefits to schools of the
public accountability movement are that districts, such as those represented by
the Council of Great City Schools, are delivering instruction that increases
student achievement levels on standardized tests.1 Public accountability in this regard has
been so compelling that it has actually changed the culture of schools so that
their core mission has developed into “teaching to the test.” As student achievement gains are publicized,
societal and legislative demands for minimum academic achievement are
satisfied. The result is that external stakeholders have helped schools to
perform more effectively.
There
are, however, disadvantages of public accountability in organizations. Concerns have emerged, for instance, in terms
of the salience of public accountability in education.2 Research has shown that teaching to the test
as a core activity has severe limits in that the full organizational capacity
of schools is underutilized, minority students are disadvantaged, and, most
importantly, the development of the whole child is lacking. Issues regarding the relevancy of
standardized tests to “real life” affect the ability of students to transfer
school work to the real world. This has
severe implications for the emerging workforce.
Tying school funding to high stakes testing is also raising
concerns. The importance of developing
emotional intelligence, creativity and higher-order thinking skills for success
in adulthood has been documented and clearly falls outside the scope of
standardized tests. These arguments may
lead one to question the salience of the issues identified through educational
public accountability platforms.
Corporations,
whether publicly or privately held, for-profit or non-profit, face similar
demands of public accountability in regard to performance on several
fronts. For instance, as competition
increases and diminishes market share, new production processes are explored
and implemented to increase productivity. Global competition in the automotive
industry increased, and manufacturing process improvements are constantly being
sought out as automotive companies are forced into rethinking structures, work
flows, and quality control issues. As a
result, ideas such as Deming’s Total Quality Management principles3 encourage
corporations to implement organizational restructuring. Financial concerns over the issues of the
health care costs and replacing the aging workforce are forcing organizations
to consider other re-engineering approaches, such as updating technological
solutions and more creative outsourcing and insourcing
packages. For instance, the United State
Postal Service and other government agencies are currently developing human
resource options in this regard. Large
corporations such as WalMart are struggling with the
issue of health care as the A.F.L/C.I.O presses the corporate sector to improve
benefits packages. 4
Improvement of accounting procedures enacted after federal
investigations, and pursuant criminal indictments, occurred as a result of
corporate scandals with Enron and Tyco.5 As with schools and public accountability,
corporations engrossed in matters of public accountability can experience the
benefits of organizational improvement.
However, public accountability does carry dangers of misguided
expectations for corporations. The issues cited place corporations in the
throes of public accountability; however, manufacturing processes, health care
costs, workforce issues, and accounting procedures are complex issues and may
require complicated analyses that do not translate with clarity or depth of
understanding on the part of external stakeholders.
A
second type of organizational accountability is internal accountability.
This differs from public accountability in that it focuses first on results
and then on its internal stakeholders.
Internal accountability seeks alignment of conceptualizations of
organizational performance with actual performance by examining results and
then relying on internal stakeholders.
When internal accountability is high, internal stakeholders take
responsibility for the improvement of organizational functions and processes in
order to improve results. Internal accountability occurs when well-founded and
justified plans are developed corporately and implemented with a shared
understanding of the results. When
internal accountability is high, there is a significant relationship between
organizational mission and results.
In
school districts this means that administrators and teachers proactively
identify and solve performance problems by developing a corporate understanding
of the school at a strategic level. When
internal stakeholders, such as school employees, students and parents, work
together to develop a deep structural understanding of what is working well and
what is not, then internal accountability is high. By using community-based venues for problem
identification and solution, causal relationships are clarified. By discussing, analyzing, reasoning, testing
and implementing ideas for improvement, the internal stakeholders begin to
understand what principles work well for the school. External stakeholders, such as community
members, may also join in as part of a learning community endeavor. This model of internal accountability is
gaining popularity. The work of DuFour and Eaker (1998) in
encouraging professional learning community approaches have been very helpful
in packaging the concept of internal accountability in schools.6 Interestingly, research done by Elmore and
Fuhrman (2001) in schools has shown that when internal accountability is high,
then the need for public accountability is low.7 In other words, when schools develop the
capacity for identifying and solving problems within themselves through
internal accountability, then the need for outside forces through public
accountability to regulate performance is minimized.
In the
corporate world, for instance, internal accountability occurs when the
organization authentically aligns corporate values with corporate
behavior. Internal accountability occurs
when internal stakeholders can gain a deep understanding of how the
organization works. John Bogle of Vanguard, Inc., for example, was able to foster
high levels of internal accountability, which he attributed to attainment of
excellent corporate performance. He
developed a commitment to servant leadership, folded that commitment into the
organization’s values and even developed clear symbols and metaphors in the
organization to help internal stakeholders understand the importance of this
value.8 When venues for
critical thinking and analysis are available, then internal stakeholders are
clear about the results and also understand how the organization works
culturally. Internal stakeholders share
a responsibility for non-optimal performance and have enough information to
identify possible improvements.
As the
New Year unfolds and individual resolutions for self-improvement are made, the
consideration of public accountability and internal accountability as
transformational activities in organizations is encouraged.
References:
1 Council of Great City Schools. (2005). Achievement
Gaps: Task Force Reports. Retrieved January 3, 2006 from http://www.cgcs.org/taskforce/achievegap3.html
2 Rotberg, I. C. (2005, April). Tradeoffs,
societal values, and school reform.
Phi Delta Kappan, 86(8), 611-18.
3 Rusinko, C. A. (2005, Autumn). Using
quality management as a bridge to environmental sustainability in
organizations.
S.A.M. Advanced
Management Journal, 70(4), 54-60.
4 WBGH Foundation.
(2004, November 16). Is WalMart Good for America?
Frontline.
5 Weinberg, J. A. (2003, Summer). Accounting for corporate
behavior. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond Economic Quarterly, 89(3), 1-20.
6 DuFour,
R. & Eaker, R.
(1998). Professional learning communities at work:
Best practice for enhancing student achievement. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service.
7 Elmore, R. F.
& Fuhrman, S. H. (2001, December).
Research finds the false assumptions of accountability. The Education Digest, 67(4), 9-14.
8 Bogle, J. C. (1998,
August 7). On the right side of history. Speech presented at the 1998 International
Conference on Servant Leadership sponsored by Robert K. Greenleaf Center on
Servant Leadership, Indianapolis, IN.
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