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This article decouples accountability and performance to highlight the cognitive gap in the ability to discern between accountability and performance at the street level. A qualitative content analysis of interviews from child welfare caseworkers provides several noteworthy findings. While these terms share certain common key themes, they also have different characteristics. Both terms may be understood and used interchangeably in practical applications, including serving (the children and families), responsible action (trust), following rules, completing the task, integrity/ethics, and effectiveness. Aside from the common key themes, accountability was also understood as embodying the key themes of explanation/meeting, expectation, and ownership. Conversely, performance was perceived as representing professionalism, skill, and teamwork. In general, when the frontline workers talk about process and relationships, they reference accountability and when they are discussing outcomes, they reference performance. This study highlights common and disparate characteristics associated with accountability and performance that explain why they are pursued simultaneously and why enhancing accountability sometimes does not lead to improving performance and vice versa.

Public employees are required to manage multiple accountability requirements by investing in the relationship with those who demand accountability, making a commitment to the given tasks and anticipating what might happen. The purpose of the study is to explore how social caseworkers manage multiple accountability requirements compared to public managers. The analysis from child welfare caseworkers' interview data highlights a number of ways on how social caseworkers respond to multiple accountabilities. Although most of acts from caseworkers are exposed within the public managers' strategies, talking or discussing with coworkers and supervisors seems the caseworkers' contextual and endemic response. Discussions followed.

It is often assumed that a greater level of accountability will positively affect the performance of public organizations; however, this relationship has not been studied extensively in public administration. This study provides quantitative evidence regarding the impact of accountability on organizational performance in the U.S. federal government. Specifically, we examine the association between the levels of organizational performance and accountability in three functions of human resource management (HRM)—staffing, performance evaluation, and compensation—as perceived by employees of public organizations. Further, we test whether the level of autonomy perceived by the employees influences the association between accountability and performance. The findings suggest that the levels of accountability manifested in staffing, performance evaluation, and compensation all positively and significantly affect organizational performance. Moreover, employee autonomy tends to amplify the positive impact of accountability on performance in two HRM functions—staffing and compensation.

AbstractThe external control of public organizations and their members, commonly referred to as accountability, is an enduring theme in public administration. This article shifts attention from a traditional focus on accountability as a macro-institutional matter to the psychology of accountability, that is, whether and how employees internalize accountability systems. The internalization of rules and expectations varies by individual, which, in turn, has significant consequences for accountability outcomes. We theorize that the micro-foundations of employee accountability are affected by five factors: attributability, observability, evaluability, answerability, and consequentiality. These five dimensions are conceptually distinct but interrelated, representing a deeper common psychological construct of employee accountability. Incorporating the psychological approach of accountability advances the potential of public accountability research. We conclude with a discussion of future research and practical implications.

AbstractThis study developed an analytical framework enabling a better understanding of the relationship between accountability and public trust through the moderation effect of public participation. To test the relationship empirically, a cross‐sectional survey was conducted in three local governments of two provinces in Nepal. The results demonstrated that the constructs of transparency, responsiveness, and public participation were significant predictors of public trust in Nepal, whereas liability and controllability were not significant predictors. These findings suggest that trust in the government depended on the government's performance and cultural aspects of people in Nepal, with performance aspects being more influential. These findings have theoretical and practical implications. The study contributes to the "performance‐trust model" presented in the existing literature by adding the moderating effect of perceived public participation.

"This book compares contemporary civil service systems across East and Southeast Asia, a dynamic region of greater diversity in local administrative tradition, imported models of modern administration, and the character of prevailing political institutions. Featuring chapters on Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and the Philippines, this book provides a detailed analysis of key aspects of the civil service system, including centralization, recruitment, classification, openness of positions, performance assessment, promotion, training, and senior civil service. It distinguishes four modes of public employment, namely, bureaucratization, professionalization, politicization, and marketization, to develop a conceptual framework for comparing the civil service system at the operational level. The region's contemporary civil service systems appear to be hybrid systems that combine, at varying degree, these modes of public employment, responding to administrative reform pressures. The patterns of public employment across East and Southeast Asia reflect local administrative traditions, imported Western models of administration, and the relative timing of democratization and bureaucratization. With contributions from leading local experts across the region, this book will be invaluable to students, scholars, and practitioners interested in Asian public administration, especially civil service systems"--