Rechenschaftslegung gemeinwirtschaftlicher Unternehmen: Bestandsaufnahme und Perspektiven

Due to the massive increase of accountability obligations of social economy enterprises, the paper provides an overview of the many faces of public and nonprofit accountabilities which can be either obligatory or voluntary. Scandals, marketization trends, and the specific importance of public service commitments in the statutes of social economy enterprises have resulted that they are confronted with extensive societal pressures to render account how they fulfil their societal objectives. Furthermore, the paper also provides a concise overview of the most relevant theories which are chosen to analyse the motives of public and nonprofit enterprises for meeting accountability demands and for analysing the current accountability practices. This is followed by a short overview of the state of the art of empirical studies. Content-wise the overview is limited to major findings along the three levels of accountability (upward, horizontal and downward accountability). So far, the existing empirical studies are limited to selective forms of accountability demands with a heavy bias toward obligatory accountabilities or, in some institutional fields, additionally to quality signaling. The current accountability practices are too selective concerning the addressees. The paper also identifies highly relevant avenues for further research. This includes studies about the impact of various forms of accountability, public and nonprofit managers’ reactions to multiple accountabilities, and the linkages of the public or nonprofit accountabilities with management control systems.