Organizational Accountability in Health Care : Developing a Model for Analysis

Abstract

Past studies on organizational accountability have had similar limitations. First, empirical evidence of organizational accountability is rare as the majority of research takes a conceptual approach of the topic. Only a few of these studies are applicable to health care organizations (HCOs). To fill these gaps, we attempted to develop a model for analysis of organizational accountability for HCOs. Accountability for HCOs was conceptualized by two axes: answerability(X, horizontal) and value-creation(Y, vertical). Our concept building could relieve competing accountability mechanism which past studies stressed. Four elements of accountability(legal, economical, social, and clinical) were applied to specify each of the two features of organizational accountability. And then four types of accountability behavior were coordinated by this x-y axis : high A/high VC, high A/low VC, low A/high VC, low A/low VC. Finally, a multidimensional model of HCOs` accountability, enabling an empirically testable multi-level analysis, was proposed.