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At it’s core, accountability is about trust. (Renz, D. O., 2016). There are four components of accountability:
1. Transparency, which involves collecting information and making it available and accessible for public scrutiny.
2. Answerability or justification, which requires providing clear reasoning for actions and decisions, including those not adopted, so that they may reasonably be questioned.
3. Compliance, through the monitoring and evaluation of procedures and outcomes, combined with transparency in reporting those findings.
4. Enforcement or sanctions for shortfalls in compliance, justification, or transparency.
(Renz, D.O., 2016)
The transparency component, in my opinion, is indeed, one of the more important components of accountability because it allows the public to form that much needed trust of an organization. Let us take for instance, China and their transparency of grassroots human service organizations. Grassroots human service organizations in China are experiencing fast development yet facing inadequate public trust. Chinese grassroots human service organizations’ level of transparency regarding basic information, governance, finance, and activity transparency are factors that may influence transparency and examine the effects of transparency on donation and grant income. Findings suggest that Chinese grassroots human service organizations had low transparency in 2011. Organizations’ donation income is positively related to their transparency, especially financial transparency.
Accountability is a form of obligation for the organizers of public activities to be able to explain and answer all matters relating to the steps of all decisions and processes carried out, as well as accountability for the results and performance (Lukito: 2014). Transparency and accountability are common terms in discussions about State reform. Having the understanding of the relationship between transparency and accountability in the context of decentralized service delivery – which presupposes the integration between information and result find that organizations are an interesting object of analysis. We assume that transparency influences accountability when it constitutes a reliable information system that can show the performance of agents and their results. Furthermore, we assume that the structure of transparency mechanisms shapes their impact on public policies – especially in the accountability of agents -, being crucial for a study that analyzes the role of transparency in accountability.
Deng, G., Lu, S., & Huang, C.-C. (2015). Transparency of Grassroots Human Service Organizations in China: Does Transparency Affect Donation and Grants? Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(5), 475-491. https://doi-org.saintleo.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/23303131.2015.1076751
HARNOVINSAH, ERLINA, AL-HAKIM, Y., & MUDA, I. (2020). Effect of Accountability, Transparency and Supervision on Budget Performance. Utopia y Praxis Latinoamericana, 25, 130-143. https://doi-org.saintleo.idm.oclc.org/10.5281/zenodo.4009622
de Jesus Martins, L., & Olivieri, C. (2019). Results-based contracs: weaknesses in transparency and low accountability. RAP: Revista Brasileira de Administração Pública, 53(6), 1189-1202. https://doi-org.saintleo.idm.oclc.org/10.1590/0034-761220180412x
