Accountability and Professional Responsibility Ethics - Essay Example

Running Head: ACCOUNTABILITY Name Course Tutor Date Introduction Accountability and professional responsibility ethics are advocated for in the contemporary organisation. Accountability entails answering or justifying results in a, manner that is acceptable legally, and which is professionally ethical in that field (Potts & Matuszewski, 2004, p. 177). Accountability is necessary due to the need to safeguard the needs of stakeholders and parties that may be interested in organisations. This way, organisations can be entrusted with assess belonging to other stakeholders for the purpose of organisational businesses (Swift 2001, 17). When running organisations, there is always the possibility of losses that may result from incompetence or laxity in the workforce. To avoid this and safeguard the interests and objectives of the organisation, a majority of them will require all employees to follow certain specific codes of conduct as structures by the organisation or profession. Among these codes, accountability cuts across majority of professions. Being accountable is not complete without officials in organisations being held accountable foo heir actions. The responsibility that is carried by officials should be practically observed and people held for their actions as well. Organisations in the world today have lost billions of dollars in fraudulent and illegal activities in organisations. Organisations have also spent further huge amounts of money in a bid to try to recover the lost amounts. In this essay, an evaluation of accountability in terms of how should be held by officials and how they should be held accountable as well. The process that organisations use when making decisions in order to balance the need of stakeholders those of individuals and those of the organisation. Accountability is a complex concept and varies with different organisations. Though accountability is necessary in all organisations, there are instances that call for accountability more than others do. For instance, when dealing with shareholders, revealing and disclosing appropriately is necessary and even protected by Australian laws. For instance, organisations that are listed in the stock exchange are required by the law to account for their spending and activities. This information should be disclosed to shareholders on a need to know basis. This is ensured in a bid to protect stakeholders who have invested and entrusted their money to these organisations. Furthermore, organisations that deal with receivables on a regular basis also have higher chances fraud and theft (Roberts 2009, p. 960). Accountability therefore calls for trustworthiness and loyalty for employees towards their employers. Being accountable and professionally responsible safeguards personal interest and organisational ones as well. Employees should always act in the best interest of the organisations by acting in critical ways that do not compromise their integrity and personalities. Employers on the other and should give their employees packages and incentives that fit their job descriptions and portfolios (Adams & McNicholas, 2007, p. 384). They should develop employees and ensure that satisfaction in the workplace is always enhanced. The working environment should also be structured din a way that does not compromise the interests and needs of the organisations. It is in the best interests for organisations to spend money on their employees to avoid experiencing losses in the long run. Further, organisations should also carry out background checks on their workforce to ensure that hired individuals are responsible and are persons of integrity (Lui, Hui &Yiu 2007, p 238). It is also in the best interest for organisations to encourage a culture accountability and responsibility within their portfolios. All loopholes should also be adequately sealed to avoid temptations which are in human nature. Accountability has developed over the last few years to encompass dynamism and other emerging issues in organisations. Organisations have put measures in place to ensure that employees are not only called to be accountable but are actually held accountable for performances of their portfolios. As organisations continue diversifying and increasing their portfolios, the need to account to increasing number of stakeholder is also increasing. As a result, management and supervision is increasingly becoming a difficult affair. Furthermore, current economic statuses and the need to cut hiring costs within organisations have been high. In the public perspective, accountability is very important as the public seeks provision of essential services. In this case, government official and political leaders are called to account for their performance to the public (Adams & Zutshi 2004, p. 32). This is assessed by the ability to deal with problems facing society as is the responsibility of the government. The public holds government and local authorities by scrutinising their ability to provide social amenities and meet public needs such as education, health, sanitation among other needs. Public accountability has been necessitated by the huge amounts of resources that are entrusted to a few individuals. The public sector has also been faced by embezzlement and corruption incidences which have seen significant losses of public funds. Public funds are lost through investments that are not viable and diversion of funds to projects without necessary approval and authority. It is therefore the responsibility of individuals to vote in persons of high integrity and character. This way, they can be assured that the right priorities are made in line with public needs and requirements (Farneti & Guthrie, 2009, p. 91). Organisations as well as public institutions have set up accountability monitoring measures to ensure that officials carry out their mandate as expected. The main aim of accountability is ensuring that expectations are met and results can be justified using appropriate means. This is the reason why audits are necessary in a bid to follow the trail of how resources are utilised both in the private and public sector. Achieving objectives is relative of the ability to follow set rules and regulations either in an organisational culture perspective or in a legal framework. In order to ensure that officials are held accountable in the conduct of their duties. A feedback system is necessary and is utilised in many organisations. Feedback enables individuals to evaluate their processes and compare them to expectations. It therefore provides information that enables individuals to shape their behaviours accordingly depending on information gathered. This provides an opportunity to correct mistakes and rectify situations that are unfavourable. Secondly feedback on accountability helps officials to learn and comprehend processes better in a dynamic environment where stakeholders expect no room for error. In order to achieve this, organisations have set up motivational reward systems which encourage employees to align their behaviours to conform to organisational goals. For instance, most organisations in Australia have benefits for their employees and also have reward systems that are meant to appreciate the efforts of top performers. This way organisations themselves encourage accountability and exercise of due diligence among employees. Therefore in motivating employees towards work, it reduces incidences of laxity and underperformance which all translate to positive accountability (Blunt 2009, p. 89). Another way that organisations ensure that officials are accountable is through training on how to handle their different portfolios and how to deal with challenges that may compromise accountability. Organisations all over in a Australia carry out training sessions and seminars in a bid to verse employees with necessary information and educate them on how to best deal with certain situations further, institutions of training should foster cultures of accountability and responsibility. This would ensure that the job market is provided with competent individuals who are capable of handling different capacities in their professions. Personal integrity of officials in organisations determines the integrity of the organisation as a whole. Individuals should be held accountable for their own failures and should face corresponding consequences. It should be noted that accountability in the eyes of stakeholders is collective in nature. In this view, the mistakes of individuals are often taken by the institution itself. The trust in this case is compromised din terms of the organisation ands not individuals. This is the reason why organisations are so keen to ensure that the mistakes of individual employee affect the whole organisation in the eyes of the stakeholders. If any action was to be taken by stakeholder, the organisation is forced to take responsibility depending on its legal entity and form. The organisation can them take action on the individual and commence litigations if deemed necessary. In such cases, accountability can therefore not be complete if the responsible parties do not face full consequences. If officials cannot account for their activities, then instigative procedures should commence to find out what was the right course of action and the consequences that irresponsibility will have on different stakeholders. All this is dependent on leadership and how it affects how employees in organisation uphold their integrity. Effective organisational leadership should have the ability to influence how individuals perceive their work and their observance for ethics and codes of conduct (Lonne, Mcdonald & Fox 2004, p. 345). Effective leadership has the ability to affect individual integrity and productivity. In this view, integrity ensures that employees and officials in organisations are always consistent. Integrity in leadership is very crucial in affecting the behaviours of individual officials in the organisation. In this case, employees are likely to be less conscious about their behaviour if the leadership portfolio does not follow through with consequences of their failures. Further salience is also an important aspect in the accountability perspective. Officials need to feel that their contributions are well appreciated by stakeholder in performance of their duties. It is a key performance motivator and hence enhances accountability. As, mentioned earlier, motivation is crucial and it affects salience as well. In this view, officials are not only needed to be accountable but they actually deliver based on the perception of salience in their different job portfolios (Kostogriz & Doecke 2011, p. 397). In order to enhance accountability among official, enough support staff should be availed to them when necessary. The expectations that people pace on officials are very high and they may sometimes find it psychologically tormenting to deal with them within short periods of time. In this case, there should be enough support staff to enable officials deliver on their mandates. This also allows teamwork and monitoring of activities, hence enlarging the accountability scope. For instance, the higher education sector in Australia is faced with shortages of staff which threatens to compromise the quality of education and consequent graduates. In such a case, accountability is compromised by inadequacy of staff, though such employees may try the best according to their abilities (Martin 2008, p. 25). The same situation is replicated in many government run institutions. Compared to the private sector, staffing is more fulfilled in the private sector. This is the reason why accountability in the public sector is poorer compared to the private sector. The biggest challenge is to avail enough individuals to serve the huge Australian population. As a result, some societies are left neglected while others never feel the effect of government presence accordingly. Though public officials are responsible for the well being of the public, they are not always able to account for their activities while in office the demands of different individuals may be complicated to solve however, there are officials that take advantage of the huge portfolio and budgetary needs to perpetrate their own individual gains. In such case, independent audits are necessary to keep officials in line and make them answerable in case of failure (Kinchin 2007, p. 114). Conclusion Accountability is a very crucial aspect both in the public and private domains. Practicing accountability in professions ensure that the mandates of different individuals are well facilitated in order to meet the expectations of stakeholder. However, accountability is not complete when officials do not take full responsibilities or when they are not held accountable for their actions. To fully enhance and promote this vital ethical code of conduct, it should be fully implemented in terms of consequences and repercussions of failures. Personal integrity and effective leadership can help to enhance accountability and meet expectations of different stakeholders. This should be done with full support staff engagement and psychological support as well. 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