The accountability lens: A new way to view management issues

In this article, we contend that viewing organizations through an accountability lens (in terms of source, focus, salience, and intensity) helps illuminate issues of governance and ethical dilemmas common to most individuals at work. We also propose that disconnects between aspects of accountability may pressure individuals to behave unethically and seek to rationalize their behaviors. We suggest that accountability is not only an organizational requirement, but also a perceptual lens that can be used to observe and understand behavior in, and of, organizations. As such, we demonstrate herein how to make better sense of functional and dysfunctional behavior in organizations by applying the accountability lens. A key component of this accountability lens is the notion of an accountability environment: those aspects of an individual’s immediate work environment that directly affect the subjective interpretation and experience of felt accountability. The notion that individuals perceive and interpret their accountabilities subjectively is critical to understanding why multiple employees can behave differently (and sometimes unethically) under the same accountability conditions.