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Accountability in Nonprofit Sector

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management

  • 153 Accesses

Synonyms

CSR in nonprofit sector; Liability in nonprofit sector; Responsibility in nonprofit sector; Transparency in nonprofit sector

Definition

Accountability in nonprofit sector concerns an articulated assessment of global and overall consistency inherent in the following key elements:

  1. (a)

    Transparent use of financial and nonfinancial resources.

  2. (b)

    Correctness of management and governance.

  3. (c)

    Adequacy and conformity between actions and objectives.

  4. (d)

    Clear communication of the results achieved.

In essence, it is intended to refer to the application of the concept of accountability to the nonprofit sector. If the generic term accountability is very multifaceted, as it is highly debated and chameleon-like (Mulgan 2000; Messner 2009), it is even more complex and profound when referring to nonprofit institutions (NPIs) (Rademacher and Remus 2017). In fact, it presents an evident versatility, being able to represent a principle, a duty, a system, a process, a mechanism, a set of tools...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Political Science (DISP), University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Renato Civitillo

Authors
  1. Renato Civitillo
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Correspondence to Renato Civitillo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. London Metropolitan University, Guildhall Faculty of Business and Law London Metropolitan University, London, UK

    Samuel Idowu

  2. Cologne Business School, Ingolstadt, Germany

    René Schmidpeter

  3. College of Business, Loyola University New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Nicholas Capaldi

  4. International Training Centre of the IL, International Labor Organization, Turin, Italy

    Liangrong Zu

  5. Department of Economics, Society and Politics, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Urbino, Italy

    Mara Del Baldo

  6. Instituto Politécnico da Guarda, Guarda, Portugal

    Rute Abreu

Section Editor information

  1. Faculty of Education, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Eila Jeronen Ph.D.

  2. Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Eila Jeronen Ph.D.

  3. Faculty of Education, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland

    Eila Jeronen Ph.D.

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Civitillo, R. (2020). Accountability in Nonprofit Sector. In: Idowu, S., Schmidpeter, R., Capaldi, N., Zu, L., Del Baldo, M., Abreu, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_704-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_704-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

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