Abstract
This chapter sets out the meaning of accountability, arguing that it is central to integrity. Focusing on the case of the Mid Staffs Hospital Trust, it explores mutual accountability for meaning and practice and plural accountability (including to colleagues, profession, client, institution and so on). Central to this is responsibility for relationships, being true to them. Breakdown of the practice of this integrity is characterized as analogous to a breakdown of health. This view of accountability is critically contrasted with the corporate capture of accountability, where one contract is dominant. Narrow perspectives are then contrasted with the complexity of businesses relationship to the social environment, inside and outside the organization.
The chapter, then, focuses on the practice of dialogue as the means of engaging complexity and practising accountability, illustrated by the example of Henry V at Agincourt, and ends by noting the connection between the first two modes of responsibility.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
Cf. the DVD The Inside Job, 2010.
- 4.
Adrian Furnham, The Elephant in the Boardroom (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004).
- 5.
http://www.jnj.com/about-jnj/jnj-credo
- 6.
http://www.jnj.com/about-jnj/jnj-credo
- 7.
https://www.jnj.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Code-of-Business-Conduct-English-US.pdf
- 8.
Ibid.
- 9.
https://www.cipd.co.uk/binaries/5740CodeofConduct.pdf
- 10.
http://www.cipr.co.uk/content/about-us/public-relations-register/cipr-code-conduct
- 11.
https://www.prsa.org/aboutprsa/ethics/codeenglish/#.VqzHxvmLTDc
- 12.
http://www.totalprofessions.com/profession-finder
- 13.
Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2.
- 14.
Who rightly argues for communicative action (focused in relationships) rather than instrumental action, goal-oriented behaviour.
- 15.
Such contracts can also be formal and also can involve the establishment of boundaries. Hence, Henry newly crowned in Henry IV Part 2, Act V, scene v, firmly places Falstaff’s outside the boundary of dialogue (reflecting Falstaff’s nihilistic perspective).
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Robinson, S. (2016). Integrity and Accountability: Being True to Others. In: The Practice of Integrity in Business. Palgrave Studies in Governance, Leadership and Responsibility. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51553-7_3
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