Assessing Administrative Accountability

Abstract

This article presents the results of a national survey on accountability practices in U.S. municipal administrations. It also examines possible causes and effects of accountability. It finds that city administrations use a variety of political and legal accountability tools. They reveal more financial information than performance information to their stakeholders. Accountability appears to be enhanced through eliminating government workers’concerns about exposing their performances. Responsiveness, public consensus, and stakeholder trust are strengthened in accountable administrations. However, stakeholder fiscal commitments and administrative service capacities are not associated with accountability.

The Relationship Between the Use of a Performance Measurement System, Organizational Factors, Accountability, and the Performance of Public Sector Organizations

“…External accountability is an indirect type of accountability that involves reporting to outside organizations (Matek, 1977 as cited by Akbar, 2011). The instrument was adopted from Cavalluzzo and Ittner (2004), Akbar et al (2012) and Wang (2002) with some adjustments based on the context of Indonesia.…”

Questioning the Effectiveness of Indonesia’s Local Government Accountability System

“…Hence, accountability is associated closely with responsiveness and responsibility -a willingness to act in a transparent, fair, and equitable way (Bovens, 2010, p. 949). This perspective has become the basis of various accountability studies which tend to focus on normative issues or standards or assessment of public agents' behavior (see for example, Considine, 2002;Wang, 2002).…”

Assessing Open Government Performance through Three Public Administration Perspectives: Efficiency, Democratic Responsiveness, and Legal-rational Process

“…It has been connected in empirical studies to trust of government (e.g., Wang, 2002;Alam, Kabir, and Chaudhri, 2014), citizen satisfaction (e.g., Halvorsen, 2003;Kim and Lee, 2012), and accountability (e.g., Ahn and Bretschneider, 2011). At the far end of the open government spectrum of "radical transparency", each stage in government decision-making and implementation is expected to be transparent (Mergel, 2012).…”

“…A key locus of the responsiveness-performance relationship is the positive performance evaluations that come with improvement of public trust (Wang, 2002). Similarly, satisfaction of citizens improves when they feel they have real input in public participation initiatives (Halvorsen, 2003;Kim and Lee, 2012).…”