Ethical Principles of Responsibility and

Accountability
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 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.

While tracing the lines of responsibility and accountability can be difficult, in the
end, if one is responsible 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, especially if the actor’s autonomy is limited by structure, process,
or circumstance. However, lack of autonomy is not an excuse for avoiding
accountability entirely.

Ethical Responsibility Definition

Ethical responsibility at work refers to the obligation each person has to do the right
thing. The scope of this obligation varies depending on the position. A sales clerk's
obligations, for example, could include honestly handling money, respecting
customers and reporting coworkers who shoplift items. The store manager's
responsibilities are greater because the manager has to decide how to manage
employees ethically and what to do with employees who act dishonestly.

Definition of Accountability

Accountability is about answering for your actions and decisions and accepting
responsibility for mistakes. An employee or executive may have to answer to
coworkers, superiors, customers and outside auditors or regulators. Ideally, it is a two-
way street: Employers and CEOs must answer to the people below them for their
decisions too.

hen it comes to corporate ethics, bad news is good news. According to the Ethics
Resource Center’s 2009 National Business Ethics Survey, on-the-job misconduct is
down, whistle-blowing is up, and ethical organizational cultures are stronger. Despite
these trends, there may be no better time for human resource managers to conduct or
participate in ethics-related audits.

Setting the Tone

Several legal developments in recent years have placed newfound focus on how
companies behave. An example is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, with its emphasis on "tone
at the top" and its requirement that publicly traded companies disclose whether they
have a code of ethics to deter wrongdoing. The Federal Acquisition Regulation and the
Federal Sentencing Guidelines also have a significant impact on organizations’ ethics
policies and practices by requiring or providing incentives to encourage businesses of
all kinds and sizes to adopt codes of conduct, train their employees on these codes, and
create effective audit and reporting mechanisms.

HR professionals play a crucial role in shaping corporate ethical codes, policies and
procedures and then communicating and teaching that information to the workforce. In
many companies, the top HR manager either serves as the de facto chief ethics and
compliance officer or works with the person in that role to manage ethics and
compliance programs. Apart from the chief executive officer, there may be no more
important ethical role model in the organization than an HR manager.

Six Steps to Highly Effective Ethics Audits

These tips can help companies conduct effective ethics audits:

Start with a detailed foundation. An ethics audit is a comparison between actual

employee behavior and the guidance for employee behavior provided in policies and
procedures. The more descriptive and specific ethics-related policies and procedures
are, the easier it is to make these comparisons.

Develop metrics. Ethics audits may not be as black-and-white as financial or

operational audits, but they run more smoothly when tangible ethics measures are in
place. Consider adding ethics goals to annual performance reviews and, where
possible, tying compensation to ethical behavior.
Create a cross-functional team. Include an HR professional familiar with people in the
business unit being audited. Most ethics audit teams include an ethics and compliance
manager where possible as well as an internal auditor and legal managers.

Audit efficiently. Audits frequently disrupt normal operations in business areas

subjected to review. Before scheduling an audit, find out if internal auditors or the
finance team may be conducting reviews of the same area. If so, combine these efforts
to limit disruptions. Once the audit has been scheduled, create a plan that spells out
employees to be interviewed, information that requires review and any processes that
require observation.
Look for other issues. Keep an eye out for other improvement opportunities, and
share those with relevant colleagues. For example, ethics issues in a sales area may
have revenue-recognition implications from a financial reporting perspective.

Respond consistently and communicate. Discipline ethics violations in complete

accord with policies and procedures and the code of conduct every time. Also, use
ethics issues, when possible, as grist for "lessons learned" in ethics-related
communications and training.