In class on Tuesday we discussed what accountability and effectiveness were as separate entities but we didn’t link them together. Most of us already know this, but just to reiterate, effectiveness and accountability go hand in hand as most organizations hold themselves accountable by showing their program’s effectiveness. If an organization can show that its program is effective it can show community members, clients, donors, etc. that the program is worth using, donating to, and/or volunteering for. Can an organization show accountability if it isn’t effective?
I'd encourage you to think about what the differences are between accountability and effectiveness. For example, some donors may define accountability as something different from effectiveness. The leaders of an organization may define effectiveness as accoomplishing a particular goal, that organization's donors may want the organization to do something else, and define effectiveness as accomplishing different goals. Do United Way funded nonprofits always agree with the United Way about what outcomes are most important for their organizations? Some donors or funders may simply want an organization to demonstrate that it used its money as it said it would--that's accountability not effectiveness (we'll have some readings on this topic in a couple of weeks).
ReplyDeleteI was reading an interesting article , “Through A Glass, Darkly: Understanding the Effects of Performance Regimes” by Donald P. Moynihan 2009 in an issue of Public Performance & Management Review 32(4): 586-598 at the UDC Library. But I also found it online: http://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/38137
ReplyDeleteHe basically discussed how organizations react to performance data in four different ways: (I’m going to paraphrase a small portion here, so I recommend reading Moynihan’s in-depth perspective.)
Purposeful: The ideal reaction. Using the data to learn from and improve performance.
Passive: The organization meets the lowest required standards. If there is no penalty for not exceeding standards, they may simply not bother.
Political: This is a way of selecting performance data that portrays the organization most favorably.
Perverse: This is when an organization will manipulate performance data is various ways. Moynihan cites and few others and states, “making up data, creaming easy-to-serve clients, changing performance goals to limit comparison across time, or manipulating measures (Coutry & Marschke, 2004; van Thiel & Leeuw, 2002).
So in a way, these are various means by which an organization can hold themselves “accountable” to the public. Not all support true effectiveness. This is a little disturbing, but I wonder how often they take place. We do occasionally hear about corruption locally, so I wonder how often some of this soft data manipulation goes on.
If anyone is interested in reading more of Moynihan’s work and critically assessing it, you can find more here: http://www.lafollette.wisc.edu/facultystaff/moynihan/research.html
Can an organization show accountability if it isn’t effective? I think the two terms are not mutually dependent. It may be that at one point the two concepts intersect, but I do not see it as a prerequisite for determining the degree to which X or Y institution is functioning right. Both in the business and the non-profit world, managers must be accountable to investors or donors about their actions. In this respect, I do not think there is much subjectivity or ambiguity: or the resources are being managing transparently, or there are facts that cast doubt on the use of resources. However, the issue of effectiveness can be relative. It is likely that, despite being using the resources with transparency, the results expected from a business investment or a grant to address a social problem can be affected by unforeseen factors such as (and not limited to) weather, community apathy or political factors. So, in this vein I do think that it is possible that an organization can show accountability even if it isn’t effective.
ReplyDeleteAll of these comments are very true, but do the people on the outside really consider these things accountable? Would you really provide a grant to an organization that wasn't going to do something with the money that was effective? Would you donate to an organization that wasn't effective? How accountable are you really when you aren't being effective?
ReplyDeleteI think there may be different levels of effectiveness too,so maybe it is worth coming back to this after future readings. I question if you could consider a process effective but the outcome ineffective? If an organization works extremely hard and does all the research necessary to provide a program and the program fails, is it possible that its work was effective, but some outside factor caused the program to be ineffective?