Calibrating Public Sector Accountability. Translating experimental findings to public sector accountability

Abstract

Accountability mechanisms are among the most important means with which govern- ments guard and improve the performance of public sector organizations. However, research documents a plethora of accountabil- ity-failures. A key issue is: how can public sector accountability become more effective? This paper seeks to answer this question by connecting two largely separated strands of research: public administration research on real-world organizations and experimental research on the effects of different forms of accountability on decision-making. The paper develops the Calibrated Public Accountability- model (CPA-model) from experimental research findings which can be used to inves- tigate how accountability can be calibrated to task requirements of organizations.