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While the field of public management has long emphasized the importance of holding public employees accountable for their actions, our understanding of how best to do so has been hindered by a dearth of empirical research on this topic. Recent literature has called for more examination of individual subjective experiences of being accountable -- employee accountability -- in order to research how macro accountability systems make a difference to individuals. To validate the employee accountability construct in the public domain, we collect data from two separate samples using a multidimensional scale to measure public employee accountability. We analyze these data to explore the nomological network of public employee accountability by assessing its relationship with both a logical antecedent and expected outcomes. Based on findings that validate the nomological network, we discuss how this research contributes to the literature on accountability and possible directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparency has been assumed to enhance government accountability. Recent studies, however, have suggested complex relationships between transparency and various accountability mechanisms. By conducting new empirical analyses on the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) during the Bush Administration, we found that both management transparency and result transparency led to increased presidential budget allocations only when transparency contributed to higher performance ratings. Result transparency, but not management transparency, directly affected congressional budget allocations. Result transparency also reduced the differences between presidential and congressional budget allocations; this effect was larger for discretionary programs. During divided governments, management transparency also contributed to reducing the differences between presidential and congressional budget allocations. These findings show the importance of institutionalizing both transparency and performance evaluation at the same time as a way to improve accountability and reduce conflicts between institutional principals responsible for holding government agencies accountable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The external control of public organizations and their members for holding accountable, is an enduring theme in public administration. This article shifts attention from a traditional focus on accountability as a macro-institutional matter to integration with the psychology of accountability, that is, how public employees internalize accountability systems. The subjective experience of being accountable varies by individual, which, in turn, affects significant accountability outcomes to employees. We specify five micro-foundations of employee accountability ' attributability, observability, evaluability, answerability, and consequentiality: they are conceptually distinct but inter-related, reflecting a common psychological construct of employee accountability. Then, we develop a theoretical framework of middle-range propositions of how macro and micro accountabilities are related in the public sector in terms of conflicting institutional accountability pressures, multiple accountability, status of accountability forum, and accountability salience. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employee accountability is a phenomenon of central importance to public administration. The volume of empirical research, however, has been modest given the absence of valid measures. This article develops a reliable and valid five-dimensional scale to measure public employee accountability. The measure is distinguished from prior scales in that it fully captures the five distinct components of the concept along which employee accountability varies. To test a higher-order factor model of the multidimensional scale, data representing the population of U.S. public (government and nonprofit) employees was utilized. A series of scale construction tests, including convergent and discriminant validity tests and multi-group analysis, confirmed that a best fit model was a five-dimensional, reflective scale with 18 indicators. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accountability is one of the foundations of democratic governance, but noticeably little is known of how it works in practice. Empirical studies of Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) as a major accountability system of United States have discovered it as having partial effect of performance information and political ideology on budgetary decision. However, the studies provide only limited and partial answer on the PART accountability reality, and do not provide precise knowledge more useful to strengthen accountability system and to design new ones. Literature has emphasized that properly measuring deficit of the accountability was useful in understanding its practice. Accountability Process Model consisting of three phases - information, evaluation, and consequence- and Accountability Cube Model were employed with PART panel data for evaluating PART's accountability deficit. Amount of information provided, activeness of assessment, and strictness of budgetary control based on performance were quantitatively measured and compared by the federal agencies in order to evaluate the accountability deficits. The empirical evidence supports that to develop accountability measurement theory for public organization is available. Lessons for organizations to improve or devise performance accountability system similar to US PART are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to advance public accountability research in terms of theory and measurement. Since advent of New Public Management (NPM), there has been only assumption that performance accountability instruments such as pay-for-performance can induce performance improvement for the public sector. However, there have been no proper public accountability theories to explain the assumption. Firstly, this study proposes middle range theoretical statements involving eight core concepts to supplement the theoretical gaps: 1) accountability instrument adoption, 2) institutionalization of accountability instrument, 3) felt accountability, 4) multiple accountabilities 5) accountability instrument type, 6) informal accountability, 7) task performance, and 8) contextual performance. Secondly, this study suggests five conceptual bases (conformity, attributability, answerability, observability, evaluability) of the felt accountability. The study points out the limitation of unidimensional measurement scale of felt accountability used for generic management and recommends a multi-dimensional scale to measure the felt accountability for public administration research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]