The external expectations of organizational accountability force organizational leaders to find solutions and answers in organizational (and information) governance to assuage the feelings of doubt and unease about the behaviour of the organization and its employees that continuously seem to be expressed in the organizational environment. Organizational leaders have to align the interests of their share– and stakeholders in finding a balance between performance and accountability, individual and collective ethical approaches, and business ethics based on compliance, based on integrity, or both. They have to integrate accountability in organizational governance based on a strategy that defines boundaries for rules and routines. They need to define authority structures and find ways to control the behaviour of their employees, without being very restrictive and coercive. They have to implement accountability structures in organizational interactions that are extremely complex, nonlinear, and dynamic, in which (mostly informal) relational networks of employees traverse formal structures. Formal processes, rules, and regulations, used for control and compliance, cannot handle such environments, continuously in ‘social flux’, unpredictable, unstable, and (largely) unmanageable. It is a challenging task that asks exceptional management skills from organizational leaders. The external expectations of accountability cannot be neglected, even if it is not always clear what is exactly meant with that concept. Why is this (very old) concept still of importance for modern organizations?In this book, organizational governance, information governance, and accountability are the core subjects, just like the relationship between them. A framework is presented of twelve manifestations of organizational accountability the every organization had to deal with. An approach is introduced for strategically govern organizational accountability with three components: behaviour, accountability, and external assessments. The core propositions in this book are that without paying strategic attention to the behaviour of employees and managers and to information governance and management, it will be extremely difficult for organizational leaders to find a balance between the two objectives of organizational governance: performance and accountability.
Understanding the decision-making process of a boardroom is one of the most fascinating parts of organizational research. We are all interested in power games, team dynamics and how the external environment could influence the decision of directors. One of the important buzzwords of today is “good governance” and many boards face a lot of societal pressure to implement best practices of governance. It goes beyond regulatory requirements and boards need to take a different perspective on integrating governance codes and best practices in their organizations. In this study, we focused on the role of individual directors in developing organizational responses to that pressure. More specifically, we looked at how directors’ own cognitive frames of governance influence the way boards choose best practices.
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In the midst of continuous health professions curriculum reforms, critical questions arise about the extent to which conceptual ideas are actually put into practice. Curricula are often not implemented as intended. An under-explored aspect that might play a role is governance. In light of major curriculum changes, we explored educators' perspectives of the role of governance in the process of translating curriculum goals and concepts into institutionalized curriculum change at micro-level (teacher-student). In three Dutch medical schools, 19 educators with a dual role (teacher and coordinator) were interviewed between March and May 2018, using the rich pictures method. We employed qualitative content analysis with inductive coding. Data collection occurred concurrently with data analysis. Different governance processes were mentioned, each with its own effects on the curriculum and organizational responses. In Institute 1, participants described an unclear governance structure, resulting in implementation chaos in which an abstract educational concept could not be fully realized. In Institute 2, participants described a top-down and strict governance structure contributing to relatively successful implementation of the educational concept. However it also led to demotivation of educators, who started rebelling to recover their perceived loss of freedom. In Institute 3, participants described a relatively fragmentized process granting a lot of freedom, which contributed to contentment and motivation but did not fully produce the intended changes. Our paper empirically illustrates the importance of governance in curriculum change. To advance curriculum change processes and improve their desired outcomes it seems important to define and explicate both hard and soft governance processes.
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