Accountability and adaptive performance under uncertainty: A long-term view

Abstract

Accountability pressures are a ubiquitous feature of social systems: virtually everyone must answer to someone for something. Behavioral research has, however, warned that accountability, specifically a focus on being responsible for outcomes, tends to produce suboptimal judgments. We qualify this view by demonstrating the long-term adaptive benefits of outcome accountability in uncertain, dynamic environments. More than a thousand randomly assigned forecasters participated in a ten-month forecasting tournament in conditions of control, process, outcome or hybrid accountability. Accountable forecasters outperformed non-accountable ones. Holding forecasters accountable to outcomes (“getting it right”) boosted forecasting accuracy beyond holding them accountable for process (“thinking the right way”). The performance gap grew over time. Process accountability promoted more effective knowledge sharing, improving accuracy among observers. Hybrid (process plus outcome) accountability boosted accuracy relative to process, and improved knowledge sharing relative to outcome accountability. Overall, outcome and process accountability appear to make complementary contributions to performance when forecasters confront moderately noisy, dynamic environments where signal extraction requires both knowledge pooling and individual judgments.

Validating the Intentional Adaptability Quotient for uses in consulting psychology.

“…These findings align with previous research suggesting that when individuals are more inclined to experiment, they are more likely to intentionally adapt because they foresee the risks of remaining unchanged and value the contribution of innovation (Boylan & Turner, 2017; Bradley et al, 2020). Similarly, these findings align with previous research supporting the relationships between human connection, self-accountability, and adaptability (Chang et al, 2017; Parmentier et al, 2019).…”

“…Self-accountability is defined as being honest with oneself, taking responsibility for what one does and says and the full range of consequences. In the context of adaptability, it can be argued that when individuals are higher on self-accountability, they are more likely to intentionally adapt because there is greater anticipation of outcome and decision-making evaluation (Chang et al, 2017).…”

“…It is proposed that three factors underpin IAQ: focus, courage, and curiosity (Locaso & De Sanctis, 2020). Furthermore, it is suggested that factors such as the degree to which individuals are self-accountable, value human connection, are inclined to experiment, and take the time to reflect may be antecedents to an individual’s ability to intentionally adapt (Boylan & Turner, 2017; Chang et al, 2017; Parmentier et al, 2019; Son, 2018). Additionally, there may be several positive outcomes associated with increased intentional adaptability, including life satisfaction and change readiness (Ghosh et al, 2019; Soumyaja et al, 2011).…”

Accountability focus and nurses' performance: A moderated‐mediation model by using experiment design simulations

“…This study focused on the relatively under‐studied issue of accountability focus, aiming to understand how and under which circumstances an accountability focus affects performance (Chang et al, 2017; Hall et al, 2017). Our findings generally supported a moderated‐mediation model suggesting that accountability focus (process and outcome) interacts with task complexity in its effects on nurse's strain and subsequent performance.…”

“…This finding can be explained using the resource allocation model of Kanfer and Ackerman (1989). Accordingly, although more complex tasks require more cognitive resources to perform (Kanfer & Ackerman, 1989; Wood, 1986), an emphasis on process accountability diverts performers' attention from the strain of being evaluated only on the outcome and allows them to invest their cognitive resources wisely, be more attentive to the information they receive and analyse it adequately, which in turn results in lower strain and better performance (Chang et al, 2017; Hall et al, 2017). By contrast, performing complex tasks under outcome accountability may create excessive strain for the performer, taxing their cognitive resource capacity and decreasing their level of performance.…”