...INTRODUCTION What is accountability? The definition states: The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Being accountable means being dependable-arriving to work and appointments on time, meeting deadlines, being in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing at the right time. Accountability is a valuable piece of life. We as humans are accountable for every action we take and every decision we make. To be an effective leader you must understand the power of accepting responsibility for the results you create. When something goes wrong or does not turn out the way you wanted it to, a leader possess the skills to be held accountable for what they may have done to cause this problem. Once you can accept responsibility for what went wrong you can spend more time on finishing a goal versus more time placing the blame on others. Personal accountability is the key to success in both our personal and professional lives. BODY One of the issues facing police throughout time is the issue of police accountability. When the police are doing a “good job” in the public’s eye, no one has complaints or questions how things are done but the minute a situation arises that is out of the ordinary or one that is manipulated by the media there is public outcry and...
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...Administrative accountability There have been regular attempts at administrative reforms and innovation, both at the Centre and in the States, including starting new institutions and systems in India since 1947. Although the results have been strong on assurances and weak on performance. Thus the results have not been commensurate with our hopes and needs. Further, besides persistence of problems of administration with increasing severity, we have also witnessed in succeeding decades acceleration in the process of degeneration in our socio-economic-political and administrative scenario. Today the situation has become so alarming now that even the law and order situation in many parts of the country, rural as well as urban, presents a depressing picture Today people expect a prompt and effective response to their problems and concerns in this Information Technology era. As the Public Administration machinery expands and becomes more complex, the need for holding it properly accountable is more acutely felt principal problem of governmental administration today is not one of securing efficiency but one of insuring accountability; In India the assumption in the context of democracy, is that the civil servants work for the people. But the problem of locating accountability therefore becomes acute because of the nature of the job performed and power exercised by the civil servants. Today they are no longer confined to the job of implementing the policies and executing the laws...
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...Master Thesis 2006/7 Jacques Gamboni 1 ACCOUNTABILITY OF NGO Accountability for an NGO – like for any institution or even any individual – is a matter of governance, defined as “a mode of governing that is distinct from the hierarchical control model characterizing the interventionist state. Governance is the type of regulation typical of the cooperative State, where State and non-state actors participate in mixed public private partnership networks1”or “the formation of cooperative relationships between government, profit-making firms, and non-profit private organizations to fulfil a policy function.2” Of course governance is more than just a way to manage the interrelations within a public private partnership arrangement. We shall detail this by reference to a catalogue of the different types of accountability mechanisms identified by Erik B. Bluemel (BLUEMEL, 20073). The references cited here are taken from the mentioned article. People find into the Civil Society a playground to express their frustrations towards their national or local government that ordinary democracy fails to resolve. Therefore they feel the right to obtain a higher degree of accountability from the organisation they join or support. Regrettably, they are seldom satisfied. Accountability mechanisms are usually designed to constrain power, whatever its form. In the Communication Society, it has become one of the essential means for all interconnected actors to exert mutual control. It is an essential...
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...Responsibility and accountability principles Luccas Eastman HCS/475 Oct 6, 2014 Kathie Huttegger Introduction. In any industry especially that of healthcare people must follow rules and guidelines established that appoint a specific blameworthiness for issues that may arise. There are measures to which breaking specific rules may lead to a predetermined punishment such as, write-ups, termination or that of court and jurisdiction proceedings. By following strict rules it may make the work place feel that of a negative, but there are methods used to bring positivity to a place that must follow guidelines. What is taking responsibility? In the work place there are many rules that people must follow. Accountability can be described as answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and the expectation of account-giving (Dykstra, C. February 1939). In the healthcare industry, it is pertinent that facilities uphold guidelines of accountability towards employees. Measures. Individually or in a team setting, employees must know their respective role and abilities within those guidelines. It is important to understand that responsibility is a contrasted view from that of accountability. While being accountable for something, requires the responsibility to take blameworthiness, it is not the same. Accountability is measured in products, roles, outcomes and that of accomplishment or lack of it (Grady, T, & Malloch, K. (2007) All about the acts. Healthcare and the industries alike...
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...IMPORTANT OF ACCOUNTABILITY Accountability is very important as a perception in ethical and good governance of Malaysia local governments. Malaysia governments has put big effort in enhancing the level of quality of accountability of it servant through many action and initiatives. But, there still have the lack of accountability remains a thorny issues and keeps on being raised in Auditor General Report and Medias. The concern of weaknesses in administration and need to strengthen accountability led to the expansion of the Auditor General’s powers to include management audits. Accountability is meant not merely to control the exercise of public authority and resource employed but also to promote and enhance the public sector performance. The implementation of performance measurement is one of the efforts taken by the public sector organizations to enhance their accountability. In other word, managing and measuring performances has been one of the key drivers in reform of the public sector in recent years, as it becomes an important tool to increase accountability. The performance measurement and accountability are very much influenced by financial reporting of any organization, which could also be as performance information. The meaning of accountability is very broad which affects on all features of government operations. Over the past decade, awareness and concern among the public have raised towards the accountability of the public sectors. It is noted that the...
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...Many people wonder what the Bible has to say about accountability. While the word "accountability" does not appear in the Bible, the word "accountable" does. The Bible states that leaders are accountable for leading God's people in the right direction. They are accountable for warning others when they are going the wrong way. God will hold teachers accountable for leading His people astray. Identification · The word "accountability" does not appear in the Bible. However, the word "accountable" is mentioned eight times in the Bible. Most of these references apply to being held accountable for not saving another person. God cares about those who are separated from Him, and He makes His children "accountable for reaching out to those who are lost. If God tells you to witness to a person and you choose not to obey, then God holds you accountable for that person being separated from God (Ezekiel 3:18). Significance · Sometimes people who are living in a way that is contrary to God's plan need someone to warn them about the consequences of their choices. The prophet Nathan obeyed God and warned King David about God's anger with David for committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having Bathsheba's husband killed (II Samuel 12). King David could have literally "killed the messenger," but he instead repented. If Nathan had remained silent and David died in his sin, God would have held Nathan accountable for David's blood. Features · The Bible says that as long as people are obedient...
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...Andres Garcia Memorandum Date: March 3, 2012 To: President of the United States Fr: Andy Garcia Re: Holding them Accountable Mr. President, Trust and ethics are very important factors in the business world. We have to create a number of different solutions that help play a key role in building proper business ethics from employees, shareholders, board of directors, the CEO and the American people. I feel that all businesses need to promote accountability, transparency, and compliance, corporate governance systems and rely heavily on “gatekeepers”—corporate directors, in-house and outside counsel, and internal and external auditors. We need to revolutionize and rebuild trust and confidence again in the business world. Confidence in the character of the business world will enhance predictability, reliability, dependability, integrity, and regularity. Trust will give the business world a form of freedom. It will allow the business world to explore new directions, possibilities, and alternatives. Although trust always has its limits and always involves risk, trust frees the business institution from the need to continuously recheck, rethink, and reanalyze every decision and action they make. But we still need to have “gatekeepers” to keep executives from committing fraud again. Savings & Loan Scandal There have been many disappointments in my lifetime and that’s just in the past 30 years where the government has had to step in and provided some assistance at...
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...Accountability & responsibility Accountability is the state of being liable and to be called on to render an account at any given time. It requires both the understanding and the meeting of said responsibilities. It also embodies a commitment to be both a contributor and active participant in the process. The responsibilities of outcomes are based solely on standards. These standards apply to the development of soldiers and to the evaluation of their performance, self-discipline, and their integrity. Each soldier is accountable for his/her own actions because at any time we could be alerted to go to war. Accountability of personal items teaches young soldiers discipline there will be times when said soldier will become care free and begin to think it is ok every now and then but it is not the standard and the sanction was placed there for a reason. Webster defines Accountability as being liable at all times to said obligation, also the united states army values soldiers that are always accountable for their actions it also means being dependable .Example arriving to i.e., work, appointments on time and meeting deadlines, which means being In the right place at the right time, and doing the right thing at the right time. Without accountability there is a sense of not knowing where everybody is and of what’s going on in certain situations. Not only is it important in the matters of personal items but all around in general it is the embodiment of a priority each soldier should...
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...The Importance of Accountability Paper Michelle Payden-Wright HCS/475 March 2, 2015 Dr. Lawrence Fergus The Importance of Accountability Paper Accountability is important in the health care industry; it holds an individual accountable day in and day out for his and her own tasks. Holding a person accountable for their actions can also assist in creating accountability for the department, unit, organization, and industry level of the organization. Accountability is considered to be a performance management system to improve and measure quality in the health care industry (O'Hagan & Persaud, 2009). “The good leader works hard to make sure that there is little transfer of accountability from the staff to the leader when it comes to accountable decision making” (Porter-O'Grady & Malloch, 2007, p.116 ). In order to be accountable an individual must be direct with his or actions, decisions and outcome, and in the health care industry there is lack of clarity when it comes to actions, responsibility and results, it is up to the leader to form the ideas that will support the decisions being made. Being accountable is when a person knows what his or her work is worth. Employee’s accountability is measured in the health care industry by setting goals that can be tracked, and employer feedback is also helpful. The "U.S. Office of Personnel Management" (n.d.) website discusses how setting specific goals for each employee will help measure the employees’ performance accurately...
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...Accountability is important, because without it, there's no where to place the blame when mistakes occur. In fact, accountability covers more than just blameworthiness; responsibility, answerability, and liability also come into question when discussing the importance of accountability. The very application of the word, describes a system, in which actions, decisions, and policies are all accounted for (or: kept track of, recorded, and assessed and evaluated). Accountability can even extend into the administration of new policies, that are rendered due to obsolete rules and regulations or just out-right compliancy issues; the governance of decisions that define expectations or verify one's performance-- as well as managing and guiding one's decisions and processes for completing a task, also comes into play; finally, the obligation to report, explain, and be answerable to resulting consequences when implementing those actions is quite significant. To put it simply, when taking accountability for something, you are acknowledging and assuming responsibility for your actions.If I go further in depth with this particular topic, we can see that this system of accountability can actually be created by breaking down the very word "accountability," into separate synonyms (words that have the same or similar meaning) and can be categorized as such. The word "count," in "accountability" implies the action of finding the number of elements of a finite set of objects. The traditional way...
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...TEACHING TEENS ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY BY JULIE BAUMGARTER The first part of this article is about a teenage girl. This girl wanted to watch an R-rated movie and knowing the parents would not approve, she lied to them and claimed she was going to see a more appropriate movie .Another parent of another teenage girl forbids the daughter to have a profile on facebook. She does it anyway and when confronted, she declares that all the teenagers she knew had profiles on facebook. The writer of this article wonders about how much leeway teenagers should have at home. She uses these two examples above to remind parents of teenagers, to be on guard at all times. She claims teenagers are not young adults, even though they try to come across as mature and sophisticated. Furthermore the parents should not be fooled by this because they are still in their formative years. They are not psychologically and mentally competent enough to deal with big decisions or responsibility .A Mrs. Johnson, local therapist, claims that one should be firm when dealing with teenagers. She urges parents of teenagers to show respect, and honesty in their dealings with them. Furthermore, to always remember that teenagers are still in the formative years. That they should never give in to demands of instant gratification. That there should be open communication and press upon them that every action has consequences and to be very involved in the life of these teenagers in a way that would not breed...
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...(Joseph, 2001) later. In the centuries since the reign of William I of England, accountability has slowly wrestled free from its etymological bondage with accounting. In contemporary political discourse, ‘accountability’ and ‘accountable’ no longer convey a stuffy image of bookkeeping and financial administration, but they hold strong promises of fair and equitable governance. Moreover, the accounting relationship has almost completely reversed. Accountability does not refer to sovereigns holding their subjects to account,...
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...This essay is all about accountability. Where it came from and why it’s important today. The word “accountable” has so much history behind it. Accountability is important on all levels. Being able to be accountable is a corner stone of being a working member of society. Accountability is a word with many different meanings. This essay will explore what accountability is, where it comes from, and what it means to “be accountable”. Websters dictionary defines it as such: the quality or state of being accountable; especially; an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for ones actions. "Accountability" stems from late Latin accomptare (to account), a prefixed form of computare (to calculate), which in turn derived from putare (to reckon). While the word itself does not appear in English until its use in 13th century Norman England, the concept of account-giving has ancient roots in record keeping activities related to governance and money-lending systems that first developed in Ancient Israel, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and later, Rome What is accountability and the definition: (DOD) The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Accountability is concerned primarily with records, while responsibility is concerned primarily with custody, care,...
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...Essays Home Page » Other Topics Accountability In: Other Topics Accountability This essay is all about accountability. Where it came from and why it’s important today. The word “accountable” has so much history behind it. Accountability is important on all levels. Being able to be accountable is a corner stone of being a working member of society. Accountability is a word with many different meanings. This essay will explore what accountability is, where it comes from, and what it means to “be accountable”. Websters dictionary defines it as such: the quality or state of being accountable; especially; an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for ones actions. "Accountability" stems from late Latin accomptare (to account), a prefixed form of computare (to calculate), which in turn derived from putare (to reckon). While the word itself does not appear in English until its use in 13th century Norman England, the concept of account-giving has ancient roots in record keeping activities related to governance and money-lending systems that first developed in Ancient Israel, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and later, Rome What is accountability and the definition: (DOD) The obligation imposed by law or lawful order or regulation on an officer or other person for keeping accurate record of property, documents, or funds. The person having this obligation may or may not have actual possession of the property, documents, or funds. Accountability is concerned primarily with...
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...To begin, people who have personal accountability are able to recognise, accept and take full ownership of tasks or projects that squarely fall into their area of responsibility. This includes any results they contribute towards or create. When something does not work out, or deadlines are not met, an accountable person is the one that look at themselves first to see how they affected the end result. They do not blame others or the situation, rather they think about their input and focus on avoiding the same mistakes in the future. As individuals, it is our capacity for self accountability that keeps us functioning ethically and responsibly. While people may be accountable to others, they may not be as accountable to themselves when there is no one else to observe, monitor or hold them responsible. Self accountability is the cornerstone of ethics. It is who you are and what you do when no one is watching. When you have a well developed sense of self accountability, you are honest with yourself, and are answerable and responsible for what you say and you do. You have the ability to look beyond the immediate moment to consider the consequences and know if you are willing to pay them. You would then have what they call personal ethics. Personally, I believe Personal ethics is the precursor to professional ethics, since we are not likely to be more ethical in our professional life than in our personal life. As this saying I found goes, "No matter where you go, there you are." In...
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