Modernization and Accountability in the Social Economy

Abstract

This chapter aims to systematically review the literature on modernization and accountability practice in the social economy. The collection of bibliography to support this systematic review was made in several scientific databases, only considering documents written in English. The criteria for researching the documents used in the development of this chapter are explained in the section that presents the methodology. It is possible to verify that only two articles published in the 20th century, 1997 and 1999, were identified, with all other articles published in the 21st century. This leads to the conclusion that the concern about the issue of accountability, particularly in social economy organizations, is relatively recent and has been of growing interest. The research is more focused on the accountability practice and not so much on modernization, although they are two inseparable issues.

Accountability in the Social Economy: The Case of Private Social Solidarity Institutions

“…As we saw in the previous point, several authors have been developing frameworks for the social economy sector, but there is still no framework to be used more generally. Furthermore, the studies present the frameworks, but do not present their application to the reality, except for very specific applications or regarding a specific dimension, as can be concluded from our review of the literature and reinforced with the systematic review carried out by Santos et al [31]. This fact may be associated with the difficulty related to obtaining data, largely due to the low use of ICT in this sector.…”

“…In order to improve the sustainable development of social economy organizations on the one hand, and to increase stakeholder confidence on the other, the need to combine modernization and accountability was documented by Santos, Ferreira, Marques, Azevedo and Inácio [31]. They also highlighted the importance of designing quality internal control mechanisms, as a guarantee of good accountability practices, alignment and integration of all stakeholders, raising performance and trust levels, thus resulting not only in individual growth but also in community development.…”

Information Systems as an Enabler for Creating Networks for Modernization, Transparency and Accountability of the Social Economy Sector

“…A recent systematic literature review (Santos et al, 2019) concluded that studies on the social economy are still very few, despite the tendency of growing. It stated that modernization has an impact on the economic and social aspects of entities of the social economy and also showed that the practice of transparency and accountability are elements of recognized merit for the good performance of these entities.…”

“…Some frameworks to promote transparency and accountability in its various dimensions are still very scarce. There are some studies on accountability, but not all on the social economy sector (Santos et al, 2019). For example, there is a study that developed a practical framework which can be used to explore how accountability within social enterprise organizations is constructed and discharged.…”

“…The use of ICT, being part of a more comprehensive modernization process, can be used for the creation of institutional websites for entities of the social economy sector. In this way, they will be able to disclose financial and non-financial information so that all their stakeholders can assess their performance and, consequently, improve their accountability (Santos et al, 2019). The evolution of digital platforms and cloud computing poses new challenges to the accountability of organizations that use these technologies to disseminate their mandatory or voluntary information.…”