Resolving Accountability Ambiguity in Nonprofit Organizations

Accountability is a much studied subject in the social sciences and is known for its complexity, context dependence, and ambiguity. By conducting a comprehensive literature review and analysis across nonprofit, public, and private sector literatures, this article identifies the causes of ambiguities present in many accountability frameworks and describes the trend toward understanding accountability as a constructed concept combining both instrumental and interpretive elements. The relationship between legitimacy and accountability is considered. The authors develop a holistic accountability framework that facilitates defining and implementing accountability in complex, multi-stakeholder environments, by providing a means to operationalize commonly encountered but ambiguous accountability goals through a social process of deliberative dialogue. The authors conclude by summarizing limitations of the approach and describing future research needed.