Raymundo, Rina Marie C.

ABM 12-27

RESPONSIBILITY
 Responsibility is an ethical concept that refers to the fact that individuals and groups have
morally based obligations and duties to others and to larger ethical and moral codes, standards,
and traditions.
 Responsibility in a business context refers to “a sphere of duty or obligation assigned to a
person by the nature of that person’s position, function, or work.”
 The roles taken on by decision makers imply a responsibility to perform certain functions
associated with those roles. To be more specific, responsibility refers to more than just the
primary function of a role; it refers to the multiple facets of that function, which includes both
processes and outcomes, and the consequences of the acts performed as part of that set of
obligations. A responsible actor may be seen as one whose job involves a predetermined set of
obligations that need to be met in order for the job to be accomplished.
 According to Aristotle, moral responsibility was viewed as originating with the moral agent as
decision maker, and grew out of an ability to reason, an awareness of action and consequences,
and a willingness to act free from external compulsion.

ACCOUNTABILITY
 Accountability is the readiness or preparedness to give an explanation or justification to
stakeholders for one’s judgments, intentions, and actions.
 “It is a readiness to have one’s actions judged by others and, where appropriate, accept
responsibility for errors, misjudgments and negligence and recognition for competence,
conscientiousness, excellence and wisdom.” While responsibility is defined as a bundle of
obligations associated with a role, accountability could be defined as “blaming or crediting
someone for an action”—normally associated with a recognized responsibility. The accountable
actor is “held to external oversight, regulation, and mechanisms of punishment aimed to
externally motivate responsive adjustment in order to maintain adherence with appropriate
moral standards of action.”
 In the professional context, accountability is about answering to clients, colleagues and other
relevant professionals. The demand to give an account of one’s judgments, acts and omissions
arises from the nature of the professional-client and the professional-professional relationships.
For communication professionals, accountability has more specific implications. Recent years
have seen more practical and concrete interpretation of the concept of accountability by
communication specialists. It is associated with responsiveness to the views of all stakeholders,
which includes a willingness to explain, defend, and justify actions.
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The main difference between responsibility and accountability is that responsibility can be shared while
accountability cannot. Being accountable not only means being responsible for something but also ulti
mately being answerable for your actions. Also, accountability is something you hold a person to only a
fter a task is done or not done. Responsibility can be before and/or after a task.
Examples:
Responsibility
 It is Tom's responsibility to make sure there are supplies in the office room. So Tom will be
aware of this task and keep bringing in more supplies before they run out. At this point, you
cannot say Tom has been held accountable (answerable) for performing this task. Tom is
responsible for the office supplies, but he is only held accountable — owes an explanation for
his actions — if the supplies ever run out.
Accountability
 To cite another example, take the case of the notorious 2001 Enron scandal that led to the
bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation. Members of the executive board were indicted for their
illegal and unethical actions. CEO Kenneth Lay was one of the people indicted. Lay insisted
that Enron's collapse was due to a conspiracy waged by short sellers, rogue executives, and the
news media — implying that while he could be held accountable as the CEO and leader of the
organization, he was not in any way responsible for the fraud in the company. However, a jury
found Lay guilty on six counts of conspiracy and fraud, making the CEO responsible as well as
accountable for the downfall of the company.

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While tracing the lines of responsibility and accountability can be difficult, in the end, if one is responsi
ble in any way for an action, then one must accept some degree of accountability. On the other hand, if
responsibility and accountability are not equitably shared and if the process by which they are assigned
is not transparent, then problems will arise. In the corporate world, not every actor is blame-worthy, esp
ecially if the actor’s autonomy is limited by structure, process, or circumstance. However, lack of auton
omy is not an excuse for avoiding accountability entirely.