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Accountability and ideology: When left looks right and right looks left

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  • Tetlock, Philip E.
  • Vieider, Ferdinand M.
  • Patil, Shefali V.
  • Grant, Adam M.

Abstract

Managers face hard choices between process and outcome systems of accountability in evaluating employees, but little is known about how managers resolve them. Building on the premise that political ideologies serve as uncertainty-reducing heuristics, two studies of working managers show that: (1) conservatives prefer outcome accountability and liberals prefer process accountability in an unspecified policy domain; (2) this split becomes more pronounced in a controversial domain (public schools) in which the foreground value is educational efficiency but reverses direction in a controversial domain (affirmative action) in which the foreground value is demographic equality; (3) managers who discover employees have subverted their preferred system favor tinkering over switching to an alternative system; (4) but bipartisan consensus arises when managers have clear evidence about employee trustworthiness and the tightness of the causal links between employee effort and success. These findings shed light on ideological and contextual factors that shape preferences for accountability systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Tetlock, Philip E. & Vieider, Ferdinand M. & Patil, Shefali V. & Grant, Adam M., 2013. "Accountability and ideology: When left looks right and right looks left," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 22-35.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:122:y:2013:i:1:p:22-35
    DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2013.03.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Karunakaran, Arvind & Orlikowski, Wanda J. & Scott, Susan V., 2022. "Crowd-based accountability: examining how social media commentary reconfigures organizational accountability," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114401, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Wei Shi & Brian L. Connelly & Jeremy D. Mackey & Abhinav Gupta, 2019. "Placing their bets: The influence of strategic investment on CEO pay‐for‐performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(12), pages 2047-2077, December.
    3. Welton Chang & Pavel Atanasov & Shefali Patil & Barbara A. Mellers & Philip E. Tetlock, 2017. "Accountability and adaptive performance under uncertainty: A long-term view," Judgment and Decision Making, Society for Judgment and Decision Making, vol. 12(6), pages 610-626, November.
    4. Craig Carroll & Rowena Olegario, 2020. "Pathways to Corporate Accountability: Corporate Reputation and Its Alternatives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 173-181, May.
    5. Sun Hyun Park & Sung Hun (Brian) Chung & Nandini Rajagopalan, 2021. "Be careful what you wish for: CEO and analyst firm performance attributions and CEO dismissal," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(10), pages 1880-1908, October.
    6. Pablo Andres & Inigo Garcia-Rodriguez & M. Elena Romero-Merino & Marcos Santamaria-Mariscal, 2023. "Political directors and corporate social responsibility: Are political ideology and regional identity relevant?," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 339-373, January.
    7. Yi Lin Chow, Dawn & Wen Chan, Xi & Micelotta, Evelyn, 2021. "Cross-border M&As: Theorizing the negative effect of political ideology mismatch with host country labor institutional context on employee outcomes," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 164-173.
    8. Kausel, Edgar E. & Culbertson, Satoris S. & Leiva, Pedro I. & Slaughter, Jerel E. & Jackson, Alexander T., 2015. "Too arrogant for their own good? Why and when narcissists dismiss advice," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 33-50.
    9. Salil Benegal & Mikhael Shor, 2016. "Procedural Justice and Political Risk," Working papers 2016-30, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    10. repec:cup:judgdm:v:12:y:2017:i:6:p:610-626 is not listed on IDEAS

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