Saturday, 15 December 2007

Dimensions of accountability

Romzek & Dubnick's 1994 model is a book that I haven't managed to get hold of, so I can only go by what Dicke & Ott say. They indicated that accountability has at least four competing dimensions: bureaucratic or hierarchical, legal, professional and political. To that they add a moral or ethical accountability quoting Dwivedi & Jabbra.

I'd guess that there'd be a match to Bovens types of accountability. For instance, his social accountability might match moral accountability.


  • Bovens, M. 2007. Analysing and Assessing Accountability: A Conceptual Framework. European Law Journal, 13(4): 447-468.
  • Dicke, L. A., & Ott, J. S. 1999. Public Agency Accountability in Human Services Contracting. Public Productivity & Management Review, 22(4): 502-516.
  • Dwivedi, 0 . P., & Jabbra, J. G. (1988). Public service responsibility and accountability. In J. G. Jabbra & O . P. Dwivedi (Eds.), Public service accountability (pp. 1-16). West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
  • Romzek, B. S., & Dubnick, M. J. (1994). Issues of accountability in flexible personnel systems. In P. W. Ingraham & B. S. Romzek (Eds.), New paradigms, for government (pp. 263-294). San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.

1 comment:

Mel said...

Pleased to read of your efforts on the topic. If you need to see some additional material by myself and some colleagues, visit http://mjdubnick.dubnick.net/contact.html or drop me an email using the address provided there....