H e l e n A b a d z i 2 0 1 7

Accountability and its educational

implications:

Culture, linguistics and psychological

research

This paper was commissioned by the Global Education Monitoring Report as background information

to assist in drafting the 2017/8 GEM Report, Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments.

It has not been edited by the team. The views and opinions expressed in this paper are those of the

author(s) and should not be attributed to the Global Education Monitoring Report or to UNESCO. The

papers can be cited with the following reference: “Paper commissioned for the 2017/8 Global

Education Monitoring Report, Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments”. For further

information, please contact gemreport@unesco.org.

ED/GEMR/MRT/2017/P1/15

Background paper prepared for the 2017/8 Global Education Monitoring Report

Accountability in education: Meeting our commitments

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Table of Contents

Summary

1. Background: Accountability expectations and realities

2. Accountability and responsibility: Definitions and Contrasts in English

3. The Meaning of “Accountability” in Different Languages and Cultures

4. Accountability in the Brain: A Foray into Evolution and Decisionmaking

5. Behavior under the Influence of Accountability

6. Mutual Accountability: Team Interactions and Perceptions

7. Social Influence of Accountability Perceptions

8. Conclusions

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Summary1

Governments, donors, corporations, community organizations, and individual citizens expect that others will carry out various commitments as agreed. Billions of dollars have been invested in education, often through multiparty cooperative actions, and accountability parameters are often clearly outlined. However, expectations sometimes remain unfulfilled. Accountability frameworks often remain on paper, and learning outcomes of many countries have been at best modest. It is important, therefore to explore the reasons for this frequent discrepancy.

What does “responsibility” and “accountability” mean in English and in other languages? Perhaps the most important distinguishing feature of “accountability” is answering to an external authority. People can be responsible for various tasks or they may feel morally responsible for promoting certain ideals (such as education for all). But in accountability, someone is responsible to someone else for something. Most languages have no clear distinction between these terms; accountability may be rendered though multiword expressions involving responsibility. English has distinct terms, but definitions overlap, so many publications try to clarify differences. In the English vocabulary “responsibility” is a common word, but “accountability” is rather infrequent. Its use increased in the 1970s, when the concept of government accountability took off. The relatively low frequency of ‘accountability’ (and even lower frequency of ‘accountable’) suggests that even in English, ‘responsibility’ adequately covers most performance-related needs.

The evolutionary roots of accountability Why would people feel accountable? Why does this sentiment exist and why do people have fulfillment expectations each other? To explain and control behavioral tendencies better, it is important to understand the use of this feature in the course of human evolution. Genes change very slowly, so our brains are set up to solve problems confronted by ancestors who lived 10,000 to 200,000 years ago. In the harsh environments of the Paleolithic era, psychological adaptations arose that increased the probability of survival. Humans survived in communities, and a need arose for reciprocal altruism, e.g., the expectation that a favor given today would be returned in the future. People who did what they said and acted responsibly would be more likely to receive further favors, gain status, and thus pass their genes to subsequent generations. Public displays of fulfilled obligations, such as accounting for resources and decisions before a body of people, have been shown in research to increase prestige. At the same time, psychological adaptations arose to spot cheaters or free riders, and take action against them. This may be one reason why a lack of accountability arouses moral outrage and cries for action. The original intent of this apparently universal psychological adaptation would be to make individuals undertake activities that might be costly to them but would ensure continued reciprocal altruism. Not surprisingly, the research on accountability points to the individual level. To feel accountable, people must be identifiable. If people are anonymous members of groups, they may exert less effort. Also public, formal commitments may be honored more easily than private, informal ones. People

1 About the author:

Helen Abadzi is a Greek psychologist who spent 27 years as an Education Specialist at the World Bank. She continues her

academic work at the University of Texas at Arlington, USA. She is a polyglot who regularly monitors neurocognitive

research (Her publications can be found at: uta.academia.edu/HelenAbadzi). Email: habadzi@gmail.com

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may be more likely to deliver if they can be held accountable for decisions rather than outcomes that are beyond their control. People fear losses more than they anticipate gains, so if they are held accountable for difficult outcomes, they tend to avoid risk and minimize their roles. To deter people from reneging on responsibilities, sanctions should exist, that would be significant and enforceable. Evolutionary psychology is a little-known field. On the surface, accountability failures are attributed to cultural and political variables, and these certainly exist. But research from psychology, marketing, political science, and other fields points to certain universal tendencies. This document presents a review of this research along with recommendations.

Accountability is Easiest for an Individual and Harder for a Group Accountability assumes the existence of an external agent who monitors the performance. It thus implies a principal-agent relationship, where the agent expects delivery of certain products. Holding individuals accountable for a task is far easier than holding groups accountable. Perhaps due to a tendency for reciprocal altruism, being asked to answer for various actions has profound effects in people. Employees who are held accountable think harder about the issues of their work than others who are not asked to account for their actions. People must judge accurately, so they become alert and pay attention. They process and use more information, develop more complex strategies, and prepare explanations and compelling justifications for their actions. These activities should benefit the tasks to be carried out. Accountability therefore is most effective when there is a clear principal-agent relationship and when the principal and the agent are single individuals. When two or more people are liable for the same performance, it is hard to impose rewards or sanctions. People may absolve themselves and blame others, so no one may be held accountable. It is best, therefore, if only one individual is answerable about the execution of the entire chain. This is easiest in a hierarchy, where one individual is accountable to a manager and demands accountability from subalterns. An accountability pyramid may be an efficient way to deliver. To deliver results, the accountable person must have the authority and power to make decisions and carry them out. This means ability to delegate tasks, financing and perform various activities, obtain information about performance, and be able to enforce sanctions or rewards. To evaluate the actions of the agents, principals must also have access to relevant information and must know enough about the subject to make correct and timely decisions.

Mutual or Shared Accountability is Easiest for Cohesive Groups Individual responsibility to a group allows for mutual accountability. Due to reciprocal altruism (and therefore desire to perform publicly) mutual, shared accountability should be strongest in small and closely linked groups, where an individual would reasonably expect a “tit for tat” reward in the future. If groups are large, diffuse, and lack means to reward individuals, people may feel a limited personal obligation. Educational activities at all levels often involve entire organizations or work groups in multi-level relationships. Teams may indeed develop shared accountability, where each member ensures that others undertake the work needed for a group assignment. Collaboration across teams and institutions often involves formal relations, but some relationships in education are informal, such as convincing parents to help in schools. Such relations must function on the basis of good will rather than liability.

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Multigroup accountability relations necessitate rules and monitoring criteria for mutual accountability. Setting and monitoring these requires lengthy and time-consuming exercises. Agreement may be difficult; stakeholders may have different interests or levels of knowledge, so evaluation criteria may monitor variables of secondary importance. The tendency for risk avoidance may result in procedures that are deemed necessary but are wasteful in time and resources (“bureaucracy”), sometimes with limited piloting or user consultation. Thus, large evaluation exercises and detailed procedure manuals may not facilitate accountability. There is some utility in evaluations performed by two truly independent evaluators. Error detection rates may improve if the evaluators’ contributions are identifiable.

The Advantages of Credible, Significant, and Enforceable Sanctions Humans have evolved mechanisms to spot free riders and to take action against them. Sanctions are therefore important, and due to risk averseness, they count more than rewards. (See prospect theory.) There should be individual tangible or intangible consequences associated with performance. To be effective, the sanctions must be credible, enforceable, and consistent for all parties. For example, if teachers perform poorly, they ought to be removed, although political complexities and a scarcity of qualified candidates often preclude this option. Joint accountability complicates the application of sanctions. The wrong people may be rewarded, such as rewarding a figurehead manager whose staff have done all the work. Liability is similarly difficult. Every member in a team may absolve him or herself and put the blame on others. And if staff perceive that sanctions are unlikely, the penalties are small, or only certain people are subject to them, then managers lose control. There are practical limitations to sanctions in organizations. Accountability generally follows the position, not the individual. Once a person retires or changes jobs, earlier obligations are often erased. Thus, the ability to impose sanctions is time-limited. And a new occupant in a position may limit previously assumed obligations.

Anonymous Workers Are Vulnerable to Social Loafing Team productivity is very vulnerable to social loafing. This is a reduction of effort when people work collectively, as opposed to working alone. This phenomenon has cultural and gender variations, but it is universal. (Women may exhibit less social loafing, but it increases when men dominate in a group.) For example, when asked to exert physical effort such as shouting, people shout louder and longer when they are alone than when they are in pairs or in groups of six. The variable that determines social loafing is identification of workers’ contributions. Social loafing effects are significant, with meta-analysis showing an effect size of 0.44. Group size amplifies the effect. Social loafing also happens when multiple people check various systems for errors. It even happens when people rely on automated systems for error detection. When individual performance is identified, people may not loaf. In fact, in closely linked groups, mutual accountability results in extra efforts to ensure team completion of an assignment (social compensation.) Social loafing is also mitigated when workers receive a standard against which to compare their performance. Social loafing illustrates the strength of social control on individual cognition. The tendency to conform becomes stronger when people have limited information about a situation, so efforts at making people accountable may produce poorer results. Under situations of limited information and unusual control, teams may suffer from groupthink and make decisions that are out of line with the demands of an assignment.

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Commonality of Goals and Trust is Critical Paleolithic societies consisted of small interdependent groups, where the common goal was survival. Contemporary life allows more freedom of choice, so organizations must specify duties in formal contracts. Still, staff often understand their duties and act accordingly. Thus various publications describe accountability as a perceptual, attitudinal state. Group success depends on trust, shared goals. When employees in various positions agree on the goals of an assignment, achievement becomes more likely. Agreeing on goals is not automatic and may require discussions and workshops to clarify and convince staff. Cautious employees may not voice objections, but genuine efforts to obtain dissenting opinions are important. Without them, organizations may suffer from conformism and unrealistic expectations. Leadership can promote commonality of goals. Managers should mentor and lead towards results, but they are prone to change their decisionmaking processes when given power and discretion. They may take unnecessary risks, or if are ambivalent about a situation, they may fail to act and thus stop their staff from acting. Outcomes may then suffer, as will accountability. For monitoring and for appropriate action, information is needed. In some respects information is the currency of shared accountability. Teams that are high on trust share and optimize information use for the common good, but team members that have low trust and alignment of purpose may withhold information from each other. Thus one side may have information that the other lacks, thus compromising transparency. Morale issues may arise when there are private objectives that members do not share.

Accountability is Easier for Processes and Harder for Outcomes Procedural accountability focuses on the actions taken to arrive at an outcome, regardless of the quality of the outcome. Outcome accountability focuses on the results of that action. The implications of these two types are considerable. Making people accountable for decision-making processes tends to improve their judgment. People become attentive and make better-quality decisions in various studies. However, making people accountable for outcomes may not improve decisions. People tend to be afraid of risks, and accountability for outcome variables that are not easily controlled may heighten risk perceptions. A focus on outcomes can promote thoughts of self-justification, thereby cutting out situation awareness or a broader consideration of decision alternatives. People held accountable for outcomes may attempt to redefine a task in various ways: Narrow the terms of reference for their work, remove liability or assign it to contractors. If a new law or regulation is developed, there may be efforts to work around it. Sanctions may be reduced to symbolic gestures (such as small penalties) or to nothing at all. Quantitative indicators used for decision-making may be subject to pressures that will distort their use and corrupt the processes intended for monitoring. Short-term output measures may be used in lieu of outcomes. There may be efforts to delegate tasks to other entities, such as consultants, and shift accountability for performance to them. Information may be withheld, or large amounts may be provided, overwhelming monitors. Evaluation documents may have misleading titles, leaving discovery to the monitors. Thus, when assignments are difficult, staff may “game” the system with solutions that fail beneficiaries. Under extreme circumstances, people may succeed in removing liability entirely. Accountability may be reduced to analyzing and reporting data rather than producing outcomes. This seems to be the case with student test results, which are often referred to as “accountability”.

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In some cases it may be better to hold decision makers accountable for their decision processes rather than outcomes. But attention to mere processing in education is usually inadequate; what really matters is the outcome. Therein lies one important dilemma in international collaboration. Insisting on outcomes in difficult situations may result in vastly reduced tasks and distortion of indicators. But if managers tighten demands and criteria, no employees or contractors may be willing to carry out the assignments. There may be an optimal balance between the needs for these two accountability types in people.

The role of linguistic differences in accountability Since the term “accountability” is missing in most UNESCO languages, efforts to translate it create some confusion. (See expressions in various languages in Chapter 3.) How to talk about accountability when it cannot be named precisely? How do the differences in understanding ‘accountability’ impact global efforts for accountability in education? Is the English notion of accountability present in various languages? These questions have led some people to hypothesize that poor program outcomes are due to linguistic variability and lack of clarity. To explore these issues, a survey was sent to approximately 400 international educators. Response rate was 12%. Many respondents perceived a difference between the English connotation and the connotation in other languages, such as Spanish (where there is no specific word for accountability). But English speakers also had limited consensus on what the term means. About half of the survey respondents believed that linguistic specificity matters. But if outcomes were linked to linguistic precision one would predict that that Albanian and Greek speakers are more likely to fulfill duties, because they can use a specific word. English speakers in governments, such as those of Nigeria or Jamaica, use English in their transactions and would be expected to fulfill duties better than, say, Spain, which does not have a specific term. The belief linking specificity to outcomes may be based on cognitive biases, which are quite prevalent in human thinking. Linguistics and culture are surely important, but wording may be a secondary issue. Due to evolutionary adaptations, the concept and features of accountability exist independently of terminology.

Cognitive Inefficiencies May Complicate the Sustainable Development Goals The research suggests that explicit hierarchies, direct principal-agent relations, procedural accountability, high trust, identified staff contributions, optimal contract duration, would get results. These human factors issues transcend culture and linguistics. However, international cooperation often requires actions and procedures contrary to the above. The educational community operates under inherent conditions of inefficiency, and they may account in part for the frequently unsatisfactory outcomes. For example, the United Nations works by necessity through multi-party agreements. Representatives of various organizations develop goals and action frameworks that flow down to international organizations, governments, local governments, private contractors, and NGOs. In such large groups, it may be impractical or politically difficult to identify individual contributions. And staff frequently change; they hold positions for a limited time and they move on or retire. Thus optimal cohesion may not be achieved, and the tasks for which staff were held accountable may also change. To have any hope of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, it is crucial to understand the variables that affect accountability and their manifestations in the international education community. Research on these variables can be used to specify frameworks, agreements, and work terms of reference. It may help predict which arrangements are more likely to bring about results. Some prospects are:

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- A single individual should be accountable for each discrete task. That is, an individual should be answerable to another individual rather than to a board or advisory council.

- The principal-agent relationship should be clear, transparent, and in line with work tasks. Covert

principal-agent relationships may create mistrust and divergence of goals. They may also result in team members withholding information necessary for goal achievement.

- Means should be sought to highlight the contributions of individuals in a group. Staff should be doing

tasks that are identifiable, with performance being public if possible. For example, a report could contain in a footnote names and activities they performed, as is currently the practice for peer-reviewed articles.

- For outcome accountability, performance must be defined precisely, and goals should be realistic.

Agreements should include smaller and manageable steps, with timelines, goals, and credible sanctions or rewards attached. Responsible people should be on the lookout for efforts to limit responsibility to a few easier goals. It is important to use measures that reliably assess the desired longer-term outcomes and not merely rely on short-term outputs.

- Accountability should be imposed at the appropriate level. Sanctions and rewards should target the

actual staff who carry out the relevant action, not someone above or below them. Often sanctions are applied to low-level operators, who may be merely following orders, while those who issued the orders are off the hook.

- Rewards and penalties should be credible and large enough to matter. Financial or other incentives

should be linked to measured performance as a means of improving services. If incentives are used, they must be actual and significant to those being incentivized. It is important to gauge how influential they really are.

- Arguably resources are always in short supply, but severe strictures may encourage creativity in

avoidance of outcome accountability. Managers and teams should receive adequate resources to design, implement, modify, and operations towards outcomes.

- Multiparty collaboration are necessary in education. However, strong within-group individual

accountability is a prerequisite. Small group size, familiarity, and geographic proximity facilitate cooperation. Formal and informal relationships should be noted, and discussions should be held regarding the methods to deal with compliance failures.

- Accountability to remote beneficiaries may be facilitated through appropriate experiences. For example,

donor and government staff could be required to teach low-income children or adults for a few days in topics they know. In the 1990s, the World Bank engaged in a similar program, which could revived.

- Automated instruments such as “big data”, barometers, ‘observatories, and “dashboards” on monitoring

accountability or other concepts are useful but could be used cautiously. They may serve to make staff complacent and magnify errors. Software solutions in education are complex and require extensive study and interpretation of the outputs. The means dedicating staff time on understanding monitoring data and following up.

Overall, using accountability to improve educational outcomes seems like an uphill battle against human nature. The variables that influence accountability are often counterintuitive. The above recommendations are not always easy, and there may be insufficient time or interest in implementing them. But research suggests that if

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they are not implemented, goals will not be met, education initiatives may continue to have poor quality, and stakeholders will remain disappointed. Thus these variables deserve extensive dissemination and consideration. Staff of various organizations should understand better the evolutionary origins of accountability mechanisms and the resultant issues.

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1 Background: Accountability Expectations and Realities

“Why do countries commit to development targets they may never reach”? This was a question raised in a UNESCO World Education Blog on September 13, 2016.2 To fulfill Target 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)3 by 2030, governments have been asked to commit financial and policy support in their countries. Many countries are likely to fail, due to severe inequities and inability to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. However, some officials of low-income countries have committed their governments to attain the goals by 2030. They agreed that their governments should be held accountable for these goals. So after pledges, formal ceremonies and public-relations photo ops, the question of performance arises. Who will be held accountable if performance fails? The officials will probably transfer into other positions, and anyway most may be retired by 2030. They may only be spokesmen for their ministries, and funding or program decisions may be decided by other entities. And they may have little or no contact with the teachers who will do the actual work. And who will monitor performance? Staff of monitoring bodies themselves change regularly, as their careers progress. Nevertheless, governments may receive a great deal of aid by 2030. By then, no officials may be left in a country who can be specifically held accountable for commitments to achievement made in 2016. Sanctions for learning failures would be politically unpalatable and practically impossible. Therefore government officials have much to gain in terms of public visibility but nothing personal or organizational to lose. This and other paradoxical phenomena have led to questions about the meaning of accountability. Governments, donors, nongovernmental organizations and people often made commitments that were somehow not kept, and it was hard to pinpoint responsibility or impose sanctions. Individuals rarely acted alone, always someone else shared in decisions. Persons responsible for specific deliverables claimed inability to meet goals due to failures by other individuals or departments. To pinpoint specific actors, mandates, and results, the English word ‘accountability’ seemed appropriate. Therefore, organizations such as the World Bank and OECD have used it extensively (Chapter 2). But what exactly is accountability and how is it understood and executed in various countries? Organizational ‘culture’ may play a role, and local realities, understandings, and goals may not align with global discourse and ambitions. And how do various languages express accountability vis-a-vis the English term? Perhaps exploring notions of ‘accountability’ in other languages and linguistic cultures would help interpret performance gaps. It is useful, therefore, to understand not just whether ‘accountability’ or an equivalent term exists in different cultures but whether actors are responsible to others for their behavior, in an effort to reach a desired outcome. For these many reasons, the 2017 GEM (Global Education Monitor) focused on accountability. It examined the most commonly used accountability approaches in education and how they may contribute to the primary aims of SDG 4 – access, quality, and equity. Accountability was envisaged not as an end in itself but as a set of mechanisms that identify the actions and responsible actors working towards an identified aim. The GEM report highlighted the complex nature of accountability policy and provided examples of well- and poor-performing policies, the surrounding social, political, and cultural contexts in which the policies were embedded, and the enabling environment necessary for actors to fulfill their responsibilities. Multiple organizational forms were

2 Benavot, A. 2016. “Why have countries committed to development targets they might never reach”? Retrieved from

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/aaron-benavot/why-have-countries-commit_b_11987822.html 3 The Sustainable Development Goals is a United Nations initiative, which involves multiple sectors including education.

Target 4 aims at substantial achievement in basic and advanced skills by students in all countries by 2030. See

sustainabledevelopment.un.org/

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considered, encompassing donor agencies, governments, schools and parents. About 30 case studies elucidated these variables in multiple countries.4 In support, there is a great deal of psychological research that has dealt with this term and its features. Accountability seems to be one of the evolved psychological mechanisms of early humans, so it has commonalities across the species that enable meaningful comparisons and lessons to be learned. It is important to explore these in order to understand better how to enhance accountability in various educational settings.

Review Methodology A background paper was commissioned to review the publications on accountability definitions and in particular the variations involving this concept in various languages. The types of accountability presented in various documents led to a research review of the antecedents of accountability. The following activities were carried out: - Exploration of the definitions of responsibility and accountability in English, the main language of aid architecture. Dictionaries were consulted as well as websites dealing with management issues. Notable aid-effectiveness documents were also consulted, such as Eyben, 2008 and OECD, 2005 (Chapter 2). - Nomenclature in the official UNESCO languages as well as in a sample of European, Asian, and African languages. Several staff and consultants involved in educational development were asked about the interpretations of various terms5 (Chapter 3). - A survey of international education practitioners, students, professors, and other stakeholders regarding their perceptions about the features of accountability and terminology in various languages. (Chapter 3 and Appendix 1). - A review of the research on evolutionary, cognitive, social, industrial, and evolutionary psychology regarding the performance of individuals and groups (Chapters 4-6). More specifically, the following topics are presented: - Definitions of accountability and responsibility - Linguistic research regarding the use of the term in various languages and cultures - Decisionmaking research basics and information processing -Types of accountability and their effects on human decisions: - Process vs. outcome-based accountability - Perceptions of individual and shared accountability, formal and informal relations - Group operations and social loafing - Conformism and groupthink - Conclusions and implications about improving accountability - Definitions of accountability and responsibility Many examples in this document are from international organizations, but the decisionmaking rules apply to everyone. The experimental research on accountability and related concepts is significant, but it also has certain limitations. Most experiments were done in the ‘west’ in labs with college students and with workers of various

4 The definition proposed by the GEM aims at the least common denominator from the different perspectives.

Accountability is a process that includes three core components: (1) actors have clearly delineated responsibilities (2)

actors are obliged to provide a summary of how they have met their responsibilities to another party (3) this obligation of

the actor to provide a report is based on a legal, political, social, or moral justification. The GEM staff did not consider

rewards/sanctions as a necessary component. 5 The author is grateful for the linguistic information offered by Messrs/Mmes. Yimin Yuan, Aurora Bushati, Radhika

Iyengar, Marialuisa Martelli, Wycliffe Amukowa, Ichiro Miyazawa, Zillur Sidikki, Valerie Haugen, and Catherine Honeyman.

Dr. Paul Paulus, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington offered valuable advice and

bibliography.

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organizations, and they typically lack the duration and complexity seen in international organizations and governments. The bulk of the publications related to social loafing derive from the 1980s-90s; many of the models that were posited seem vague or circular, given the greater understanding of neurocognitive factors in the 21st century. Accountability effects often are in higher-order interactions, and some social psychology experiments involving complex topics have failed to replicate. However, there are solid reasons for exploring the relevant research. People worldwide process information in similar ways, due to evolutionary survival pressures that shaped cognition in the Paleolithic era. The decisions people make in the 21st century as a result of that ancient heritage are often hard to believe or understand. Researchers have made serious attempts to disentangle variables that were vague and produced complex interactions. They used innovative means to extricate the implicit rules used by participants and manipulated conditions to simulate concepts such as the sense of trust or accountability, albeit in low-risk and short-term situations. This is therefore an important body of research for UNESCO to consider.

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2 Accountability and Responsibility: Definitions and Contrasts in English

To use accountability as a vehicle of development, it is important to make relations explicit and to facilitate agreement about them across languages. The documents that specify donor accountability relationships have been mainly written in English. The English language has words that seem to differentiate responsibility from accountability. What do they really mean and how are they used? To find answers, the author explored dictionaries, publications and websites in English-speaking countries. Some examples contrasting the two concepts are below.6 Responsibility is derived from the Latin verb respondeo meaning to respond. (The noun is responsabilitas). Accountability is derived from the Latin root for counting; ac-count is “a report or description of an event or experience.7” Both words contain the term “ability”, that is “possession of the means or skill to do something.” (A related term is liability.) The Latin roots offer some hints for differentiation: Ability to respond vs. ability to tell what happened as final result. Consequently the Oxford English Dictionary defines accountability as: The quality of being accountable; liability to account for and answer for one’s conduct, performance of duties, etc. (in modern use often with regard to parliamentary, corporate, or financial liability to the public, shareholders, etc.); responsibility. Freq. with modifying word. The definition has three notable features: (1) it is an abstract noun designating a immaterial “quality” or characteristic; (2) its definition is strongly tied to synonyms, i.e., liability, answerability, responsibility; and (3) it is often accompanied by a “modifying word” that effectively renders it meaningful only in context. These points, individually and together, make the definition of accountability problematic (Dubnick, 2012). An accountable person is an “accountant” in the strictest, most literal and legalistic sense of that word. The label was once formally applied to those individuals called to testify before the court because they maintained the books for an enterprise that was part of some legal dispute. Qualities usually attributed to the appellation “accountable person” such as responsibility, obligation, or liability, they are not inherent in the meanings derived from etymological roots. If there is any sense of designating someone with responsibility, it is the implication that the accountant will fulfill the role of offering the expected “count” on demand (Dubnick, 2012). One problem with these definitions is that that the concepts are circular. They are explained through synonyms, so definitions result in the same terms (Dubnick 2012, 2014). This has created difficulties in operationalizing the definitions of accountability. The lack of clarity has also probably contributed to limitations in understanding what ‘accountable’ people should do (Dubnick, 2012).

How ‘Accountability’ is Used When there is a governance problem, it is frequently blamed on the lack of accountability. People call for someone to be held to account, and we expect there to be systems in place to prevent the recurrence of just about any untoward behavior (Dubnick, 2012). Accountability can be considered a “cultural keyword’ (Dubnick, 2012). A cultural keyword is defined not through some authoritative source such as the dictionary, but from its “complex relations with other similarly complex words” within the dynamic cultural milieu in which it plays a central and often controversial role. Accountability has had this status since the 1980s. The use of the term has broadened from applications where one party is

6 http://www.diffen.com/difference/Accountability_vs_Responsibility 7 Oxford dictionary

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answerable to another for some topic to an expansive, ambiguous and often enigmatic term with cutting across many cultural domains (Dubnick, 2012). How has this term evolved? The Google scanned books data (see Figures 2.1 and 2.2) can be used to indicate meanings derived from word usage at a more contextualized level. The term became much more common since the 1970s. Figure 2.1 offers evidence of the growing frequency of the term’s use in a sampling of books based on a million scanned volumes drawn from works published in English (in the US and UK) between 1800 and 2010. Accountability first appears in the plotted sample during the early 1800s, but it remains a culturally innocuous term until the 1960s and 1970s, when there is a sharp and significant increase in its usage. In these decades a strong belief has developed in the capacity of accountability to achieve certain highly valued objectives. The “promises of accountability” include assumptions that various forms of accountability will result in a more democratically responsive government, improvements in the efficient and effective performance of government agencies, a more ethical public sector workforce, and the enhanced capacity of government to generate just and equitable policy outcomes (Dubnick and Frederickson 2011). Figure 2.1: Use of ‘accountability’ as a term across decades

Figure 2.1: Usage frequency of selected “cultural keywords” (Williams 1983) and term “accountability,” 1800 to 2000 The term often derives its meaning from the adjectives it is associated with. Its frequency was estimated using the English language corpus developed by the Google project team. The plotted patterns follow the more general trends in Figure 2.1 (Dubnick, 2012). Figure 2.2 tracks the phrases “corporate accountability”, “accountable government”, and “financial accountability” since 1890. Financial accountability appeared first, corporate accountability emerged in the 1950s, and government accountability got increased references from the 1970s onwards. It is the latter that gets much emphasis in the education sector. Figure 2.2: Usage frequency of mediated forms of “accountability”, 1800 to 2000

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Figure 2.2: N>gram analysis of mediated forms of “accountability”, 1890>20008 These US linguistic trends are also reflected in the accountability day of the Netherlands. On the third Wednesday in May, the national government and ministries present their annual reports to the House of Representatives, and the Court of Audit publishes its report on the inspections of those annual reports. The annual reports account for how much money has been spent and on what, and the goals that were envisioned in the last year are also discussed. Consistent with the US increased use in recent decades, the Dutch Accountability Day dates from 2000.9 Accountability is a relatively infrequent word “Accountability” in English is a much less frequent term than responsibility). Evidence of frequencies is derived from linguistic frequency lists (‘new general service list’). One of them lists the most important words for second language learners of English.10 In this list, the words “responsible” and “responsibility” are in the first 1000 lemmas, but accountability appears after the first 3000. (Only accounting appears earlier.) The Standard Frequency Index of the word ‘responsible’ is 59.21, and its adjusted frequency per million is 83. (Adjusted frequency ranges from 60,910 to 3). The Standard Frequency Index rank for “responsibility” is 1080 (out of 2801 words as counted). By contrast, the responsibility Standard frequency index is 59.88, adjusted frequency per 97, SFI rank 961 out of the first 2800 words. (The adjusted frequency ranges from 60,910 to 3, so this word is not very common. Furthermore, accountability is in the special business vocabulary (Brown & Culligan, 2016). Estimated frequency per million words is 21.46. The term “accountable” has a frequency of 17.33 per million words. It occurs about 523 times every 100,000 words. Table 2.1: Frequency statistics in the English language11

8 Each of the terms (case sensitive) used in this figure are 2-gram units (bigrams). Usage frequency (vertical axis) is

computed by dividing the number of instances of the n-gram unit in a given year by the total number of words in the

corpus (number of scanned works) in that year. The corpora used above are scanned works published in English the US

and UK for the years covered. See Michel et al. 2011 (In Dubnick, 2012). 9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountability_Day 10 http://www.newgeneralservicelist.org/ Business Service List by Browne, C. & Culligan, B. (2016). 11 Word list organization statistics: F=frequency of a word’s occurrence in the corpus. D (dispersion) offers an index of

relative frequency across content areas, based on the total corpus; appearance in only one area has a D value of 0.0,

appearance in all content areas has a value of 1. U is a word’s estimated frequency per million words in a theoretically

infinite corpus. It is derived from F with an adjustment for D; and U can be used for direct comparisons to values given by

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Term Standard Frequency Rank

Standard Frequency Index

U – estimated frequency per million words

Dispersion across content areas

Frequency of occurrence in corpus

Responsibility 961 of 2801 words

59.877 97.21 0.9594 27,954

Responsible 1080 of 2801 words

59.207 83.30 0.9620 23,894

Accountability 4728 of 31,242 words

50.167 10.39 0.8424 3,349

Accountable - - - - - Accountability business service list

694 of 1757 words

53.35 21.46 0.972 1428

Accountable business service list

974 of 1757 words

52.39 17.33 0.98 1131

Source: Browne, Culligan, & Phillips, 2013; 2016

The relatively low frequency of the term ‘accountability’ (and even lower frequency of ‘accountable’) suggests that even in English, ‘responsibility’ adequately covers most needs to discuss performance. Accountability seems like a special case. It is not surprising, therefore, that most languages lack a single word to differentiate accountability from responsibility or from accounting (Dubnick 2012). If there is need to focus on features specific to accountability, multi-word expressions seem sufficient.

12

Definitions and Differentiation between “Accountability” and “Responsibility” Responsibility may be individual or collective, action-oriented or moral. People can be responsible for various tasks, or they may feel morally responsible for promoting certain ideals, such their countries’ image. They are not necessarily liable or obliged to report results.

other corpora. The Standard Frequency Index (SFI) is derived from U for a more compressed and interpretable range of

value. 90 would be expected to occur once in every 10 words; 80 in every 100 words; 70 in every 1000 words; 40 once in a

million words. The Educator’s World Frequency Guide represents lists of words and associated statistics. The most useful

is a list of 19,468 with a U value greater >=1.( by Patricia F. Vadasy, J. Ron Nelson (2012).Vocabulary Instruction for

Struggling Students, Guilford Press, p. 48).

12 http://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/58996/thursdays-top-10-nz-mint-marc-rich-reincarnated-more-spanish-debt-bank-

bonus-pools

17

But in accountability, someone is responsible to someone else for something. Ideally, a single individual (or group) should be called to account for actions. That individual may in turn monitor and choreograph other people responsible for various task components. If heads must fall or congratulations given, the accountable person is liable to answer for his/her own actions as well for the actions of subordinates. The accountable person is the “go to” person for information regarding the process or outcome of a program, action, or product. S/he is the final, ultimate person to go to in what may be a long chain of actions leading to an outcome. The accountable person may have merely overseen the execution of certain actions by others who report to the individual. Ideally, only one individual should be answerable about the execution of the entire chain. For example, a parent deciding whether or not to take a child to school faces a personal responsibility. The parent is not accountable to anyone for this. But if there is a house servant, that servant may be accountable to the employer for taking the child to school. The performance of accountable individuals is presumed to be monitored by an external audience. To judge the actions of the agents, principals must have access to relevant information and must know enough about the subject to make correct and timely decisions. Thus, there are tangible or intangible consequences, associated with that evaluation. The person therefore is liable for punishment or rewards (Davis, Mero & Goodman, 2007). External monitoring implies a principal-agent relationship. An agent is accountable to the principal for something. The agent expects delivery of certain items (e.g. good-quality shoes in case of a store; Reinikka and Smith, 2004).13 The agent is not expected to carry out the prerequisite tasks personally; these may be delegated. But to deliver, the accountable person must have the authority and power to make decisions and carry them out. Thus a principal-agent relationship requires delegation of tasks, financing of tasks, performance of duties, information about performance, and enforceability (Reinikka and Smith, 2004). Sometimes the term “ownership” is attributed to someone who has these powers and obligations. According to some authors, responsibility can be assigned at all levels of an operation, but accountability must be assignable at the final stage (e.g. Skousen, 2016; Tables 1 and 2). People may be accountable to someone for something. The management literature also emphasizes the individualistic aspect of accountability. Many people can be responsible to make something happen, but the final accounting ought to be attributed to one individual. That individual is answerable to a higher authority; s/he must monitor, choreograph the people responsible for each part. This helps assign liability and consequences. If heads must fall or congratulations given, the single individual should be identifiable. ‘Responsibility’ and ‘accountability’ are often used interchangeably in English. Differentiation is important in the private sector and management training, so many documents have been written to clarify and sufficiently distinguish between the two. The explanations found in articles or the internet still vary according to authors’ context, but some elements are consistently discussed (Table 2.2). Similarly, the 40 participants of a survey given in May 2017 had partial agreement among themselves and the descriptions shown above (Appendix Table 1). Individuals had limited accuracy, but the set of responses outlined the outstanding features of accountability. Table 2.2: Distinguishing features between responsibility and accountability.

Accountability Responsibility

A single individual is accountable Many people may be responsible for tasks

Accountability is externally imposed Responsibility may be internal, moral

The accountable person is being monitored Monitoring is not required

13 The “principal-agent” term was coined by economist Michael C. Jensen in 1985. The original idea is that investors,

rather than corporate managers or the board of directors, should have the most influence on decisions.

18

Accountability cannot be shared14 Responsibility can be shared

A principal-agent relationship necessary Responsibility decisions may be personal

A hierarchy of authorities is implied Hierarchy is not required

Goals, criteria are used for monitoring Specific criteria are not required

The accountable person is liable for actions Liability is not required

Sanctions may be imposed Sanctions do not exist or may insignificant

The accountable person is the final, “go to” person

People may be responsible just for specific tasks

Feeling “ownership” of process or product Involvement may be too vague for ‘ownership’

Various management specialists emphasize the need for clear roles for effective implementation. Decisions must be made on the person who is responsible and the person who has authority to carry out various tasks and processes. A distinction of roles is below. If you are an employee who has responsibility, you have an active role:15 You are the one actually performing the task/process, you are the one to document how to carry out the processes, and you are responsible for speaking up if you need resources or training. You are also responsible for training others on your responsibilities so you have back-up and have your replacement so that you can take on a promotion, engage in other projects, etc. If you are an employee who has accountability, you must facilitate various tasks: You make sure the person responsible knows they are responsible for the task/process. You ensure they have all resources needed for success. (This includes training, tools/materials, success metrics, feedback on their progress and goal attainment.) And you identify the back-ups. Who can be cross-trained to back this individual up in the event it is needed. Due to overlap and differing contexts, various documents have slight variations. Table 2.3 presents definitions from dictionaries and from various documents on this topic. Table 2.3: Definitions of accountability by various authors and organizations

Origin of definition Responsibility / responsible Accountability /accountable

Webster dictionary, 182816

The state of being accountable or answerable, as for a trust or office, or for a debt. Responsibility can be used in the plural; as heavy responsibilities. Also, ability to answer in payment; means of paying contracts.

Accountable: 1. Liable to be called to account; answerable to a superior. Every man is accountable to God for his conduct. 2. Subject to pay, or make good, in case of loss. A sheriff is accountable as bailiff and receiver of goods. Accountable for, that may be explained. (Marked as “not elegant” in 1828.)

Merriam Webster17 The state of being the person who caused something to happen; a duty

1. The state of being liable to answer for one’s conduct; liability to give account, and

14 www.diffen.com. Some management specialists who present differences and actions on the internet include

Meesrs/Mmes Christopher Avery, Neetu Maltiar, Alyssia Freeze (e.g. www.slideshare.net/neetumaltiar/ownership-

accountability-training). In reality, teams may be accountable, as discussed elsewhere in the document. 15 https://ceriusexecutives.com/responsibility-vs-accountability-whats-the-difference/ 16 webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Responsibility 17 www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accountability?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld

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or task that you are required or expected to do; something that you should do because it is morally right, legally required, etc. Being in charge of

to receive reward or punishment for actions. The awful idea of accountability. 2. Liability to the payment of money or of damages; responsibility for a trust.

Webster dictionary 1. Liable to account; accountable; answerable; as for a trust reposed, or for a debt. We are all responsible for the talents entrusted to us by our Creator. A guardian is responsible for the faithful discharge of his duty to his ward. The surety is responsible for the debt of his principal. 2. Able to discharge an obligation; or having estate adequate to the payment of a debt. In taking bail, the officer will ascertain whether the proposed surety is a responsible man.

Accountability: the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions <public officials lacking accountability>

www.bluepeapod.com18

Being in charge, being the owner of a task or event

Answerability, liability, blameworthiness, expectation of account-giving “I take ownership of the outcome, will do whatever it takes”

Differen.com19 Responsibility can be shared Accountability is individual, cannot be shared Person held accountable after a task is done

Discourse on the responsibility-accountability differences20

Leader takes responsibility for various actions, decisions Obligations fulfilled to the best of one’s ability The responsible thing to do in a situation

Synonymous for ‘leader; it is considered accountable for various actions, after the fact

Rhythmsystems.com An agreed upon obligation to perform a given task or tasks, either individually or as part of a larger priority or within a team of people.

Individually taking personal ownership for identified individual priorities and owning the process to accomplish certain priorities, while also openly sharing the progress and end results of those priorities

Rhythmsystems.com Responsibility can be delegated, shared. It completes a task and is not necessarily individual

Accountability cannot be delegated; one person is ultimately accountable; One person is accountable for overall results, takes individual ownership

Use of terms important in case of failures (Skousen, 2016)

Who’s responsible for missing a deadline?

Which department is accountable for not delivering our goals? Accountability is something truly empowering, not something consequential (“subject to; answerable”)

18 www.bluepeapod.com/portfolio-items/responsibility-v-accountability/ 19 www.diffen.com/difference/Accountability_vs_Responsibility

20 www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZJ3Nw60CKs

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Other frequent definitions

Duty and ability to respond or take action. Giving someone responsibility for a task, process, service or key performance indicators means that it is the role of that person(s) to do the task. It can be assigned to multiple people. If not performed, the responsible people have failed

State of being subject to the obligation to report, explain, justify something; answerable

www.dictionary.com 21

The state or fact of being responsible, answerable, or accountable for something within one’s power, control, or management.

The obligation to report, explain, or justify something

Responsibility and accountability roles can be optimized. The likely results would be clarity on employee or partner roles that involve built-in succession planning; training, cross-training; documentation, policies & procedures; leadership; less work for top management, cost savings and peace of mind (Skousen, 2016). The prerequisites are to define roles and job descriptions with focus, establish clear organizational hierarchies, have processes and systems in place, have feedback sessions in the form of reviews, supervise that intermediate goals are met numerically. Still an organization can be responsible and still face a lack of accountability. Examples are:

- Siloed thinking and acting with reluctant behaviors around getting involved in things outside their control.

- “I thought you had it” mentalities where people ignore and deny one another’s ability to positively contribute.

- Attitudes where people justify the ways they think and act to reduce their liability. - Poor performance and development due to infrequent feedback exchanges.

How is “Accountability” and “Responsibility” Used? Some examples Some examples from the various management-related publications are below.

- It is Tom’s responsibility to make sure there are supplies in the office room. So Tom will be aware of this task and keep bringing in more supplies before they run out. Tom is only held accountable — owes an explanation for his actions — if the supplies ever run out.

- After the 2001 Enron bankruptcy and scandal in the US, members of the executive board were indicted

for their illegal and unethical actions. The Chief Executive Officer, Kenneth Lay, insisted that Enron’s collapse was due to a conspiracy waged by short sellers, rogue executives, and the news media. He argued that he could be held accountable as the CEO and leader of the organization, but he had delegated work to his staff, so he was not in any way responsible for the fraud in the company.

21 Tightship.com http://www.tightship.io/stop-confusing-accountability-vs-responsibility-vs-authority/

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- The Pawnee Indian nation of the sued oil companies in its own tribal court over earthquakes created as a result of oil drilling. The lawsuit has a legal basis, but the oil companies have no principal-agent linkages to the Pawnee Nation and cannot be easily held accountable to them.22

- A university training manual involves university-owned laptops and outlines sanctions, criteria, and

procedures. Deans are ultimately held accountable for safekeeping laptops. Deans must monitor the whereabouts and condition of all property in their inventory. The employees under the deans who are entrusted with a computer must maintain it in an acceptable manner, ensure its security, make sure it is found when requested. Employees may be held personally liable for lost or stolen equipment. To take a laptop to an off-campus meeting, a removal form must be completed, signed by the person responsible for the equipment and by the appropriate department chair or director. The forms must be kept department for audit purposes. However, the procedures of filling out forms and getting deans to sign them before attending an off campus meeting may be deemed burdensome “bureaucracy” for some people. Paperwork may be skipped and render the monitoring mechanism inoperable.

- -Volunteers in countries that accept refugees may feel morally responsible for educating them and may

make committed efforts. But that is their personal decision. By contrast, persons receiving funding and contracts to educate the refugees should be monitored and should be liable for actually teaching the necessary curricula to refugees. Failure should result in loss of contracts or job termination. Contractors also should be able to account for the funding, the procedures, time spent, and other decisions. There should be sanctions that are also sizable and credible.

The Rise of Accountability in International Education Accountability in donor agencies rose in importance when single-donor projects were giving way to sector operations and multiparty donor arrangements. Traditionally, donors financed specific projects in a country, but low-income governments found it hard to deal with multiple independent donors. For this reason, OECD in 2005 forged an accord in Paris to improve development effectiveness and solve this problem. The donors affirmed their commitment to bring about results and sanctified it into frameworks, mutual accountability arrangements, and a detailed focus on systems.23 The OECD documents on the Paris Accord emphasized accountability and coined new concepts about it (OECD, 2005; Eyben, 2008; Table 2.4). The theorists of the Paris accord conceptualized global governance as system composed of innumerable elements, continuously shaped and reformed through interaction upon each other. Rational decisionmaking was an essential assumption. It was posited that the system constantly creates new elements that in turn may affect (loop back) and change those already in existence. The change privileges networks, relationships and processes, so linear planning is insufficient. Nonlinear connections may result in changes taking place in unexpected ways and through unlikely actors in quirky spaces. Complexity makes it impossible to predict all effects on the wider system. Small ‘butterfly’ actions may have a major impact and apparently significant ones may have very little (Ramalingam et al., 2008).

22 Pawnee Nation Sues Oklahoma Oil Companies in Tribal Court over Earthquake Damage, March 4, 2017. Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04 23 OECD is the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The 2008 Accra Agenda for Action aimed to

improve implementation of the Paris accord and enable low-income countries to build strong institutions, systems, and

local expertise to manage their own development. Retrieved from

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/ACCRAEXT/Resources/4700790-1217425866038/AAA-4-SEPTEMBER-FINAL-16h00.pdf

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Complexity and systemic considerations were developed using political science and sociological concepts. Networking between differently positioned civil society actors would require mutual accountability systems involving many actors in poorly defined and messy relationships (Guijit, 2008). These would go beyond the dyadic mechanisms associated with principal-agent and representative principles of accountability. The various authors did not have available the research compiled in this document. Nevertheless, they understood that mutual responsibility would be difficult to achieve, even among like-minded civil society partners. (See Chapter 5.) Concerns regarding the effects of complex arrangements proved to be correct. In 2017, aid architecture in education resembles a skyscraper whose blueprints span thousands of pages, and no single individual knows them in detail. (See example in Box 2.) Numerous conferences have taken place on the various arrangements, involving hundreds of consultants and staff, with millions spend on hiring, training, international travel. Working groups and communities of practice on various topics operate on a distance mode. Assigning accountability and to the appropriate units, therefore has been nearly impossible. Complex multiparty arrangements somehow failed to hold any parties responsible for teaching and learning outcomes. And corruption has continued unabated in many countries, while coordinated actions have been cautious and slow. Some uses of the term “accountability” in international documents are below. Some of the terms are presented in greater detail in the subsequent chapters. Table 2.4. Types of accountability mentioned in various donor and government documents

Origin, terms used in international aid Accountability features

Accountability (Eyben, 2008) Holding organizations responsible for performance against pre-established objectives

Accountability (Schlenker et al., 1994: 634). In Davis et al., 2007 accountability pyramid

Has been defined as “being answerable to audiences for performing up to certain prescribed standards, thereby fulfilling obligations, duties, expectations, and other charges

Accountability as one of three requirements of good governance (DFID, 2006; Eyben, 2008)

The process by which people are able to hold government to account

Social accountability (World Bank, 2004) A consequence of the implicit social contract between citizens and their delegated representatives and agents in a democracy

Dyadic or two-party model of accountability Principal-agent accountability vs. representative accountability (Brown, 2007 in Eyben, 2008)

A principal hires or appoints an agent (the relationship may be covert, i.e. clientelism; see chapter 5). Elected officials represent the people who voted for them Donor agencies may claim to speak for the marginalized, but they were not appointed in this role

Principal-agent relationship (De Renzio, 2006) Mutual accountability needed for international organizations to function in this fashion

Accountability denotes the mechanisms through which people entrusted with power are kept under check to make sure that they do not abuse it, and that they carry out their duties effectively (rational choice theory of economics) Availability and use of information, mechanisms for monitoring performance, and the existence of adequate incentives for compliance.

Mutual accountability (Eyben, 2008; see chapter 5)

Holding each other to account for performance against pre-established objectives

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Two people known to each other and performing before each other; but two institutions have mutual accountability only in theory. The process is political rather than technical

Team mutual accountability (Rashid, 2015; see chapter 4)

A reciprocally authorized behavior among team members of evaluating one another’s progress on the team’s task

Definition of the Paris declaration on Effective Aid, OECD, 2005 Accountability relations: Horizontal accountability Vertical accountability External accountability

Multiparty relationships and multiple sets of dyadic relations, with recipient and donor governments accountable to their respective legislatures and citizens as well as to each other. Horizontal: between institutions of a government Vertical: between a government and its citizens External: between a government and international actors, including donor agencies

Upward and downward accountabilities (Eyben, 2008; OECD Development and Assistance Committee, 2007)

Upward towards one’s donors, Downward towards one’s beneficiaries

Accountability Under the Law The US Justice Department has the right to seek accountability from high-level corporate officials in cases of wrongdoing24

Jagadananda and Brown, 2006 (in Eyben, 2008)

Responsibility to answer for particular performance expectations to specific stakeholders; Answerability for performance

OECD Development and Assistance Committee, 2007

Upward and downward accountability Upward towards one’s donors, downward towards one’s beneficiaries

Fiduciary, financial responsibility (Eyben, 2008)

The correct allocation of inputs.

Co-governance for accountability (Ackerman, 2004)

Conscious effort to involve in the circle of accountability relations also citizens and the organizations that claim to speak for them, not only in recipient countries but also in donor countries.

Coercive accountability (Strathern, 2000, Blackman, 2001; In Eyben, 2008)

Accountability mechanisms need (a) availability and use of information, (b) mechanisms for monitoring performance, (c) existence of adequate incentives for compliance. This management approach is sometimes referred to as audit cultures and coercive accountability

Individual vs. position accountability Donor relations with governments and each other

Accountability is laid on the position, there is no clear individual accountability; that may be determined on the basis of someone’s job description, agency evaluation process, etc. If people escape consequences, accountability is “responsibility light”

Corporate Accountability 25 Research investigates and reports on the ways that business can act with heightened ethics and be more responsive to communities and workers.

Government accountability Transparency, protection of whistleblowers (e.g., Government Accountability Project in the US)

Social psychology researchers Process accountability; Outcome accountability

Accountability as a perceptual state “an implicit or explicit expectation that one’s decisions or actions will be subject to evaluation by some salient audience(s) with the

24 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/23/business/wells-fargo-tests-justice-departments-get-tough-approach.html 25 Activity Based Total Accountability (Ponsey, 2006); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountability_software

24

belief that there exists the potential for one to receive either rewards or sanctions based on the expected evaluation” (Hall et al., 2003, p. 33).

Accountability in internet use accountability in research

Social responsibility for content that people put online; this may include journalistic and communications content regarding donor and government operations; researchers should have standards of integrity in data reporting

Performance accountability (as in public education)

The term refers to any system that measures or rates the effectiveness of students, teachers, administrators, schools, school districts, or statewide educational systems based on specific learning outcomes and applies consequences or interventions to people or groups that fail to meet a specified standard. (Cohen, 2011)

Accountability software Third-party implementers may be “accountability partners”

Computerized tools that enable tracking of relations, goals, performance benchmarks; may track internet use on an individual computer To function it needs individuals to make decisions about content;

MANGO, a financial management advisory and training service (Eyben, 2008)

Explaining what you have done and taking responsibility for the results of your actions.

Formal vs. informal accountability (Romzek et al., 2012)

Informal accountability focuses on the expectations and interorganizational behaviors of collaborators within a network; encompasses the informal norms, expectations, behaviors, and sanctions that facilitate collective action, for example among nonprofit groups

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3 Meaning of “Accountability” in Different Languages and Cultures

To use accountability as a vehicle of development, its meaning must be clear across languages, and broad agreement must exist about its meaning. The documents about accountability have been written mainly in English, which differentiates between accountability and responsibility (Chapter 1). Most other languages lack this distinction. Is it possible to communicate about the features of this concept across languages and cultures? At first glance, this may seem difficult. A group of UNESCO staff speaking 22 languages realized that in many languages “accountability” does not even exist. Speakers of multiple languages perceived subtle differences in the breadth and depth of “accountability” as rendered in various languages. A survey of international stakeholders showed semantic variations in terminology; 61% perceived a difference between the meaning of ‘accountability’ in English vs. the closest synonym in their reported languages (Appendix 1). Thus, the terms that can be translated as responsibility or accountability differ in breadth. However, users seemed to confuse their understanding of the term (i.e., essentially being responsible to someone for something) with linguistic breadth. Roughly, linguistic terms could be classified under different categories:

- Sufficient differentiation between the two terms (e.g., English, Chinese, Vietnamese). - No differentiation from “responsibility” (e.g., Spanish, French, Italian, Hindi, Nepali, Bahasa Indonesia,

or Malagasy.) - Partial differentiation, that is use of terms denoting “answerability” (e.g., Greek, Albanian, Russian) - Development of neologisms or adoption of foreign forms as “donorspeak.” For example, discussions in

Spanish, which lacks a single word for the concept, may simply insert the English word “accountability” (Eyben, 2008).

The expressions which describe accountability often include words related to answering, rendering accounts, or having a final responsibility. For example, a suitable Albanian term is logaridhenie, whereas in Greek it is λογοδοσία (logodosia). In Russian, it is ответственность, answerability. The Swahili term uajibkaji carries a similar connotation. In German, "Verantwortung" means "responsibility", while "Rechenschaftspflicht" denotes a formal-technical duty to report back to someone. Being answerable to someone is an important distinguishing feature of accountability. Languages that do not differentiate may have composite terms for various types of accountability. For example, ‘responsabilidad fiscal’ in Spanish. It is however possible to use ‘responsibility’ and specify it closely. For example, “responsabilité envers quelq’un” in French. Some are Romance languages use the modern expressions of the Latin word for counting, and it coincides with the modern term for accounting. Thus a cognate of ‘accountability’ is not appropriate for most Romance languages. Composite words have therefore been developed. In Italian, the expression conveys answerability (“ne respondo io”), while in French there are terms such as reddition des comptes, redevabilité, or obligation redditionelle. In Spanish it is rendición de cuentas or responsabilidad del superior. One problem about forms related to giving an account is that the responsibility connotation may be reduced. For example, in Spanish “rendicion de cuentas” may convey just talking about events rather than being liable for them. Even in languages that differentiate, interpretations are multiple. For example the Chinese form “zeren” means duty and occupational task of a role, while the form wenze (or jixiao wenze) means accounting for what is required for fulfiling a duty or a task.26 In Vietnamese, responsibility is rendered as trách nhiệm - task or duty

26 Information provided by Yimin Yuan

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you are required to undertake, while accountability is rendered as trách nhiệm giải trình - task or duty you are required to undertake that will be checked on by someone else and mandates that you answer any questions about it. Differentiated terms in other languages mainly have evolved since the 1970s, as cultures faced the same challenges as English (Chapter 2). Some terms are downright awkward. For example, the Japanese imported a term which they loosely translate as ‘responsibility to explain’, but it remains rarely used. In Bahasa, the English term was adopted (akauntabilitas). Evidence may not be as readily available as in English (Chapter 2, table 2.1), but 29% of survey participants stated that their languages had recently introduced terms (51% indicated a long history of use and 20% were unsure). The lack of a single or clear term for ‘accountability’ does not mean that the concept is absent from a language. Expressions may involve multiple words. Furthermore, multi-word expressions may be used interchangeably when talking about accountability. Arabic, for example, has a word for accountability مسؤولية , (mas’ulia) but also uses المساءلة “better governance الحكم الرشيد”, “trust الثقة ”, “access to information حق الوصول للمعلومة ”, “transparency الشفافية ”, “integrity النزاهة ” or “answerability التجاوب ”. Survey participants were asked to give examples of sentences using “accountability. Some examples are in a footnote. 27 Table 3.1 presents definitions in a number of languages as provided by dictionaries and reports of proficient speakers. Variations are possible. Table 3.1: Use of the terms responsibility and accountability in different languages28

Language Responsibility Responsible for… Accountability Accountable for…

Albanian përgjegjësi ai është përgjegjës për.. llogaridhënja llogaridhënës

Arabic مسؤولية mas’ulia

هو مسؤول عنmas’ul an

مساءلة

musa’ala هو مسؤول عنmas’ul an

Bahasa Indonesia

tanggung jawab dia bertanggung jawab untuk..

akuntabilitas dia bertanggung jawab untuk..

Bengali দায়িত্ব dayitbo

তিতি জিয দায়ী

tini jon daitbo

দায়িত্ব

daytbo যিযি জিয দা়ি়ী

tini jon daitbo

Chinese 责任

zeren (他/她) 负责….. (ta) fuze

问责/绩效问责

wenze (jixiao wenze)

(他/她)应该对.....负责

(ta) yinggai dui.....fuze

Dutch verantwoordelijkheid hij is antwoordelij voor... verantwoording hij is antwoordelij voor...

French responsabilité

il/elle est responsable de reddition des comptes redevabilité

il/elle rendre comptes

German Verantwortung er/sie ist verantwortlich für

Rechenschaftspflicht Er/ sie ist rechenschaftspflichtig für

Greek ευθύνη efthýni

είναι υπεύθυνος για λογοδοσία logodosía

είναι υπόλογος για

27 French example of use: Le projet « .. » a pour objectif de développer un outil de redevabilité sociale aux niveaux local,

régional et national et de renforcer les capacités ... https://www.medias24.com/map/map-22855-Education-Presentation-

le-25-avril-des-resultats-preliminairesdu-projet-Lead.html

https://www.mfa.gouv.qc.ca/fr/intimidation/programme-de-soutien-_nancier/Pages/reddition-comptes.aspx

Arabic example of use: Any act contrary to the above exposes the violator to legal accountability (insert of warning in

Arabic e-mails of some organizations)

أي فعل مخالف لما تم توضيحه آنفاً يعرض المخالف للمساءلة القانونية28 The author is a polyglot and knows the official UNESCO languages except for Chinese.

27

Hebrew ַאֲחָריּות

aharayut הוא אחראיHu ahara’i

דין וחשבון

Din heshbon הוא אחראי

Hu ahara’i

Hindi जिम्मेवारी

jimevaarii वह जिम्मेवार है vo jimmevaar hai

जवाबदेही

javaabdehi वह जिम्मेवार है

Vo jimmevaar hai

Italian responsabilità

è responsabile

responsabilità

è responsabile il ne responde

Japanese 責任

sekinin

彼は責任があります

kare wa sekinin ga arimasu

アカウンタビリティ

akauntabiriti 彼は責任があります

kare wa sekinin ga arimasu

Kinyarwanda inshingano kuzuza inshingano ze guhiga imihigo

Malagasy andraikitra izy no tompon’ ndraikitra amin'ny..

andraikitra izy no tompon' ndraikitra amin'ny..

Nepali जिम्मेवारी

jimevaarii उहाँले लागि जिम्मेवार छ

Uhanle lagi jimmewaar cha

उत्तरदायित्व uttardayatva

उहाँले लागि जिम्मेवार छ

Unhe laagi jimmewara cha

Portuguese responsabilidade ele é responsável por.. prestação de contas ele é responsável por..

Romanian responsabilitate el este responsabil pentru

responsabilitate el este responsabil pentru

Russian обязанность abyazannost

он отвечает за on atviechaet za

Подотчетность Ответственность atvietstvennost

он отвечает за on atviechaet za

Sinhalese වගකීමක් vagakīvak

ඔහු වගකිව ohu vagakiva

වගකීමයි accountability

ඔහු වගකිව

ohu vagakiva

Spanish responsabilidad él es responsable de rendición de cuentas él es responsable de..

Swahili jukumu yeye ni kuwajibika kwa ajili ya

uajibikaji

yeye ni kuwajibika kwa ajili ya

Vietnamese trách nhiệm tôi chịu trách nhiệm trách nhiệm giải trình tôi chịu trách nhiệm giải trình

Source: Abadzi (2017); Dubnick (2012; 2014)

If a language has a word for ‘accountability,’ will its users be more easily held accountable? Given the variation in expressions across languages, perhaps it is hard to communicate about accountability. Perhaps functions cannot be easily executed when the word itself doesn’t even exist. If people speak a language that lacks a single and clearly defined term for accountability would their performance be to some extent impacted? Almost half the survey respondents believed that the existence of a word facilitated compliance (another 29% were unsure; Appendix 1). This section explores the research around this possibility. In the early 20th century a hypothesis was developed that vocabulary affects perception. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis holds that semantic differences between languages induce differences in perception and/or cognition in their speakers. It states that there are certain thoughts of an individual in one language that cannot be understood by those who live in another language. For example, culture may help to distinguish turquoise from green. The Sapir-Whorf phenomenon would suggest that if people cannot easily talk about the function, they may not easily pinpoint it and perform it. For example, native English and Chinese speakers, who have a specific word for this concept, may be more likely to be held accountable than others who lack this concept. Similarly, Greeks, Albanians, and Russians who have an identifiable word for ‘account giving’ might be more likely to report outcomes. Research suggests on this effect is weak, specific, and inapplicable to accountability (Robertson, Davies, and Davidoff, 2000). Language influences color discrimination strongly in the right visual field and less so or not at all in the left visual field. This asymmetry likely is related to the contralateral projection of visual fields to cerebral

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hemispheres and the specialization of the left hemisphere for language. Thus, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis may be relevant for processing within one hemisphere and not the other. Under normal conditions, perceivers may view the world at once filtered through the lens of their language and not so filtered (Drivonikou, Kay, Regier, et al. 2007). However, stronger forces exist. Biological categorization has a stronger effect; babies distinguish between five colors before they understand language. Therefore people biologically are able to categorize colors independently of language (Skelton, Catchpole, Abbott, et al., 2017). Empirical evidence seems to agree. Albania and Greece do not have the best compliance record on accountability. Also the hypothesis focuses on the existence of a single word affecting individual decisions. Languages create new vocabulary or multiple-word expressions for concepts that they need, and it seems that all languages which include the word ‘responsibility’ can create the term “responsible before someone for something”. Thus, strong cultural effects emerging from linguistics seem improbable. A linguistic effect could exist through another avenue. People’s preferences, choices, and judgments are affected by whether information is presented in a foreign or a native language (Costa, Vives, & Corey, 2017). Foreign languages have fewer emotional links attached, and vocabulary may not be understood in all its breadth. In a foreign-language context, people are less sensitive to whether options are presented in terms of gains or losses—they are less affected by the way choices are framed, showing more consistent preferences. They may also be more willing to take risks at least for positive expected outcomes. (Costa, Vives, & Corey, 2017). Non-native speakers could conceivably take accountability less seriously. But the magnitude of this effect is unclear and it surely depends on the number of years a language has been used and studied. For example, the Nigerian government uses English, and its civil servants would have much experience with English, although it is not their native language. Overall, the effect of linguistic variation on the performance of accountability functions seems unlikely. Stronger mechanisms exist, notably reciprocal altruism, that seem to transcend language. Linguistic explanations are commonsense and attractive, But memory functions are largely unconscious, so commonsense explanations are often inaccurate. This is why many beliefs are biased.

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4 Accountability in the Brain: A Foray into Evolution and Decisionmaking

Why would people feel accountable to others? Why does this sentiment exist and why do others have expectations of such behavior? To explain and improve the prospects of accountability in education, it is important to understand what this function aimed to accomplish in the course of human evolution. Genes change very slowly, so our brains are set up to solve problems confronted by ancestors who lived 200,000 to 20,000 years ago. The accountability storyline originates in the ways humans evolved to survive in the harsh environments of the Paleolithic era. Humans could only survive in groups, so their thinking evolved to help group functions under difficult conditions. A very significant mechanism has been reciprocal altruism, that is the expectation that a favor given today would be reciprocated in the future (Buss, 2015, p. 396; Hamilton, 1964). People who did what they said and acted responsibly would be more likely to receive further favors, gain status and spouses, and pass their genes to subsequent generations. Thus, public displays of fulfilled obligations, such as accounting for resources and decisions before a body of people, have been shown in research to increase prestige (Bereczkei, Birkas, & Kerekes, 2007). At the same time, psychological adaptations arose to spot cheaters or free riders, and take action against them (e.g., Barclay, 2008; Tooby et al., 2006). This may be one reason why reneged commitments arouse moral outrage. In fact, taking action against cheaters increases prestige (Barclay, 2006). This may be one reason why monitoring and evaluation functions are prestigious and respected. Accountability therefore seems to be part of a social contract that holds others to commitments and obligations through a policing function. This apparently universal psychological adaptation makes individuals carry out actions that might be costly to them, but ensures continued reciprocal altruism. One would expect, therefore, that accountability arrangements would be easily carried out. Why does this not happen? Decisionmaking rules offer some insights. To fulfill the obligations of reciprocal altruism and cheater spotting, complex memory and cognitive mechanisms evolved. To understand better the decisions made by people who feel accountable, a brief detour will be made into decisionmaking. It focuses primarily on two variables: (a) speed and accuracy of decisions and (b) influence of others’ opinions. To survive predators and harsh environments of 10,000-200,000 years ago, our ancestors needed rapid and accurate decisions with minimal errors. Our brains constantly collect statistics from the environment and make complex unconscious calculations. To optimize the quality of decisions given the timeframes available for making them, we have access to shortcuts that facilitated survival in our remote past. Particularly for instant decisions, humans rely a lot on unconscious processes that are sometimes called “system 1;” (Kahneman, 2011). These unconscious decisions are biased towards utility in ancient environments. Under various conditions of risk, people value gains differently (prospect theory). 29 They typically fear losses more than they value gains. Rational decisions are of course more desirable, but time is needed to recruit the system of conscious complex cognition (“system 2”). This system also has limitations. Conscious thinking takes place in working memory, that holds information only for a few seconds.30 In those seconds we must import data from the long-term memory

29 Prospect theory states that people view gains and losses relative to a reference point, rather than absolutely. (E.g. gains

or losses relevant to changes in their wealth.) People are sensitive to changes in wealth, and more sensitive to losses than

gains of the same magnitude make decisions based on the potential value of losses and gains rather than the final

outcome, and that people evaluate these losses and gains using certain heuristics (Kahneman, 2011). 30 The working memory is a temporary storage of information that contains what is in your mind right now. It consists of

an auditory phonological store (called short-term memory), a visuospatial sketchpad for images, and a central executive

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store, integrate them with ongoing events, and make a decision. Working memory limits our computational capacity and privileges execution speed (Tsang 2008). Thus to make decisions rapidly, we tend to choose the easiest path that has the fewest components. One implication of working memory limitations is intolerance of complexity. Some organizational arrangements may be too complex for staff to recall and implement, particularly under conditions of pressure and risk. Survival through the millennia through communal living suggests that people look to the behavior and judgment of others for information about what will be considered expected and acceptable behavior (Klucharev, Hytönen, Rijpkema et al. 2009; Okuyama, Kitamura, & Roy, 2016). It may not be obvious, but people are highly influenced by other people’s opinions.31 If they have the chance to exchange information objectively, they may make more accurate decisions (“the wisdom of the crowds”). But when people know very little about a subject and are convinced by authority, they may be driven to conformity and ‘groupthink” (Janis, 1972). They may go along with group norms, despite personal misgivings.

Personal and group decisions are therefore often in conflict, and people must optimize the outcomes between the two. Decisions in uncertain conditions are influenced by “system 1” and have been studied through game theory. It concerns the analysis of decision making by multiple individuals when the benefits of their decisions depend on what other people are doing. A “tit-for-tat” rule applies to many transactions. When all players in a game maintain their optimal strategies, people selfishly select options that will yield the highest benefit for themselves, often to the detriment of their collective benefit (Nash equilibrium).32 In effect, people unconsciously say ‘What is the competitor’s (or supervisor’s) reaction to me? And if I know the reaction to me, what is my first, best move?’ Cooperation and compliance with agreements may be affected in this way. Under conditions of risk, people tend to fear losses more than they value gains (prospect theory). They evaluate gains and losses and probabilities of these happening, and they also take others’ apparent views into account (Hota, Garg & Sundaram, 2016). One implication of the Nash equilibrium under prospect theory pertains to the

that hosts prior information recalled from long-term memory along with new information coming in from the outside

world (Baddeley, 2003). 31 Social insects, such as ants and bees, make independent judgments before group decisions are made (Marshall et al.,

2009). At the neuronal level, humans gradually accumulate evidence for a particular choice over time, and execute that

choice when evidence reaches a critical level. For every vote the brain receives on one alternative, it suppresses a vote for

the other, exaggerating the differences between the two. Certain neurons seem to represent the accumulation of

evidence to a threshold while others represent the evidence itself, and these two types of neurons interact to drive

decision-making (Purcell et al. 2009). 32 The Nash equilibrium is a solution concept of a non-cooperative game involving two or more players. The players are in

Nash equilibrium if each one is making the best decision possible, taking into account the decisions of the others in the

game as long as the other party's decision remains unchanged (Osborn & Rubinstein, 1994). That is, if each player has

chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing strategies while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then

the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium.

https://bioengineer.org/game-theory-research-reveals-fragility-of-common-resources/

New Yorker, January 30, 2012, Nishant Choksi

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use of common resources. Examples would be the air, minerals, grazing areas, or donor funding. In societies where people can act on decisions based on their differing loss aversions, total use of a common resource is higher than otherwise. (Sometimes this is called the ‘tragedy of the commons’.) Public education is a public good, and nobody has a reason to change the strategy. Thus it may become subject to the ‘tragedy of commons’. It is important to engineer systems so that the incentives for people to use them are aligned with perhaps what is best for society. Loose government oversight leaves resources uncontrolled and at risk of overuse. Resource use is better when the resources are controlled by a central authority (Hota, Garg & Sundaram, 2016). Figures 4.1 and 4.2: Losses are weighed more than gains (Subjective state, perceived value in the vertical axis objective gains or losses in the horizontal axis)

Prospect theory: Attempts to minimize losses may result in limiting outcome accountability

Win or lose $1000? The loss has much greater perceived negative value than a win 33

Accountability to external monitors may create perceptions of risk that drive people to limit their exposure. A demand for public accounting may pressure individuals to demonstrate that they reciprocate the trust placed in them. But difficult tasks may create an aversion of failure, so people may selfishly limit exposure and thus compromise the success of programs implemented. This is particularly pertinent to accountability for outcomes and sanctions that could theoretically result in job loss, imprisonment, and other consequences. If the external monitor is weak or non-existent, the persons accountable are not at a risk of embarrassment and may not comply. This may explain the tendency to shy away from achieving difficult goals (Chapter 5).

33 https://www.slideshare.net/JuhoHamari/loss-aversion-in-facebook-games

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The research on memory and decisionmaking is obscure and poorly understood. People’s reactions may discussed in commonsense terms of “motivation” and “incentives”. The research on these topics is beyond the scope of this document and is also obscure. Briefly, motivation reflects gaps between expectations and reality.34 If people perceive a likelihood of benefiting from an action, they may carry it out (Treadway, Buckholz, Cowan,

et al., 2012; Salamone & Correa, 2012). But people’s incentives are always in a flux (Kanfer, 2012), depending on the variables processed by the motivational system. Thus, inferences about other people’s motivational states are often unreliable and incorrect (e.g. teachers are unmotivated and must be held accountable for that.) Acting on incorrect premises often creates vicious circles that create new accountability problems. If the evolutionary and decisionmaking variables become better known, it may become easier to create accountability conditions that facilitate compliance. The research could help with task analysis for accountability in various occasions. It is possible to determine which information processing and behavioral tasks must be performed to hold workers accountable under different circumstances.

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34 Neurons in the mesolimbic system of the brain calculate the gaps between expectations and reality and through the

amounts of secreted dopamine determine how much action is worth undertaking (Salamone & Correa, 2012). 35 http://wp.lps.org/feliassa/blog/2014/10/15/responsibility/

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5 Behavior under the Influence of Accountability

Procedural vs. outcome accountability Since evolution has primed humans for reciprocal altruism, being answerable for various events has profound effects in people (Grygolec et al., 2007). Several studies show the effects of accountability on people. Employees who may be asked to account for their actions think harder about the issues of their work than others who are not (Tetlock and Boettger 1989; Weldon and Gargano 1988). Judgment becomes important, so people become alert and pay attention. They process and use more information, develop more complex strategies, and become more accurate (Harnkness et al. 1985). They prepare explanations and compelling justifications for their decisions. Accountable as compared to non-accountable participants also use more complex rules in choosing among response options, show increased self-awareness of the determinants of their judgments; process persuasive messages in detail rather than rely on surface appraisals, and are more discriminating and responsive to evidence when evaluating others. Decision-makers employ more multi-dimensional, self-critical and complex information processing strategies. They put more effort into identifying appropriate responses than when accountability demands are not present (Langhe, Osselaaer, and Wierenga, 2011 for a review). Professional auditors become more accurate in judging the financial quality of industrial bond issues (Ashton, 1992). Various documents point to two types of accountability: Procedural accountability focuses on justification of the procedures used to arrive at an action, regardless of the quality of the outcome. Outcome accountability focuses on the quality of the outcomes of that action. The process-outcome division may be the most important dimension in determining educational outcomes. People accountable for processes are expected to justify and explain their thoughts, strategies, and efforts while

making their final decisions (Langhe, van Osselaer, & Wierenga, 2011; Siegel-Jacobs & Yates, 1996; Slaughter, Bagger, & Li, 2006). Thus, they take more of the available information into account. For example, process-accountable participants recalled more distinct negotiation tactics from a description of a group discussion scenario than participants who were not held accountable (De Dreu et al., 2008). They reported that they would strive for thorough and balanced decisions, would think deeply before reaching a judgment, and thought that thinking through every possibility would be more important than making efficient decisions. They were more consistent and better calibrated in their judgments than outcome accountable participants (Siegel-Jacobs and Yates, 1996). Professional auditors were more accurate in judging the financial quality of industrial bond issues (Ashton, 1992; Langhe, Osselaaer, and Wierenga, 2011).

People accountable for outcomes are only expected to justify the end quality, accuracy, or consequences of their final decisions. This evaluation is independent of the process used to determine that action (Davis et. al., 2007; Siegel-Jacobs & Yates, 1996). This situation creates risky conditions that makes people focus on their

36 http://cloudtweaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Reboot-cloud_186.jpg

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personal losses and gains (prospect theory; Chapter 4). When employees are asked to account for processes in a task vs. for the outcomes regarding a task, behavioral differences are striking. Outcome accountability focuses on a doctor’s prognoses for serious illness, a broker’s forecast of stock prices, or an accountant’s accuracy. It is prevalent in managerial practice. In principle, this form of accountability should encourage decision makers to look for alternative solutions, seek relevant information, and draw logical conclusions from the information (Davis et al., 2007 for a review; Mero, Guidice & Werner, 2014). However, the results are mixed. A focus on outcome can improve decision quality but may also cloud judgment, because people attend to irrelevant information (Siegel-Jacobs and Yates, 1996). It may have dysfunctional side effects such as reducing cooperative behavior, making political issues more salient, or reducing the willingness to compromise. Also people who fear various losses may postpone decisions or “pass the buck” on decisions that could save lives (Langhe, Osselaaer & Wierenga, 2011). Outcome accountability increases the amount of noise (or “scatter”) in subjects’ judgments and leads to lower accuracy overall. Furthermore, people accountable for outcomes may be overly responsive to irrelevant feedback (Siegel-Jacobs and Yates, 1996). Overall, process accountability seems superior in helping people make better judgments and decisions (Langhe et al., 2011; Slaughter, Bagger, & Li, 2006, for a lone exception). Making people accountable for decision processes improves judgment, but making them accountable for decision-making outcomes does not. Depending on the circumstances, accountability can promote thoughts devoted to self-justification, thereby cutting out situation awareness or a broader consideration of decision alternatives. Under other circumstances, accountability pressures lead people to be more self-critical and to take into account a broader range of alternatives. One kind of thinking is likely to lead to rehearsal of the same decision outcome and why it is right; the other kind of thinking will lead to more integratively complex consideration of a wider range of variables and options. (Langhe et al., 2011). So, outcome accountability often involves stressors and complexities. The increase in decision stress and a narrowing of attention may affect performance (Siegel-Jacobs & Yates, 1996). Focus at the process level would seem preferable, but in many respects this is simplistic. Efforts may fail if people try hard but do not know the solutions. Furthermore the superiority of process accountability depends on task complexity. An advantage exists for tasks that that rearrange previous features. The difference in judgment quality decreases as judgment tasks become more novel (Langhe et al., 2011). For example, reconfiguring a smartphone for a new clientele may benefit from process accountability but creating a totally new type of phone may benefit from outcome accountability. Perhaps complex tasks linked to outcomes are not for everyone. Rational people with analytical intelligence and propensity for rational thinking have an advantage. They seem to have lower error rates under both conditions, whereas others do not. (Langhe et al., 2011). By contrast, people scoring lower on rationality tests performed better in process accountability conditions, whereas those scoring higher performed almost as well under both conditions (Langhe et al., 2011).

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Figure 5.1: Error rates for different accountability types for more vs. less rational thinkers

One important consequence of outcome accountability is avoidance of liability and efforts to lighten the burden of outcomes. Whenever a new law or regulation is developed, a tendency develops to work around it. This phenomenon is sometimes mentioned as Campbell’s law or Goodhart’s law, and it is explainable by prospect theory. The implications are considerable. People held accountable for outcomes will attempt to narrow the terms of reference for their work. Also, any quantitative indicators or standards set to determine achievement, they may become subject to pressures that will distort their use and corrupt the processes intended for monitoring it (Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, 2007, para. 1; Cohen, 2011). Short-term measures of outputs may be used in lieu of long-term outcomes. When tasks are hard, implementers may seek creative means to lighten the burden. Some of them “game” the system and fail beneficiaries. However, if managers tighten demands and criteria, there may be no people willing to carry out risky assignments. Figure 5.2. The shrinking commitments under outcome accountability

A goal requires multiple tasks, and implementers should be held accountable for final outcomes

Implementers may succeed in reducing the size or difficulty of tasks for which they are accountable. The ultimate goal may fail.

In such circumstances, process and outcome accountability may be in conflict. Governments may formulate a plan to cover all aspects of an intervention, but implementers may limit their role to avoid failure and thus may ensure failure. Outcome accountability is certainly preferable when the outcome is realistically achievable. But when outcomes are unrealistic, actors merely want to report outcomes rather than be held liable for them.

Tasks to be carried out..

Implementers agree to do..

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Teacher accountability is a typical case for process vs. outcome accountability conflict. Teachers may try to teach and make information memorable as best as they can (process), but ultimately they do not control the biochemistry of students’ brains. A lot is known about memory and cognition, but students’ memory cannot yet be controlled with sufficient precision. Learning outcomes are also subject to social variables, so outcomes cannot be ensured. However, teacher accountability legislation and emphasis assume that teachers control outcomes. And aside from social and other factors, teachers may be asked to teach through methods that are ineffective or too complex. They may be asked, for example to teach reading through whole-word reading methods and held accountable for failures. Then schools and teacher unions may have to defend themselves against this impossible task. Determining which outcomes are feasible is one important reason why science must be used in education. Staff of various organizations face similar conflicts. The research suggests that attending to process would improve people’s judgment, particularly when the tasks are extensions of existing tasks and when people are more average in terms of intelligence or rational thinking (Langhe et al., 2011). People who are strong on rational-analytical capacity may display reasonably good judgment under most circumstances. But donor agencies or NGOs often hire staff who are more socially astute, and therefore more prone to errors in outcome accountability conditions. Yet, children must become educated, so employees involved in education ought to be typically held accountable for outcomes. Furthermore, international collaboration necessarily involves intermediaries. A UNESCO staff is not directly responsible educating the poor, s/he responsible for tasks of an intermediary role. These, as well as sensible promotion strategies may involve productive meetings, making a manager look good, bringing in funding. Ultimately staff are not directly accountable for the learning of children in a remote African country in 2030. This is a long-term agenda, and it necessarily involves staff who regularly change jobs and who have a defined time in any position. The research suggests that the points of failure are infinite. Faced with unpredictable and novel tasks, implementers may devise ways to show compliance in certain aspects but not in others. Prominent tactics may be to limit the domain of responsibility. The tactics may include narrow terms of reference, increasing shared accountability, weakening or removing liability, emphasizing assessment in lieu of instruction, and transferring of execution responsibility to lower levels, such as contractors. If liability is removed, accountability may be reduced to analyzing and reporting data rather than being responsible for their production. Or the efforts to show results may lead to lower achievement for the highest achievers, as it happened in the USA (see below and Cohen, 2011). And in some circumstances, loads of partly irrelevant information may be delivered, aimed at overwhelming readers and distracting attention. Thus the process-outcome dimension has important implications for education that have not been considered. The implications are at the school as well as at the international cooperation level. The research may thus begin to explain the reluctance of donor staff to become involved in the greater issues of learning outcomes. The reluctance sometimes extends to outward denial. One counterintuitive tendency when goals are not met may be to avoid discussions of failures or a search for better solutions. Given the implementation difficulties and perceived low likelihood of results, aid partnerships may work a bit like insurance agencies banding with governments against very large disasters. In some respects, they may function as a risk mitigation strategy against accountability. Donors may find it easier to assign larger amounts of funding and to fulfill social accountability by “throwing money at the problems”. However if satisfactory solutions are unavailable, funding may create additional problems. It may attract organizations and individuals

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who are adept at appearances of accountability. They may implement and disseminate ineffective solutions, whose outcomes become obvious years later, after the responsible people have moved on. Money that has no clear purpose may fuel corruption, 37 further compromising accountability.

Principal-agent relations in accountability Staff of international organizations tend to believe that in poor countries the officials are not held accountable to agreements. But this may not be the case. Instead, officials may be held accountable for other duties, such as getting votes for the politician who put them on the job. In fact, few officials in a country may care about the topics important to international organizations, such as the education of marginalized people. As mentioned earlier, a principal-agent relationship obliges people to act and explain their actions. But the agent should have interests aligned with those of the principal. Means should also exist to monitor and determine whether the agent’s behavior is consistent with organizational goals (Davis et al., 2007; Mero et al., 2014). However, the principal-agent relationships are not always transparent. Political appointees may feel that their “principals” are not the students, parents, or administrators, but the individuals who helped them get a job. This covert relationship is often called clientelism. In various languages this relationship called palanca (Spanish), μέσον (meson; Greek), wasTa (Arabic). The reciprocal altruism is misdirected. In a completely transparent world, a contract may suffice to specify employee behavior precisely. However, a manager (or a principal) cannot continuously observe what employees are doing. Some level of trust is needed, but also some means of verification. For example is a tradesman using counterfeit parts to repair engines? Is an employee absent or negligent? How can a principal (such as a manager) get an agent (such as an employee) to behave how s/he wants, when the person cannot be monitored all the time? One way to ensure hard work is to give the agent a part of the profit. Hairdressers, for instance, will often rent a spot in a salon and keep the proceeds for themselves rather than be hired for a salary. Such acts may create “ownership”. Civil servants are not expected to work in this way. But many government and international positions have social status. Staff may get access to international travel, benefits, leave, pensions, good salaries, high status jobs, the sense of helping the poor. So, they may work to retain these benefits. Similarly, external incentives, such as gaining shares in a company may strengthen the principal-agent relationship (Royle, Hall, Hochwarter et al., 2005).

37 Corruption is the abuse of entrusted power for private gain at the expense of the public interest. It may result in

resource misallocation, a reduction in investment and competition, unresponsive policies, poor administration,

unemployment, exacerbated poverty, and lack of transparency; can be considered as monopoly plus discretion minus

accountability, integrity and transparency (Fombad, 2013).

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The principal-agent relationship can thus be made effective, but complexities abound. One study showed that individuals accountable to a supervisory audience made more accurate decisions than individuals who were told they would be accountable to a peer who rated their performance vs. and those not held accountable at all. (Davis et al., 2007) Individuals accountable to a peer who rated them also recorded a higher proportion of positive behaviors and appeared to use that information to justify their inflated rating decisions (Davis et al., 2007). This suggests a perverse use of reciprocal altruism and tit-for-tat expectations. Also when participants in a study were held accountable for the processes they used to rate interviewees, they were more attentive during the interview, took more notes, and made more valid judgments than those not held accountable Brtek and Motowidlo (2002).

Monitoring seems to have effects not only on individuals but also on groups. Group-level monitoring may have a normative effect on the work group (see sections on conformism). There appears to be group-level influence on individual job performance that results from a manager’s monitoring behavior. And feelings of self-efficacy may interact with accountability to explain the occurrence of organizational citizenship behavior and political behavior at work (Davis et al., 2007). Overall, when one individual monitors another in a hierarchical fashion, accountability improves. 38

Information is the currency of accountability To choose among alternatives and make good decisions, people need sufficient and accurate information. Sharing information was important for survival, so people feel rewarded when they share information, and information is an important bartering chip in human transactions (Baek, Scholz, O’Donnell, 2017). Clearly the better informed side has an advantage. The rate and complexity of information affect usage. Donor and government documents often are massive, on paper and online. Individual workers must process digest, and retain substantial amounts. Community volunteers may have limited education and read slowly. The information may overload working memory and may not consolidate into long-term memory for retrieval when needed. Thus, information important for accountability may be neglected. Research and international accountability documents highlight the importance of transparency, that is equal information provided to all parties. But information is an important tool for monitoring performance, and one way to avoid sanctions is to withhold it. So staff may encounter “information asymmetry,” that is undisclosed knowledge that one side has but the other lacks. 39 Alternatively, information may be provided in large amounts,

38 http://www.allabout-energy.com/Pphotos/One-on-One.jpg 39 http://www.economist.com/news/economics-brief/21702428-george-akerlofs-1970-paper-market-lemons-foundation-

stone-information

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overwhelming monitors. Furthermore, documents may have misleading titles, leaving the discovery of the actual results to those readers who can plow into the report.40 The asymmetry often involves information about unseen principal-agent relations. An influential manager may be accountable to the people who facilitated his or her appointment rather to than the actual employers. Decisions are then influenced by the invisible relationships and responsibilities may be gamed in various ways. International organizations establishing accountability relationships in various contexts may be unaware of information asymmetries. It is very difficult to take these situations into account specifically or generally. The implications of these variables are multiple. When principal-agent relations are uncertain, as in the case of loose networks, monitoring becomes indispensable, and supervisors of a task must find ways to do this. A manager accountable for outcomes should hold employees accountable at the very least for processes. Requests for justifications and explanations incentivize staff to perform. Individuals perceive greater accountability when working for managers whose style of supervision (i.e., monitoring behavior) more frequently establishes,

clarifies, and enhances the connection between individuals and their respective performance. This need highlights the importance of training managers to request explanations. An adage from military culture suggests that the important issue “is not what is expected but what is inspected” (Davis et al., 2007). 41

Actions to hold subalterns accountable Management specialists emphasize that to carry out responsibilities, one must have authority. This is “the power or right to give orders or make decisions.” Many people can have it, and usually there is a top manager or board of directors who has the highest level of authority. Authority implies some level of autonomy to make decisions in reasonable time as well as the availability of human and financial resources for proceeding. Arguably people cannot be held accountable for tasks they could not perform or oversee. Often low-level workers feel less accountable than managers, particularly if they are less involved in the outcome (Schnake & Cochran, 1985). Given the ambivalence of authority, some supervisors find it uncomfortable to ask multiple and detailed questions to supervisees. However, this is necessary for process as well as for outcome. For example a sales manager would pose questions such as “you only got 30% of expected sales. What did you do? How many prospective buyers did you call? In which timeframe? How did you spend your work time? What did you complete by the deadline?” The supervisor should demand specifics and not let staff get away with approximations. Also the supervisor should query in depth and detail to find the reasons for failure. For example, “I need an answer by tomorrow” or “You need to make 200 client calls a week. What must you change about

40 For example, the 2014 “Results for Learning” report by the Global Partnership for Education contains a great deal of

information but practically no evidence of student learning. (http://www.globalpartnership.org/2014-2015-results-for-

learning-report). 41 http://www.conimas.com/graphics/Authority.png

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your habits to achieve that?” Hard work is not enough, results matter and do so by certain deadlines. The supervisor should be clear in directions and expectations. It is easier for employees to meet goals that involve specific benchmarks.42 However, benchmarks and procedures are often onerous and ill-conceived. In fact the term bureaucracy (or “red tape”) implies unnecessary burdens. For example, employees may be asked to spend hours justifying small expenditures. One expenditure tracing study in the Philippines found that principals had to engage in complex form filling to use small amounts of money, an effort that took up 2-3 hours per week (El-Samarrai, 2017). The obligation to account for funds is important, but the accountability burdens had not been considered. The time and cognitive load demands may result in avoidance of the requirements. Many treatises have been written on bureaucracy, but cognitive demands rarely get considered (Olsen, 2006).

Sanctions, threat credibility, and distortions of accountability perceptions People at work constantly face explicit or implied threats about consequences should they fail. (Rewards are also important, but prospect theory suggests that punishments matter more.) But how likely or credible are they? And how severe should they be to act as deterrents? This seems to be an important component in accountability decisions. For example, large US corporations earning billions of dollars may consider violation fines of a few million as a cost of doing business. In the complex and network-level relationships of governments, donors, and communities it is difficult to determine which penalties should be given, if any, or how significant or credible they are. It may even be unclear who is responsible for determining these and who will mete out the consequences. Often the managers are multiple, they may wear multiple hats, they face many political sensitivities, and they must negotiate among themselves. These difficulties may make sanctions difficult to administer. It has become impossible in many countries, for example, to fire unsatisfactory teachers. Some of them have obtained political appointments and may not expect to work. Thus an issue of “threat credibility” arises, that is the perceived likelihood of sanctions (Custard, 2015). Staff may perceive that sanctions are a remote possibility and may merely remain on paper. Then they may succeed in efforts to avoid the liability. One example has been the performance-based incentives that have been instituted in the United States in various sectors. Under these rules, performance must be defined precisely. However, one study found limited evidence about the effectiveness of performance-based accountability systems. They worked in some sectors, such as road construction, but they also led to lobbying to reduce the accountability demands (Leuschner, 2010). One flagrant example In the US was the “No Child Left Behind” legislation of 2001. It created strict rules for satisfactory yearly progress in low-income schools. The system held students as well as teachers responsible and used an intricate process to operationalize accountability. Each state created a system that held all schools within the state to a uniform set of standards. Calculations were performed to construct an accountability profile and define the adequate yearly progress for each school. Accountability profiles were used to determine rewards received or sanctions administered. Students were to be tested frequently, starting in grade 3. Those schools demonstrating the greatest gains and those with the highest absolute scores would be eligible for rewards. The law stated that rewards could be monetary or honorary. Non-monetary rewards prevailed, such as banners of recognition, visits from the governor, banquets, and increased autonomy (Custard, 2015; Cohen, 2011).

42 See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTpPLr3No90

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On average, performance in most schools increased (Custard, 2015). However, students received more attention if their scores were close to the passing margin. (Sometimes these students were called “the accountables.”) The students located at the bottom and top of the distribution received less attention and often gain less than earlier cohorts. Also, a number of schools gamed the indicators. Students were strategically retained, dropout rates were fabricated, and in Texas some schools falsified student test answers. Some teachers and principals were fired as a result, but the higher-level managers who created the pressures to game the system suffered no consequences. One adverse outcome for low-scoring students was a narrowing of the curriculum so that reading and math could be taught extensively. There was no time to teach all subjects to students who had fallen behind early on (Saatchioglou, 2014). Importantly, the sanctions were not perceived as severe for most of the officials and educators involved in this experiment.

In principle, monitoring and transparency would create better outcomes. However, as mentioned elsewhere, the information is a marketable commodity. In the US, schools with good reputation receive more enrollments and funding. Thus, schools must advertise and do public relations, and that function may take precedence over attention to quality (Cohen, 2011). Thus when the audience is internal, the goal is organizational improvement, but when the audience is external to the educational institution, the focus is to convince that audience (Cohen, 2011). And often, the audience does not know precisely which variables really matter. Much effort goes in promoting features that have face validity, such as nice-looking premises or enrollment reports. Responding to external audiences has become more important as various organizations vie for funds. National and international NGOs seek public and private funding by advertising their achievements. To do so, communications staff become indispensable. Few people know what really happened in some remote areas of the world where they operate, but it is important to depict results in glowing terms. These are some of the little-understood consequences of outcome accountability, incomprehensible information, and improbable sanctions. The pressure on outcomes in the US redefined the term “accountability” to data provision. 43 This resembles some international initiatives to test students and report scores rather than emphasize instruction. “We will be more accountable and transparent to our publics for results” affirms the 2008 Accra Agenda document. However, the author(s) are anonymous and were probably liable merely for the composition of the document. Furthermore, the collective “we” term splits accountability along multiple people or organizations, then multiple parties become responsible to multiple others. It is thus easy for individuals to escape any consequences. In a similar fashion, donors have funded a “data revolution”. An entire assessment industry has been created to help governments measure and report access and learning outcomes. The World Bank and other donors expect schools to be autonomous, accountable to communities, and somehow find out how to teach the very poor. (World Bank 2020 strategy, 2011). Similarly, the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals focus on measurement.

43 See for example: “The Accountability Research Unit in the Division of Research and Analysis is responsible for research

and policy analysis on state and federal accountability measures, education policy research, development of public school

data and information systems, and reports on educational progress in Texas public schools.”

http://tea.texas.gov/acctres/home_index.html

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Paradoxically, there are no clear actions to assign accountability for instructional delivery and learning. This strategy privileges outcomes over processes and suggests that reporting has been substituted for actual learning. Accountability for outcomes often results in efforts to transfer the liability to other institutions or push it to lower levels. One example was the World Bank community management strategy in Nepal (IEG, 2009). Staff convinced the government to transfer school ownership to communities under untested assumptions that communities of poor, hard-working and largely illiterate villagers would hold school authorities accountable. This would presumably happen in meetings where school authorities would explain to the audience what they had

accomplished. However, specifics remained vague, and companies hired to monitor the situation appeared to have close relationships to donor and government entities. The World Bank reports positive outcomes,44 But it is unclear whether the poor benefited from this arrangement in the long run, as had been expected. Given these variables, it is obvious that the education sector has anomalies that compromise its effectiveness. For example teachers can be held accountable individually, but the monitor who can administer rewards or sanctions may not have authority in hiring them or promoting them. In real-world international cooperation, single-person relationships are rare. Governments, donors, NGOs, school

districts, communities largely involve work groups in multi-level relationships. These issues are discussed in greater detail in the subsequent chapters.

44 https://www.rbfhealth.org/resource/rewards-good-performance-or-results-short-glossary-rbf-updated-march-2011

http://blogs.worldbank.org/education/why-we-believe-results-based-financing

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6 Mutual Accountability: Team Interactions and Perceptions

A 5-person team was recruited by a manager who later departed. Each member must ensure collaboration with the next manager and with other teams. They are assigned the preparation and production of a report. How could these antecedents affect collaboration? In evolutionary psychology terms, mutual accountability seems to reflect reciprocal altruism. It may arise from teams of Paleolithic males who had to rely on each other while hunting large animals or waging war. Reliable support within groups was essential, particularly for hunters (Benenson, 2014). It is not surprising, therefore, that human brains make complex estimations regarding collaboration patterns. Brain activity differs between conditions involving team success vs. team failure; and different brain regions are associated with reinforcement of behavior by social praise vs. monetary reward (Li, Shen, Sui et al., 2013). As with Paleolithic hunters, teams are indispensable in the education sector. Some of the issues involved in mutual accountability are:

- Information sharing - Commonality of goals - Trust that the teammates will perform as expected - Distribution of rewards and sanctions - Experience in working with certain individuals - Commonality of goals (see fast-food restaurant managers, Wallace et al., 2011) - A moderate amount of team conflict and competition (see review in Abadzi et al., 2014).

In teams, accountability becomes mutual. Teams typically receive performance pressures externally, and they share liability. Each member in a team must be individually accountable to the others, and each must monitor each other for timely performance. Mutual accountability is facilitated by team structures and shared beliefs. Mutually accountable teams are likely to make timely performance adjustments because team members, by virtue of their intimate understanding of the team’s work and impromptu conversations, can actively evaluate team progress and adjust ongoing performance issues. Thus, mutual accountability is positively associated with

team performance, controlling for performance pressure (Rashid, 2015). Team cohesiveness and clear hierarchical relationships facilitate accountability. Members of a cohesive team working towards a single goal may help each other attend to processes and achieve goals. Trust in teammates’ motives is an important predictor of success. People with a high degree of trust in a team generally contribute more to a group task than those who trust others less (De Cremer, Snyder & Dewitte, 2001). Strong perceptions of trust, high accountability and high self-monitoring influence contributions positively. Nevertheless, individuals low in trust may contribute up to the same level as high trusters when accountability is high rather than low. And low trusters may increase their contributions to the same level as those of high trusters if their decisions are highly identifiable to their interaction partner(s). (See subsequent section.)

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Rewards and sanctions in teams Team-level motivation is based on shared interactions among team members, so the most common alternative is to reward individual effort. This focuses attention on the members’ own tasks rather than the team’s overall mission, with the hope that the sum of the individual inputs will lead to overall goal attainment. However, this discretionary influence generates a pro-self motivation in which members attempt to maximize their own outcomes without regard for the outcomes of the team as a whole, leading to less cooperation and fewer teamwork behaviors. For example, teams with individual reward structures may share less information. As discussed elsewhere in detail, team members will make an effort that depends on whether their contributions will be identified. But how to apportion rewards to team members? Shared or cooperative rewards encourage prosocial attitudes, focusing attention and effort toward interaction between team members. They are effective for interdependent teams, which require extensive knowledge sharing and high levels of interaction (Pearsall et al., 2012). Cooperative rewards however may lead to reduced member accountability and effort. Individual rewards, on the other hand, result in higher member satisfaction and a stronger connection between behavior and outcomes but do not encourage members to focus attention toward helping their teammates (review in Pearsall, Christian & Ellis, 2010). They benefit more loosely affiliated groups, for which individual contribution outweighs collective focus (Pearsall et al., 2012). One effective option is hybrid rewards. For teams with high levels of task interdependence, hybrid rewards might provide the benefits of both individual and shared rewards; they may lead to higher levels of team performance than individual and shared rewards, due to improvements in information allocation and reductions in social

loafing (see subsequent sections). Teams operating under hybrid rewards may outperform teams operating under individual rewards (Pearsall et al., 2012). At the team level, motivational states are influenced by both individual- and team-level factors. The motivation process in teams is homologous at the individual and team levels (Chen & Kanfer, 2006). Just as individuals respond to motivational influences with directed, sustained striving to attain a valued goal, teams will collectively work toward accomplishing a shared objective. The challenge for management is to establish such rewards. Furthermore the above paradigm must be adapted to temporary teams that consist of members from multiple organizations that come together for the purpose of an assignment.

Information use in teams As mentioned earlier, information is the currency of accountability. To make high-quality decisions, groups must gather, exchange, and allocate information, such as program statistics. They must also process such exchanged information in a deep and thorough fashion. Highly interdependent teams may be superior at complex tasks because members are able to share work and contribute their unique expertise. Team members can develop deep, discrete areas of expertise and gain access to each other’s knowledge, when needed, without increasing their cognitive load. Interdependence allows team members to allocate information to the responsible team member without having to store it themselves (et al. 2012). Process accountability seems to facilitate information-sharing and group work. Groups under process accountability experienced greater need for more information, repeated unshared information more often, and more often chose the correct decision alternative (Scholten, Van Knippenberg, Nijstad, et al., 2006). Under

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outcome accountability, staff may find it useful to withhold information. Similarly Johnson et al. (2006) found that teams with individual reward structures engaged in reduced levels of information sharing. Monitoring team performance requires information, therefore transparency is necessary (Eyben, 2008).45 For this reason, governments and donors develop mutual accountability arrangements that specify the goals, tasks, human and financial resources, and timeframes. Such mechanisms in the international community may include spotlights, mirrors, and two-way mirrors, aimed at dimensions of evidence, ownership, debate, and behavior change (OECD, Undated).46 To develop them, there are many donor-government high-level groups, sector-level groups, dialogue groups, joint country program reviews, civic organization consultations. One downside is complexity and time necessary to understand and reconcile all these frameworks. As with other bureaucratic procedures, excessive cognitive demands may result in avoidance and disregard of these arrangements.

Conflicts within teams Humans have adaptations that encourage group work, so joy is an important component of teamwork. Team members may experience a sense of “togetherness” that comes with a common goal, and then they will want to cooperate efficiently for mutual benefit. Team as well as individual performance improves. Increased togetherness facilitates communication, allows different perspectives, and keeps conflicts at bay (Hülsheger, Anderson, & Salgado, 2009). Collaborating effectively takes some practice. People collaborate well after meeting repeatedly and experiencing unanimous behavior in a group (Pinheiro, Santos, Santos et al., 2014). Cooperation emerges when groups are small and memories are long. The more players in a game the less likely that cooperative strategies could win out. Instead, the majority of robust strategies in large groups favored defection (Stewart et al., 2016). Therefore, effective groups should be small, in geographic proximity, and should have long memories of collaboration. Physical proximity also has advantages, because people working in different areas may run into each other and exchange ideas.47 But teams have optimal collaboration circumstances. The relationship between productivity and collaboration experience has an inverted U shape (Fafchamps et al. (2010). Relatively unknown people do not collaborate as effectively, while people who constantly collaborate with certain others may similarly become ineffective. Task conflict refers to disagreements in opinions, viewpoints and ideas about how the group task, and related activities in solving the task, should be performed. Depend on personal relationships, task conflict is not negative. It may trigger creativity and team innovation by challenging the status quo (Hülsheger et al., 2009). Absence of task conflicts may not spark the exchange of perspectives and information, nor prompt team members to examine and make sense of goals and objectives. If the task conflict is too high, communication may break down, effectively stifling exchange of information, knowledge, ideas and perspectives (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, et al. 2002). The potential for innovative outcomes is at its highest when the level of task conflict is moderate (Anderson, De Dreu,& Nijstad, 2004). The mixed results suggest a curvilinear relationship between task conflict and innovation. When conflicts become personal, tasks may not be completed satisfactorily.

45 https://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/49656340.pdf 46 OECD Ownership and Accountability: 10 Tips for Mutual Accountability

https://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/49656297.pdf 47 One example was a dilapidated building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that unexpectedly became the

incubator of countless innovations, partly because staff from multiple disciplines cohabitated it

(http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/01/30/groupthink)

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The importance of team cohesion International organizations are intent on mutual accountability and hope to work in cohesive teams to bring about results efficiently. However, the accountability structures that are set up often lack the long-term repeated collaboration variables that seem to result in improved outcomes (Pinheiro et al., 2014). Staff in various agencies often meet at a distance, through skype and email, and with colleagues who change often. These conditions may reduce various aspects of accountability. Organizations and governments have clear internal hierarchies, but they usually collaborate as networks. Different institutions may also interface on a task with different aims. Therefore, relationships among donors, governments, and communities involve team members with limited degrees of accountability to each other. Working groups may include members of various organizations in a flat structure, without a leader. Also, individuals in an organization may not be the sole persons accountable for certain functions. For example, UN umbrella organizations often duplicate functions across departments or organizations; UNICEF shares various functions with UNESCO, while the World Bank share financing functions with regional development banks. The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) has co-leads for some tasks, while UNESCO has some staff assigned to adult education in similar roles at its headquarters and institutes. Since funding is limited, staff or organizations that in principle are partners, may compete for money, influence, and information. Thus, optimal decisions may not be made, and the decisions may also take a long time and lengthy negotiations. The reasons for the work may thus be defeated.

Who is accountable, the individual or the position? Teams that collaborate in education face instability that further compromise tasks. Some manifestations are below. Accountability typically rests with the position rather than the individual. The actual staff who appear in various meetings may change often and unpredictably. They may only be responsible for a few years, and transfer or retirement tends to alleviate them of accountability. For example, Ministers of Education are frequently changed. In some countries, donor and NGO staff may have to conduct policy dialogue with a new minister every few months. “Musical chairs” may influence the strategies of staff, who may delay or hasten decisions accordingly. As a result, members of an organization working on the same task may reach agreement on a topic. Then the staff may require permission from her superiors, who after a delay of weeks or months may deny it. Also, staff may go on leave and return a month later or may be transferred to another position in her agency. The remaining team members must start with a new member, who may have very different ideas from the earlier colleagues. Intentionally or through inefficiency, information suffers. Financial and political conditions also change in various countries and affect the execution of prior agreements, particularly financial agreements. For example, donor commitments in 1990 and 2000 on Education for All were only partly funded. A government change in Australia in 2013 resulted in restructuring and withdrawal of AusAid from many joint activities with USAID and DFID on literacy, and similar events took place at USAID in 2017.

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Given these conditions, one OECD Development and Assistance document (DAC, 2007) concluded that international spotlights have a strong record of providing transparent, independent evidence, but they lack the ownership to bring about behavior change by donors and partner countries. All that OECD could do was to give mutual accountability “tips” to the many independent agencies involved in various activities. 48

Contractual vs. perceived accountability Well-functioning organizations have hierarchies, and terms of reference formally establish tasks for which staff are responsible and procedures or outcomes for which they are accountable. But accountability is also conceptualized and studied as an attitudinal or perceptual state (i.e., felt accountability) rather than an objective condition. The perception is a moderator variable in organizational constructs, such as motivation (Wallace et al. 2011). Some environments have characteristics that lead to greater perceived accountability (Davis et al., 2014). Sometimes this is described as “ownership’. Perceived accountability has two forms: structural alignment and web alignment (Gelfand et al. 2004 in Wallace, Mathe & Paul, 2011). Structural alignment exists when organizational members perceive formal organizational policies, rules, and procedures in the same fashion. Structural alignment helps orient people clearly to requirements. It may reduce confusion, conflict, and anxiety and enhance performance (Davis et al., 2007). Web alignment refers to collective goals. It is the extent to which individuals have a common understanding of informal behavioral expectations, specific to a given collective, thereby different from formal policies, rules, and procedures. They create a felt, shared accountability (Wallace et al., 2011). is a collective expectation in which decisions and behaviors are subject to evaluation and justification by a salient organizational agent(s). This concept communicates the sense that “we are all in this together.” Staff reporting a high shared accountability towards their management tend to be more familiar with evaluative standards for their decisions and behaviors. By contrast, low shared felt accountability may lead to increased confusion, conflict, and anxiety among managers in a given collective due to a lack of normative evaluation standards (Gelfand et al., 2004), which negatively relates to performance. Shared felt accountability serves as a behavioral check on the appropriate application of effort and resources. One example pertains to the performance of fast-food restaurant managers (Wallace et al., 2011). In that case, high shared felt accountability and a high empowerment climate benefited both store sales and service performance. By contrast, those who did not have a sense of shared accountability may have affected work outcomes negatively, even if empowered.

48 https://www.fotosearch.com/K12979324

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Figure 6.1. Empowerment and shared felt accountability on restaurant sales

Source: Langhe et al., 2011 On the flip side, misaligned organizational rewards create a “dark side” of accountability (Frink & Klimoski, 1998). This can occur if managers communicate, intentionally or otherwise, a priority of action not properly aligned with organizational interests. For example, the Wells Fargo bank in the U. S. gave training seminars and cautioned low-level staff not to open fraudulent accounts. At the same time, managers pressured employees into meeting performance goals that would only be attained by opening fraudulent accounts and charging fees to unsuspecting clients. When the scandal was discovered in 2016, low-level staff were held accountable and were fired, while higher-level officials largely escaped the penalties.49 Thus, sanctions were applied at the level of low-wage workers who had no choice. When both accountability and psychological empowerment climate are high, managers have clear behavioral standards to guide the application of their resources. For example, the combination of high autonomy and high accountability may result in decreased job tension and emotional exhaustion, while leading to higher job satisfaction (Hall et al., 2003). But there are cases of misalignment, when accountability is low but empowerment is high. Then managers have inordinate discretion. They may deviate from stated goals, since the standards for decisions and behaviors are unclear. (See also power research in a subsequent section.) Thus shared felt accountability serves as a boundary condition moderating the relationship between psychological empowerment climate and performance. The research therefore suggests that contractual accountability may not be sufficient for successful implementation. Accountability must also be perceived; there must be “web alignment” among teams and managers.

Accountability complexities of contracting and subcontracting In aid frameworks on education, various donors agree to work in specific countries and subsectors, in accordance with their political goals and procurement mechanisms. Therefore, bilateral agencies such as USAID or DFID50 finance contractors who interface with government staff at various levels. Some low-income countries, anxious to improve learning outcomes, cede considerable decision power on topics like reading, textbook development,

49 http://www.wsj.com/articles/wells-fargo-to-pay-185-million-fine-over-account-openings-1473352548 50 USAID is the United States Agency for International Development. DFID is the Department for International

Development in the United Kingdom.

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teacher training, skills and vocational education. Donors are expected to bring in expertise that governments may lack. However, the products and their use may go through multiple layers of responsibility and ultimate accountability (Fombad, 2013 for South Africa). The contracting agencies can always blame poor performance on the contractors; and they in turn can blame subcontractors. In addition sanctions written in contracts may not be credible. For organizations operating internationally they may be subject to special rules or international law, which makes enforcement unlikely. Thus, contractors may get paid regardless of performance. It would seem reasonable to pay contractors or consultants on the basis of results rather than on the basis of time spent in a task. This would be more feasible with firms that have implementation experience and assign teams to various tasks. However, the donor agencies rarely engage in this practice. One reason may be the close links that professionals develop in the same industries (Bertović, 2016). Thus, individual consultants or firms go to different countries and give advice according to their judgment without any liability for it or obligation to get results. One example of subcontracting accountability involves a large post-conflict Francophone African country. The bilateral donor staff issued a request for proposal to develop reading methods and materials. A preapproved and experienced company won the bid. The company then subcontracted parts of the bid to a smaller contractor, who actually sent staff to the country. The staff were in their 20s, with degrees in international education or related subjects, and none had teaching experience. They were dedicated and believed that they were acting responsibly, but they developed instruction better suited for the U.S. teachers and students they were familiar with. They developed an evaluation checklist that was about 25 pages long and could not be used by the supervisors. They wrote training modules for teachers that covered hundreds of pages in dense writing. Many teachers read very slowly and have limited French vocabulary, but the team did not consider it necessary to pilot the writings or ask for feedback. For consistently spelled African languages, they used the whole-word reading method that has performed poorly in low-income countries. In principle staff should have been monitored, but the Ministry of Education manager in charge spent significant time overseas in conferences, often organized and paid for by the same bilateral. The donor-funded local education group that should be the watchdog of civil society similarly took no measures. A completed project of the same bilateral had shown disastrous learning outcomes for similar reasons, but results were buried in the last few tables (RTI, 2014) and few staff read the lengthy document. Thus the all-important information was transmitted, but it was not processed by the intended recipients. Neither the donors nor the government held the contractor responsible either for the results, and no sanctions were applied. Thus, the monitoring function of accountability failed. And certainly the parents of the students who remained illiterate never found out what opportunities their children may have missed. And even if they had been told, the actual implementers of ineffective methods were the local teachers. Divided responsibility meant that it was impossible to assign accountability to specific people. The stakeholders who were damaged by this intervention, simply did not know enough about reading methods and the decisions made thousands of miles away and many steps removed from their lives.

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The blurring of lines between staff and consultants of various organizations creates multiple unintended consequences. Consultants are often not accountable for their advice. (Examples are university professors who promote personal philosophies in education and influence training and decisions in the Latin American ministries of education.) For-profit agendas may co-opt government or donor teams. Teams may also include “advocacy” organizations whose most pressing need may be salaries for their staff. Even blog writers, aimed at influencing decisionmakers cannot be held easily accountable for viewpoints that they promote. 51

Formal and informal accountability relations Another important concept pertains to informal relations among networks and teams within them. Communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are linked in diffuse networks that have informal relations among them. They involve “nested” or “bundled” contractual relationships and collaborative partnerships that may encompass both structural ties (contracts, memoranda of understanding) and service interdependencies that are enmeshed in a series of bilateral and multilateral informal ties at both the organizational and individual levels (Romzek, LeRoux & Blackmar, 2012). One example is social service networks in the US, that operate within a tangled web of bilateral and multilateral ties and that encompass multiple vertical and horizontal accountability structures (Romzek et al., 2012). Organizational actors within networks face the challenge of balancing their separate organizational missions and institutional autonomy, strategic priorities, and service delivery protocols with their network collaborative goals and roles. In the international arena, such examples may encompass USAID contractors, local and international NGOs, and governments, often operating in relative proximity within the same areas. Informal accountability requires strong social relationships and web alignment. It should include trust, reciprocity, respect for institutional territory, following through with commitments, frequent and sustained communication, information sharing, extending favors, acknowledging mistakes, advance notice, staff turnover. Network participants that conform to informal behavioral norms and expectations are rewarded with subtle but important privileges such as enhanced reputation and advance notice of funding opportunities. Those who violate these norms can be sanctioned informally, perhaps by exclusion from communication channels or diminished opportunities for future partnerships. Sanctions and rewards must similarly be informal, and they may have to be agreed across multiple partners. Organizational obstacles, including competition, staff turnover, and contract reimbursement practices, threaten to undermine the system of informal accountability that keeps nonprofit organizations within networks answerable to network partners and to collective network goals.

51 http://lowres.cartoonstock.com/business-commerce-businessmen-authority-difficulty-resonsible-accountability-

cwln231_low.jpg

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Political power becomes important, and some poorly performing agencies may be promoted regardless of performance (Romzek et al., 2012). Figure 6.2. A Preliminary Model of Informal Accountability among Network Organizational Actors in the US (Romzek et al. 2012).

Collaboration through diffuse and varied networks has important implications. The evolutionary selection typically acts on individuals rather than groups (Buss, 2015). Thus, holding individuals accountable for a task is far easier than holding groups accountable. Under informal arrangements, procedural guidelines and performance become difficult to enforce. Contractors may have many degrees of separation from the agencies that funded educational initiatives. Individual accountability may disappear, and mutual accountability may be hard to enforce. There may be no liability attached to the actions of the informal partners, or the threat may not be deemed credible. The multiplicity of partners implies multiple levels of accountability diffusion. The situation can be likened to a bucket with multiple holes that leak efficiency.

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Figure 6.3. Networks vs. hierarchies The Questionable Premises of Social Accountability

Some documents mention the concept of social accountability (Table 2.4). The concept refers to an implicit social contract between citizens and their delegated representatives and agents in a democracy (World Bank, 2004). It involves groups of people, like civil society organizations being accountable to other groups. The members of these groups would be hard to identify in terms of contributions, so accountability perceptions may be weak and informal. A few social accountability initiatives exist, such as Check My School in the Philippines (World Bank, 2016). In principle they would help schools to use grievance systems as well as provide further external pressure on government to implement improvements (Shkabatur, 2012).

Communities worldwide need such a concept. They strive to increase their influence over decisions before they occur and make the implementers more accountable for their effects after they occur.54 But options are limited. Some efforts aim to create peer pressure by “naming and shaming” poorly performing institutions.55 However, individuals are rarely targeted. The principal-agent relationships among officials are often complex, so naming-and-shaming outcomes are unclear. 56

52 http://phys.org/news/2016-06-cooperation-emerges-groups-small-memories.html 53 dreamstime.com, ID 34353301 54 http://corporateaccountabilityresearch.net/project-2/ 55 OECD Task Team on Mutual Accountability: 10 tips on mutual accountability retrieved from

https://www.oecd.org/dac/effectiveness/49656297.pdf 56 http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/accountability-to-who.png

Networks52 Hierarchies53

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Box: Leakages in multiparty accountability: An Example Increased accountability was an important objective of a World Bank program in an African country. Upon project completion in 2007, an evaluation mission visited several schools to observe results on the ground. Most primary school students were illiterate or read haltingly, and many teachers were absent on the day of the visit. But no one seemed to be directly responsible for the catastrophic outcomes. A pedagogical director in schools said she was merely responsible for providing learning resources. The teachers were directly hired by the Ministry of Education, so schools directors claimed that they could make them show up. Directors were merely responsible for sending a memo to the district director at the end of the school year about outcomes. The district director said that the mission observations depicted the reality, but no actions were taken. The World Bank assistance for accountability had been tied to disbursements but not to results, and there no sanctions to apply (IEG, 2008). Nevertheless, 21 donors were investing in the education sector of the country and had formed a “local education group”. Donor staff felt responsibility towards children’s schooling, but they were accountable to their own employers for funding decisions; thus they focused on the financial tasks they had to complete. Donor staff rarely visited schools; they waited for the government to collect data and inform them how the project was going. And the government complied by presenting regular statistics on the inputs and outcomes of various objectives. Thus, funds continued to flow despite learning failures. Donor staff informally expressed reservations about program effectiveness but felt a shared pressure to approve funding. They worked in 8-10 groups of around 10 members each, without a clear hierarchy. Rotations were frequent, and incoming staff were cautious about accepting their predecessors decisions or commitments. Disputes arose among donor agencies that required many months and meetings to resolve. With so many people involved in complex network relationships, nobody was exactly accountable for student learning. The funds basket became a resource subject to the “tragedy of the commons.” The World Bank evaluation mission could only write up “lessons learned”. And through the evaluation document on the program, the World Bank arguably also fulfilled its accountability function (IEG, 2008).

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7 Social Influence of Accountability Perceptions

Human performance is highly dependent on the presence of others. Some variables influence the execution of accountability functions in groups. The research is derived from social and human factors psychology57 and is presented in some detail along with implications.

Social loafing – Diffusion of responsibility When one person is accountable for a task, the person may keep an eagle eye on its fulfillment. If more than one person are accountable, then each person will assume that the other is doing what is necessary. Paradoxically this may will lead to nobody keeping count. Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually (Latané, Williams & Harkins, 1979). Anonymity makes people conserve energy and slack on the job. Their effort is adjusted according to the perceived effort expended by others. People may not realize that they do it, but this phenomenon pervades human lives regardless of task type (Ying, Li, Jiang et al., 2014). From an evolutionary standpoint, social loafing is well justified. People may contribute to the public goals if it is in their self-interest, if they receive something in return, and if their contribution significantly influences the amount of public good to be shared. Otherwise, free-riding is a phenomenon characterizing rational individuals directed at achieving private goals. It is based on the utility of deceiving others, what is sometimes called Machiavellian thinking (Workman and Reader, 2014, p. 141). Attributions of responsibility and reactions to observation by others have a neurological basis. Studies have shown that, the same positive outcome is more desirable if it is observable socially rather than just privately, and in case of personal rather than external responsibility (or chance).58 For example, when asked to demonstrate physical effort such as shouting, people shout louder and longer when they are alone than when they are in pairs or in groups of six (Latané et al., 1979). Similarly, when making a cognitive effort, such as evaluating a poem ostensibly written by another person, people report putting in less effort and evaluating the work less favorably when they are in a group than when they are alone (Harkins & Petty, 1982; see earlier section on process accountability.) Students receiving group grades may work less hard (Dommeyer, 2012). Groups working together to remember something show poorer recall than the same individuals would working on their own (Weldon & Bellinger, 1997). Group work has become ubiquitous in classes, but the educational research on this topic has rarely taken these issues into account. Hundreds of studies have probably been conducted on various aspects of social loafing worldwide. Most of the research was done in the 1970s-90s, and the more sophisticated studies date from 2000 onwards. The experimental settings appear distant from the aid frameworks, but the simple and concrete paradigms help disentangle the variables that affect complex systems. A meta-analysis of 78 studies demonstrated that social loafing is robust and generalizes across tasks and populations (Karau & Williams, 1993). The effect has shown to be stable across genders and cultures, although

57 Human factors research aims to improve system performance (Harris & Chaney, 1969). It helps identify performance

problems and apply knowledge to system designs in order to maximize the effects of human capabilities and minimize

limitations. It aims to reduce costs of people, equipment and information, develop and maintain high morale and job

satisfaction, and apply gained knowledge to similar situations. 58 When outcomes are socially observable, there is increased activity in ventral striatum, a part of neural reward system,

and in Brodmann Areas 6 and 8, both implicated in the process of attributing mental states to others. In situations ensuing

personal rather than external responsibility there is increased activation in the orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum,

also parts of the reward system. Thus social observability and personal responsibility constitute motivating factors for

human competition (Grygolec, Coricelli & Rusticini, 2007; 2012).

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it is somewhat smaller for women and Eastern cultures. It was found in optimizing and maximizing tasks, in real and imaginary presence of others, and in between and within subjects designs (Karau & Williams, 1993). Social loafing-like effects have also been discussed in the economics literature, regarding individuals who withhold effort in organizations and individuals or groups acquiring more than their fair share of the benefits of other people’s efforts (p. 123).

Identifiability and other variables affecting social loafing The most important moderator variable of social loafing is ability to identify team members and their contributions (identifiability; Williams, Harkins, & Latané, 1981). Unidentified individuals in a group tend to loaf, but when they become identifiable, they tend to work as hard as when working alone. When participants expected their individual performance to be monitored and fed back to them the social loafing effect was diminished or eliminated. The amount of effort is dependent on how instrumental individual effort is to the desired outcome, but the result could also be a sign of social shirking of responsibility (Sagan, 2004; Bertović, 2016). This effect could be explained through raising perceived accountability for own performance. (Karau & Williams, 1993). For example, an experiment using call center employees found that when individual performance was publicly posted in the workplace, employees working in a group performed better than when working alone (i.e., social laboring); however, when individual performance was not posted, employees working in a group performed worse than when working alone (i.e., social loafing; Lount and Wilk, 2014). Figure 7.1. Effects of publishing employees’ performance to the group

Plot of posting x Groupwork for recruits per hour (Lount & Wilk, 2014) Several variables moderate social loafing: Evaluation probability, expectations of co-worker performance, task meaningfulness, and culture. Perceptions of individual distinction are important when delineating the nature of social loafing (Smrt & Karau, 2011). For instance, when individuals who believe that they are unique work together, they are prone to social loafing. In contrast, high-need-for-achievement individuals do not loaf when working with others. Conscientiousness had a negative correlation with social loafing in classroom project teams. However, it is unclear whether or not preference for group work induces more or less social loafing behavior in a group setting (Ying et al.,2014; Karau and Williams, 1993, 1995). Task performance is a function of task complexity, the presence of others, the expected consequences of task performance, and the social anxiety associated with task performance (Griffith, Fichman, Moreland, 1989). In employment, contract length and job security have been investigated as moderators of social loafing. A worker with a longer contract may shirk, but stability may promote effort and shared accountability and may thus have

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a compensatory effect (Bó & Rossi, 2011). In various occupations, an optimal duration is hypothesized, that maximizes effort and minimizes recontracting costs and loafing (Cantor, 1988). There are gender effects in accountability, which have not been explored. In general, larger groups or male dominance in a group induce a greater social loafing effect (Karau & Williams, 1993, 1995). Women may exhibit less social loafing, which seems to increase when men dominate in a group (Karau & Williams, 1993, 1995). This may happen because women may conform to male opinions (Pearson, 1982; Nagle et al., 2014).

Social compensation, social striving The tendency for people to loaf or free ride on the contributions of other people is not an inevitable consequence of working in a group. It is found among individuals pooling their contributions relative to individuals working alone largely results from the perception that contributions are unrewarded, unneeded, or too costly. Group evaluation and rewards during group management, as well as increased task difficulty can increase reciprocal altruism and reduce social loafing (Mefoh & Nwanosike, 2012). Then individuals will invest more effort in order to compensate for other members in the group. This effect is known as social striving or social compensation (Williams & Karau, 1991). It is likely to occur if the group outcome is relevant and meaningful to the individual and if one expects the other group members to perform poorly (either due to the general lack of trust in others or due to direct knowledge of other’s insufficient abilities or efforts). The motivation for such behavior could be a result of reciprocal altruism. A co-worker can be blamed for a poor group evaluation but take credit for a good one (Williams & Karau, 1993; Bertović, 2016). Managers, coaches, teachers, and other group leaders can elicit high effort from group and team members by providing incentives to contribute. If members of the collective perceive their contributions as indispensable, and the costs of contributing do not exceed the benefit that might be derived from a good collective performance they may try harder (Karau and Williams, 1995). Some studies have also shown that providing a standard that allowed experimental group members to evaluate their performance eliminated the loafing effect (Harkins and Jackson, 1985; Harkins and Szymanski, 1989). In fact, the potential for self-evaluation alone may be sufficient to eliminate it (Harkins & Szymanski, 1988; Szymanski & Harkins, 1987).

Tasks and severity of social loafing Social loafing has costs in terms of accuracy, omission and commission errors. The effect can be substantial. In 1913, a performance decrease of 7% was observed for pairs, 15% for three-person groups, and up to 51% for 8-person groups, considering potential ability (Karau & Williams, 1995). A more rigorous study obtained a similar result even when the researchers only led participants to believe they were working in groups of varying size. Across all studies, Karau and Williams (1995) found a mean weighted effect size of 0.44.

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59 Figure 7.2. An example of a power function, inherent in a learning curve (reprinted with permission, Speelmand and Kirsner, 2005).

Social influence is thought to be a function of the strength, immediacy, and number of sources and targets present, and is predicted to follow an inverse power function specifying that each additional group member will have less influence as group size increases (Figure 7.2). For the multiple dimensions common in international collaboration, the effectiveness loss could be substantial. The Igbo speaking people of south eastern Nigeria understood that individuals work less hard in groups than when working alone. The Igbo proverb, ―ewu oha I n‘anwu n‘aguu‖ (meaning that a goat owned by many individuals usually dies of hunger), suggests that sharing work with other people reduces individual performance.

Social loafing and group size The number and size of groups involved in a task affect social loafing. The free-riding tendency increases with the group size (Bertović, 2016). One study tested whether the promise of reward would attenuate social loafing effect on a simple experimental task. Forty (40) Igbo secondary school students of south eastern Nigeria participated in the experiment. They were aged 13 –16 years (mean age = 14.53). Results indicated that performance was significantly poorer in the group condition than in the alone condition (Mefoh & Nwanosike, 2012). In another study, increased group size showed decreased helpfulness of participants to others (Berkowitz 1978; Bertović, 2016). Figure 7.3. Performance alone and in a group, with or without reward

Nigerian data (Source: Mefoh & Nwanosike, 2012)

Large group sizes can cause individuals to feel lost in the crowed (Rothwell, 2004). When a group becomes very large, some people often feel that their efforts are not needed or will not be recognized (Kerr, 1989). In poorly

59 Effect size d, the difference between the experimental and control groups, divided by the standard deviation of the two

groups combined.

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connected groups, the final product may be viewed as unnecessary. In one experiment, participants were led to believe that their scores on the post-test (group) condition would be added together to those of nineteen other participants to arrive at the group‘s total. The effect size between scores of those who were to be evaluated personally and scores of those whose responses were to be averaged was 0.23 (Rothwell, 2004). In efforts to be inclusive, governments and international organizations may have boards or advisory groups of 20 persons or more. In large groups, participants try to limit objections, and discussions are often limited (Martirosian & Lewin, 2001). Even under the best circumstances, effectiveness suffers. Under the worst circumstances, large groups may be co-opted by individuals who are adept at manipulating these human weaknesses.60

Social loafing and culture Social loafing has been documented in several different cultures and is universal (Gabrenya, Latane & Wang, 1983). It seems likely to occur in societies where the focus is on the individual rather than the group (Gabrenya, et. Al. 1985). Asians are reportedly less inclined to loaf than are North Americans (Karau &Williams, 1993). Earley (1993) compared Chinese, Israeli, and North American trainees’ endorsement of collectivist versus individualistic orientations and their performance on a simulated office task. American trainees, who typically have an individualistic orientation, performed better when working alone than when working with others regardless of whether the others were ingroup or outgroup members. Chinese trainees, however, typically performed better when working in a group of similar others than when working either individually or with strangers. Earley (1993) and also Gabrenya et al. (1983) attributed this cross-cultural difference in part to the different norms and values that predominate in North American and Asian societies. The Chinese culture has been characterized as collectivist and hard-working (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1989). Therefore, one would expect that Chinese work groups should perform outstandingly and efficiently. This expectation, however, does not necessarily bear out in every context. Some studies have found that Chinese participants were less likely to loaf when working in groups than North Americans (Ying et al. 2014; Hong, Wyer & Fong, 2008). This result was initially attributed to the collectivism characterizing Chinese in comparison to North Americans. However, Chinese people do exhibit social loafing in various situations. Those persons concerned about their relations with coworkers are more likely to conform to the performance level of their coworkers. Studies showed that this happened when individual performance is made public (vs kept anonymous) and when people have strong concerns about collegial relation. Not all Chinese do. These nuances have often been overlooked in previous research.

Social loafing and reliance on others for verification In areas such as editing, checking strategy or project documents, financial accounting, spotting issues and errors, backing up colleagues, redundancy is considered necessary. Multiple “eyes” must be involved. But what are the effects of knowing that someone else will also check your work?

60 The size of boards and committees should be the smallest possible that enables people to do the work. It should be no

more than 7-10 (Rothwell cited in “Hiring Right: conducting successful searches in higher education” by Hochel, S. and

Wilson, C. Josey Bass, 2007).

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To reduce errors in equipment inspection (such as aircraft, nuclear plants), managers have instituted redundant (i.e., back-up) systems. Researchers found that social loafing effects are not limited to interactions with people. They also affect interactions with machines, software, automated systems (Skitka, Mosier & Burdick, 2000). Reliance on these can counteract the benefits of backup systems. Social loafing effects are even larger in complex environments, where individuals are working on multiple simultaneous technical tasks (Conte & Jacobs, 1997). They could cause individuals to conform to others, and consequently, human redundancy to fail. Table 7.1: Automation failure detection performance

Group Average number of errors detected

Non-redundant (checker believed was alone) 71.4

Redundant, identifiable, with feedback 56.4

Redundant, not identifiable 31.3

Source: Conte & Jacobs, 1997. “You are the only person checking this work. Your individual contributions will be identifiable.” Technical systems are assumed to function independently of each other, but humans do not (Bertović, 2016). The checker’s familiarity with the inspector, who had already conducted the task, and his or her knowledge of the other inspector’s technical level as some of the factors influencing human redundancy. A checker might fail to perceive an error because of a belief in the colleague’s competence. Due to social loafing, human redundancy might not necessarily be an effective safety measure in working with automated systems (Manzey, Boehme & Schöbel, 2013). On technical topics, such as aircraft maintenance, a failure to detect a defect (an omission) is of major concern. Omissions are frequently associated with failures in maintenance procedures. Adding more procedures has been a frequent engineering approach to deal with human variability. However, most organizations prefer to accept a bit of human variability rather than highly regulate the activities of its members. The risk with the procedure is that of over-specification that tends to lead to routine violations. (This could have happened with the US laws of “no child left behind”). Violating the procedure does not necessarily lead to an accident, but the tendency to violate increases the possibility of an adverse event (Karau & Williams, 1993). In practice, this means that two aircraft or nuclear plant inspectors will conduct two separate inspections, without insight into each other’s results. The results of both are jointly discussed until a sufficient agreement between both parties is achieved. However, the two inspectors often know each other and may be aware of prior similar results. Thus familiarity with an inspector’s technical level influences reliability. A checker might fail to perceive an error because of a belief in the competence of a colleague (Bertović, 2016). Inefficient or insufficient checking behavior could also happen due to excessive professional courtesy between individuals of similar rank or due to high levels of interpersonal trust (Williams & Karau, 1993). Similarly, this tendency may cause members of international organizations to avoid offense and limit critical inputs to various collaborative tasks. The belief that automatic checking systems are operating permits attention to wander (Manzey, Boehme & Schoebel, 2013). Participants in a “redundant” condition involving technical systems cross-checked the automation significantly less than participants in the other groups. Moreover they were more prone to miss automation failures which occurred surprisingly. The anticipation that individual performance will be tracked and fed back after the task in the “redundant-feedback” group reduced this effect. In another experiment, 6% of the time the automated aid failed to announce a mechanical error (Skitka et al., 2000). Participants in the automated condition missed 41% of these events, whereas those in the non-automated condition on average missed none

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of them. Participants accountable for the performance of a device made 40 verifications (out of 50 possible), while those not accountable made 34.4 verifications. So, human redundancy does not necessarily constitute an effective measure for enhancing reliability of automation monitoring and that expected positive effects can at least partially be off-set by a sort of social-loafing effect. Nevertheless, mutual accountability between closely collaborating coworkers may have positive effects on performance. They may strive to perform and thus maximize mutual benefits. Two people may be less likely to miss a potential discontinuity. In one study, one third of inspectors reported they are likely to find indications previously not found by another inspector. The social influence is seen as beneficial in aiding in the decision-making process by “confirming or disputing signals that have been interpreted”. Under certain conditions the team approach to increasing inspection accuracy may be useful (Bertović, 2016). These human factors experiments have some implications for governments, donors, and organizations. Given the potential of omission and commission errors, an organization must consider its functions carefully. One area involves evaluations, that are expected to be independent, but in practice they may involve evaluators who know the evaluated agency staff. For example, DFID conducts Multilateral Aid Reviews (MAR) of donor agencies that inform its funding plans. The agencies under review are often asked to provide information and rate their performance. Staff in the international community know each other, and familiarity may deter data scrutiny and thus fail to discover errors of omission or commission. Implications for various educational agencies may also apply to computerized tools that have been developed to monitor performance of various operations. Some involve real-time acquisition and monitoring of school data, such as attendance. Examples are the learning “barometers”, a system developed in the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Education and a USAID program in Kenya (Jepkemei, 2017). The research suggests that reliance on such on automatic systems may be misplaced. Automated devices can fundamentally change how people approach their work, but this in turn can lead to new and different kinds of error. It is insufficient to merely repeat some figures or benchmarks that software collected. A human mind must take the time to study data and understand the patterns. A sense of assurance that the ‘dashboard’ tools exist may lull staff into a false sense that goals are being achieved, or that someone else is studying outcomes and taking action.

Some implications for decisions in educational organizations The model suggests that social loafing should be reduced when individuals (a) believe that their collective performance can be evaluated by the experimenter, their co-workers, themselves, or other people; (b) work in smaller rather than larger groups; (c) perceive that their contributions to the collective product are unique, rather than redundant with the inputs of other group members; (d) are given a standard with which to compare their group’s performance; (e) work on tasks that are intrinsically interesting, meaningful to them, or important to other valued people; (f) work with respected people or in a situation that activates a salient group identity; (g) expect their co-workers to perform poorly; and (h) have a dispositional tendency to view favorable collective outcomes as valuable and important. The research has multiple implications for the international education community. The multiplicity of organizations and the group sizes involved in various initiatives seem quite vulnerable to this effect. At the same time, the mitigating factors may be missing. Staff within teams may not be identified and rewarded, and potential rivalries for funding or political issues may not create the optimal conditions for striving towards a common goal. Organizations overseeing educational programs must deal with extensive verification processes. Staff may face a high mental workload. Research suggests that errors are minimized either through proactive or reactive means. Proactive approach is based on improving the human-system interface. This is most commonly achieved by

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creating decision aids, improving the training or the procedures, automating features of the system interface, etc. The reactive approach focuses on eliminating the reoccurrence of already occurred errors. The common term used for these error prevention or minimization techniques is defenses or barriers. Similar to complex equipment inspections, educational agencies may have to monitor a myriad political and financial details. But under conditions of outcome accountability, they may not catch the errors or they may find it politically unwise to point them out. They may wait for years to act, until data are collected. And large boards or advisory panels may not have the time or the inclination to do detailed checking of information provided. Reciprocity of favors returned also may play a role (Coffee, 2013). For example, reciprocity may involve expenses-paid invitations to workshops in desirable locations. Government or donor staff invited to such venues may be more likely to agree and collaborate. Also, staff who retire often become consultants on the strength of their expertise and relationships. Just like technical inspectors, consultants may know each other. A consultant or a company may be asked to carry an evaluation, and eventually may issue a cautious report that avoids pointing to persons responsible for outcomes. This may mean that monitoring and error detection systems in donor agencies may be compromised, so mutual accountability is also compromised.

Leadership, power, and accountability in the international education community Many studies discussed in this document refer to the importance of managers monitoring and encouraging staff. Alignment between the goals of the principals and agents is important and helps keep staff accountable. However, research suggests that managerial status may alter behaviors. When people feel that they have power and discretion, they may take risks that they otherwise would not (Pitesa & Thau, 2013a). Conversely, if managers feel threatened, they may focus on maintaining their power, even at others’ expense. For example, participants who were made to feel powerful in an experiment recommended far riskier investments to potential clients than control participants (Pitesa & Thau, 2013b). Figure 7.4. Empowered people held accountable for outcomes make risky recommendations

Source: Pitesa & Thau, 2013a People who feel powerful are more likely to act than those who feel powerless, while people who feel ambivalent are less likely to act than those who are not. When powerful people also are ambivalent, they are less likely to take action (Durso, Briño & Petty, 2016). And their inaction may stop their subordinates from acting as well. A

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manager may use appropriate rhetoric to deflect blame, but a team under such a manager may not produce expected results. Accountability becomes a difficult concept when power is involved. Powerful parties may manipulate rules and co-opt evaluation mechanisms, so they may not suffer consequences. The events may pressure subalterns to conform. And as seen elsewhere, this may be easy to bring about. Public inquiries on the operations of the Wells Fargo bank in the US in 2016 showed evidence that many staff conformed to expectations of falsifying signatures of clients who were less likely to find irregularities; few could afford to speak out. Much research has been conducted on conformity. There are evolutionary reasons for its existence, and the effects are often not noted consciously. Conformity is manifest as normative influence. When it is significant, people go along with the crowd because they are concerned about what others think of them (Asch, 1956; Schultz, Griscesivious 2007). Fitting in also brings rewards such as camaraderie and compliments. Conformity is more likely people’s roles are unclear. In such situations, it is most reasonable to act the way similar people behave (Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990). In education for example, national and international organizations may hire staff with little if any knowledge on how to optimize information processing. With little expertise at hand, staff may be more likely to conform and be convinced by statements of self-confident consultants.

Accountability under conditions of groupthink In this group phenomenon, the desire for harmony or conformity results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome (Janis, 1972). Threat of exclusion from socially desirable events stifles dissent and foments groupthink. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative viewpoints by actively suppressing dissenting viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences. They may avoid raising controversial issues or alternative solutions, and demonstrate less creativity, uniqueness or independent thinking. The “in-group” has an “illusion of invulnerability” and an inflated certainty that the right decision has been made. It significantly overrates its own decision-making abilities and significantly underrates the abilities of its opponents (the “out-group”). The more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making in-group, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink.

Educational organizations may be vulnerable to groupthink. Tendencies to conformity and conflicting priorities may motivate employees to give managers good news rather than problems to solve. Manifestations include reluctance to expose dangerous lies,61 and a positive bias in reporting results. Another problematic relationship involves consultants and temporary staff, who must retain their employment under all costs. Supposedly independent evaluations may hide important dependencies, in order to ensure continued employment and

61 A study involving dangerous lies showed that 83% percent of the subjects in the impersonal condition and 77% of the

subjects in the personal condition failed to expose a lie (Taylor, Gittes, O’Neal et al., 1994). Social conformity but also

concerns about misaligned interests may be involved.

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recommendations for new assignments. Maximizing personal benefits is human, but organizations that create conditions for secrecy may ultimately compromise their mission. 62

62 http://lowres.jantoo.com/business-herd_mentality-organisations-businessmen-cartoon-conformity-34502430_low.jpg

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8 Conclusions and Implications from Accountability Research

The research suggests that explicit hierarchies, direct principal-agent relations, procedural accountability, high trust, identified staff contributions, optimal contract duration, would get results. These would require clearly defined tasks, an effortless flow of manageable information, and credible sanctions. Staff answerable for processes rather than outcomes would be more attentive to the details that eventually may bring outcomes. The social loafing phenomenon manifests itself most strongly in large groups and collective processes. Accountability can improve through a focus on responsibility and individual agency rather than mere top-down group control (Lindkvist and Llewellyn 2003). Staff should be individually responsible for certain tasks, and not simply be a cog in a larger mechanism. The accountability research suggests that learning outcomes in poor countries will be hard to obtain. International multi-party cooperation has inherent complexities. Multiple, nested structures are often involved, often in loose networks. Group memberships may frequently change as staff rotate, so the opportunities for repeated collaboration may be limited. And since staff often know little about educating students, the likelihood of conformity may be significant. The principal-agent links may be weak, non-existent, or hidden. Identifying individual contributions may be hard, given the political imperative of optimizing collaboration. Sanctions may therefore not be enforceable. Managers may have conflicting feelings about various components, and their staff may thus be spurred to inactivity. Thus productive collaboration across agencies may be an outcome in itself, which requires consideration and perhaps assignment of specialized staff. Educational tasks rarely involve concrete items, such as the development of a marketable smartphone. Different people may view the tasks differently and view their execution differently. Therefore there may be tensions in determining which roads must be followed and which outcomes must be obtained. In the case of international organizations, the “product” is thousands of miles away or removed by many degrees. Staff are not directly involved with student instruction and cannot be reasonably accountable for their progress. Such staff ought to be accountable for advice they give to countries, but that is often difficult to evaluate. In principle, a focus on process may increase staff accountability. One way to operate is to assign a task to a team, give timeframes and resources, let them carry it, and ask for justifications. If tasks are concrete and feasible they can be completed, but complex and unclear assignments may not be. A focus towards outcomes is needed, particularly when taxpayer funds or donations are used. However, prospect theory and several studies suggest that making people accountable for outcomes can backfire. A difficult goal shrinks. People will avoid it, distort, push it downwards, contract it outside, or postpone it to the future. Responsibility for outcomes may be reduced to monitoring, writing articles and reports, making presentations at conferences, “advocacy” activities, or blogs. Thus a noble goal gets successively passed from one team to another or gets cut down to feasible tasks that do not sum up to its completion. Educational organizations try to improve accountability parameters and outcomes, but there is a limited understanding of the variables that matter. Many policy documents focus on secondary variables that make common sense. And to remedy the failures of previous initiatives, ever more complex multiparty configurations are conceived. In some respects, governments and donors are trapped into a vicious circle of complexity. In the large number of issues and studies presented in this report, a few main variables stand out. The can be expressed in terms of continuity (Figure 8.1)

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Figure 8.1: Significant axes of accountability, given research findings Accountability Lower Higher Answering to: Self only External audience Principal-agent relationship: One-to-one Many to many others Size of rewards or sanctions No sanctions Severe sanctions Credibility or probability of sanctions Unlikely Certain Identification of contributions Collective work Recognized contributions Network structure Flat Hierarchical Organizational relations Informal Formal Goal alignment by staff and managers Goals diverge Goals shared, converge Shared, mutual accountability Just doing job Feelings of ownership Difficulty, span of control Process Outcome

Research implications and possible actions What can be done under these difficult circumstances? Some actions are possible.

- A goal should be widely shared among all stakeholders. There should be few competing interests or requirements. In particular, the actual service providers should be engaged, and their support must be obtained. (These may be teachers, supervisors or contractor staff.) Goal agreement may require discussions and workshops to clarify implications and convince staff, who may not express objections. However, concerns should be encouraged in order to reduce conformity and groupthink.

- Multiparty agreements should include detailed information on relationships, leadership, timelines and

monitoring criteria. To avoid information glut in working memory, only very few criteria should be used

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(perhaps 3-4 rather 37).63 Formal and informal relationships should be noted, and discussions should be held regarding the methods to deal with compliance failures.

- Means should be sought to highlight the contributions of individuals in a group. Staff should be doing

tasks that are identifiable, with performance being public if possible. For example, a report could contain in a footnote names and activities they performed, as is currently the practice for peer-reviewed articles. Providing a standard that allows self-evaluation may eliminate the loafing effect. Even the potential for self-evaluation alone may be sufficient to eliminate it.

- Means should also be sought to create conditions conducive to social striving. Managers can elicit high

effort from group and team members by providing incentives to contribute. If members of the collective perceive their contributions as indispensable, and the costs of contributing do not exceed the benefit that might be derived from a good collective performance they may try harder

- Staff rewards and penalties should be credible and large enough to matter. Financial or other incentives

should be linked to measured performance as a means of improving services. If incentives are used, it is important to understand how influential they really are. Incentives must be significant to those being incentivized.

- The principal-agent relationship should be transparent, and in line with work tasks. Ideally the principal-

agent relationship should be one-on-one, that is, an individual should be answerable to another individual rather than to a board or advisory council. It should also be transparent. Covert principal-agent relationships may create mistrust and divergence of goals. They may also result in team members withholding information necessary for goal achievement.

- Accountability should be imposed on the appropriate level. Sanctions and rewards should target the

actual staff who carry out the relevant action, not to low-level operators, who may be merely following orders while superiors are exempt.

- Managers and teams should receive adequate resources to design, implement, modify, and operations

towards outcomes. They must also be sufficient supervised to avoid the distorting effects that power has on people.

- Perceived accountability, sometimes considered as “ownership”, may be facilitated by linking staff more

closely to the ultimate beneficiaries. For example, donor and government staff could be required to teach low-income children or adults for a few days in topics they know. In the 1990s, the World Bank engaged in a similar program, which could be better specified.

- Automated instruments such as “big data”, barometers, ‘observatories, and “dashboards” on monitoring

accountability or other concepts are useful but could be used cautiously (Bertović, 2016). They may serve to make staff complacent and magnify errors. Software solutions in education are complex and require extensive study and interpretation of the outputs. The means dedicating staff time on understanding monitoring data and following up.

- Evaluations must become more useful. Often these are large, time-consuming exercises that may

ultimately provide limited input. There is some value in human redundancy, that is. Evaluation

63 For example, the 2020 Strategic Plan of the Global Partnership for Education has 37 indicators

(http://www.globalpartnership.org/about-us/strategy).

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performed by two independent inspectors (Bertović, 2016). Although they may be subject to social loafing, error detection rates may also improve, particularly if contributions are identifiable.

- For the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, it is crucial to understand these

factors and research their manifestations in tasks and staff of the education community. The variables that influence accountability are often counterintuitive. There could be extensive dissemination to staff of various organizations. Particularly important are the common cognitive biases of people, group effects, social loafing, information overload into working memory. Videogames and animations could be created to explain the various components and effects.

Using the research for diagnoses The research on accountability can be used to specify frameworks, agreements, and terms of reference. The elements that contribute to an effective performance-based accountability system can thus be made more precise. The salient variables may be used to formulate models and algorithms to evaluate the likelihood of successful attainment of educational outcomes. Questions to ask for various programs could be:

- How many groups, departments, organizations were involved in the various stages? - Did the groups work in a hierarchical or a network structure? - Did reporting relationships involve individuals or groups, such as committees? - Were some partners informal? (e.g., groups of parents)? If so, what arrangements were made to

increase the likelihood of performance? - What was the size of the groups? - How stable were the groups? What was the annual member turnover rate? - How cohesive were the groups? What evidence was there to suggest trust vs. conflicts? - Was each group accountable for processes or for outcomes? How? - In which ways was the individual input of staff identified or recognized? - Did staff receive standards against which to evaluate themselves? - To what extend did group goals differing from the stated work goals? - In case of performance failure, were there significant, credible, and actionable sanctions? - How many staff were specifically penalized or rewarded? How? What was the mix? - How much authority and/or financial resources did groups have in relation to task needs? - How frequent were serious errors, incorrect procedures, missed deadlines? - How often did group managers ask staff to account for processes and decisions?

In some respects, the variables that research links to accountability are not always convenient. But it is not yet possible to negotiate with human DNA. Arguably human cognition has been under-engineered for the political configurations of the 21st century. Decisionmaking processes evolved to serve the needs of a faraway past of primates and humans, and we can only operate by piggyback new processes on them.

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Appendix 1. Survey of International Educators - Definitions of accountability and results On the basis of research and observations, the GEM staff and the author formulated some hypotheses regarding the effects of accountability. These were included in a survey to stakeholders regarding the definitions and correlates of accountability. The survey questions were formulated in consultation with the GEM staff and piloted it with development specialists and academics familiar with the concept of accountability. The items requested definitions, perceptions on various variables, linguistic definitions, examples and clarifications regarding nomenclature in various languages (Chapter 3). The survey also asked respondents to write freely what accountability means to them. The survey was administered online in April-May 2017. It was sent to a group of about 35 development specialists and was included in a newsletter to the members of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). Furthermore it was specifically sent to the Globalization Special Interest Group of over 300 members of CIES. The GEM website also announced a slightly modified version of the survey. Overall, only 50 responses were obtained, that is an estimated rate of about 12%. The low response rate may be due to the difficulties in defining this concept.

Survey Results The author (H. Abadzi) classified the various definitions according to the variables they mentioned. Some were paraphrased to include multiple similar definitions. A table with the relevant variables and definitions is below. The respondents had relatively clear ideas about the concept. Some respondents thought of accountability as a synonym to responsibility, but others emphasized the differences that researchers have highlighted: Giving accounts to an external audience, fulfilling promises, abiding by rules, processes, criteria, being liable and subject to sanctions (rewards or punishments) if outcomes are unsatisfactory. Since accountability in education involves testing, some respondents specifically mentioned testing and a monitoring role for accountability. Nevertheless, underlying variables were not always clear. The majority (62%) believed that an external authority is needed to hold people accountable, and 62% believed that people who execute an assignment should be liable for their actions. But 51% of respondents, for example believed that multiple people can be jointly held accountable, which seems difficult without much structure and processes to identify individual contributions. Respondents also held the reasonable view that people should be held accountable for process as well as outcome accountability, but there were no comments or concerns raised regarding the conflicts between the two. And a majority of respondents (47%) reported a belief that if the language of the workplace has a distinct term for accountability, people are more likely to fulfill their duties. This may be a cognitive bias, given the lack of evidence from countries that do have such a differentiation (e.g. Greece and Albania have a distinction, but they do not display high levels of accountability.) Appendix Table 1: Summary of definitions suggested by respondents

Variables of focus Definition examples and frequencies

Approximate synonym of responsibility, duties

Responsibility for actions taken by individuals or institutions 8 Responsibility or duty 2 Accountability is responsibility, but there is a need to specify what someone is responsible for 1

Focus on assumed agreements, obligations

Assuming responsibility for actions (and inaction) in both good times and in bad 6 Taking responsibility for the agreed upon actions and outcomes 3

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Keeping promises; doing what I say I'll do; completing a professional agreement or promise; 1 Having an obligation or to meet the requirements of your job/task/responsibility assigned to you. 1 People must do what they say they will 1

Focus on interactions with external audience, authority

Formal or informal responsibility in relation to an external audience (interest holders) 1 Aside from doers, accountability should include the processes and interactions with the receivers 1 Accountability as the point of discussion 1 External vs. internal locus of control 1 Accountability vs. responsibility is a bit like intrinsic and extrinsic motivation 1

Focus on rewards and punishments, liability

Recognition that actions (or inaction) have consequences; rewards and punishments 2 Taking credit when credit is due and critique/blame as appropriate. 1 Liable for something, punishment 3 Consequences may be positive or negative, accountable people judged on success of reaching such an objective. 1 Accountability has a punitive angle; should end 1 accountability for actions; such as cheating on a test in school or plagiarizing 1

Focus on monitoring, use of criteria, laws, following procedures

Evaluation of the education process according to external and measurable indicators; A measure of whether and how well a system is working. 3 Monitoring actions or accomplishments relative to progress (usually on preset measures). Knowing results is important for behavior change Implies a relative or a comparative performance over individual sense of responsibility

Focus on outcomes Accomplishing a previously agreed-upon task 3 Taking into account the results of a process or product. Holding schools, teachers, students, etc. responsible for academic performance - for what they have learned or not - measured by test results 3 Responsible for performance 2 Knowing results is important for behavior change 1

Focus on process Laws, procedures, processes, and behavioral expectations that together govern the behavior in a way aligned with neoliberal expectations 1

Focus on giving explanations Explain one's actions and the results in light of one's commitments/responsibilities/promises. 3 The requirement to answer to someone regarding one's actions (or inactions) 1 Being responsible for justifying or explaining the outcomes of clearly articulated aims. 1

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Focus on transparency Allowing transparency to show that you are following laws or norms. transparently give feedback/information on one's actions 3

Reliability, trustworthiness Trustworthiness, counting on people to do certain tasks 1

Respondents’ comments received pertained to linguistic difficulties but also to concerns about social justice when various officials define criteria with limited understanding and consideration. About three respondents considered accountability a negative concept that compromises personal responsibility.

Linguistic guidance from respondents Of 42 respondents reporting that they know one or more languages at an advanced level, several had insights regarding the use of the term; across languages, 51% reported that the term had a long history of use, which had been adapted to new requirements. Given the range of terms used in various languages, 61% perceived a difference between the meaning of ‘accountability’ in English vs. the closest synonym in their reported languages. Appendix Table 2: Responses to multiple-choice survey questions Who can be held accountable most effectively, individuals or groups? Best if a single individual is held accountable (“the buck stops with me”) 38% OK if multiple people are jointly held accountable (e.g. "the donors”) 51% Unsure 11% Is a higher or external authority necessary in order to hold people accountable? Yes, accountability requires answering to a manager, donor, external authority 62% No, it is not necessary to answer to an authority (e.g. may answer just to self) 33% Unsure 4% Should people who execute an assignment be liable for their actions? Yes, being rewarded or punished is an essential feature of accountability 61% No, being rewarded or punished is not an essential feature of accountability 24% Unsure 15% Should people be held accountable only for carrying out activities or also for achieving results? Just for carrying out assigned assignments (e.g., teachers teaching as well as possible, regardless of student learning) 19% Just for showing outcomes or results (e.g. teachers responsible for actual student learning) 10% For both carrying out activities as well as showing results 65% Unsure 1%

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Are people more likely to fulfill their duties if the language of their workplace has a distinct term for "accountability"? (For example, English has a distinct term, but Spanish may not.)

Yes 47% No 24% Unsure 29% Are you an advanced speaker of a language other than English (respond for two languages) 42 people Is the term for "accountability" a recently introduced term or does it have a long history of use? Long history of use 51% recently introduced 29% unsure 20% Do you think there is a difference between the meaning of accountability in English and the meaning of accountability in chosen language? yes 61% no 27% unsure 12%

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