Hengevoss The Accountability of International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs)

Four Essays on the Accountability of INGOs and its Implications for Organizational Performance and Strategy
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-3-7562-8281-4
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 4, 136 Seiten

Reihe: CEPS PhD Series

This thesis deals with the concept of accountability in international nongovernmental organizations INGOs). The four chapters focus on the theoretical and practical implications of a comprehensive approach to INGO accountability. Comprehensive INGO accountability goes beyond the donor-centric focus on financial accountability, and further includes outcome assessment processes and stakeholder dialog. The findings suggest that INGOs that implement such processes yield more effective programs as well as a stronger mission orientation. This implies that accountability is not merely to be understood as a necessary evil that occurs separately from the organization's core operations. Instead, comprehensive INGO accountability is integrated in organizational processes, and has the strategic value of strengthening organizational performance and mission orientation. It is based on dialog, and therefore is constructive in nature and contributes to more democratic organizational decision-making. In light of the increasingly political role of INGOs, implementing comprehensive accountability can be expected to become indispensable to ensure their organizational legitimacy.

Dr. Alice Hengevoss is Head of Applied Research at the Center for Philanthropy Studies (CEPS) at the University of Basel. She studied economics at the University of Zurich and Université Laval in Québec, Canada. In 2021, she completed her doctoral studies in nonprofit management at the CEPS. She researches and publishes on topics related to governance, accountability and self-regulation of international nonprofit organizations as well as on organizational closure.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hengevoss, Alice

Leseproben

- CHAPTER 1 –
Reconceptualizing the Accountability of INGOs: From Neo-institutional Economic Theory to an Institutional Logics Approach
Alice Hengevoss Abstract International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) face greater accountability demands from various stakeholders, and from their beneficiaries in particular. This has initiated an academic discourse on a more comprehensive approach to INGO accountability. However, the theoretical foundation to adequately conceptualize a comprehensive approach remains weak. This article takes the first step in establishing a theoretical foundation for researchers interested in further developing comprehensive INGO accountability. It does so by offering a systematic overview of the current academic discourse on INGO accountability. This then allows advancing nine propositions on the implications of different theoretical approaches for the conceptualization of INGO accountability. In particular, it is suggested that neo-institutional economic theories lead to a donor-focused and efficiency-oriented, and therefore narrow, conceptualization of INGO accountability. An institutional logics approach, on the other hand, allows conceptualizing INGO accountability relationships to a wider set of stakeholders, including to beneficiaries. It further allows developing an effectiveness-oriented conceptualization. Consequently, the institutional logics approach is suggested as one suitable theoretical venue for future research on comprehensive INGO accountability. 1.1 Introduction In the context of social and environmental challenges that are increasingly transnational in reach, international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) have come to play a critical societal role. On the local level, they act as providers of public goods and services in regions where government agencies lack the capacity to do so, and they represent the interests of minorities (Collingwood & Logister, 2005; Crack, 2013; Salamon & Sokolowski, 2004). On the global level, INGOs are increasingly expected to take on a political role by partaking in global governance forums and shaping policy debates (Boyer & Kolpakov, 2018; Mitchell et al., 2020). With their important societal role, their accountability has come under closer public, and consequently academic, scrutiny. INGO accountability is a complex concept. INGOs operate in a multi-stakeholder context that entails accountability demands of beneficiaries, donors, regulatory governmental authorities, peer organizations, staff, or volunteers (Wellens & Jegers, 2014b). These accountability demands can potentially be opposing or conflicting (Coule, 2015). The international scope of activity further subjects INGOs to different jurisdictions (Thrandardottir & Keating, 2018), and consequently requires them to reconcile the different political, socio-economic, and cultural perspectives of their stakeholders. Leaders of INGOs are expected to adequately respond to those accountability demands for their organization to effectively achieve their societal mission (Liket, Rey-Garcia, & Maas, 2014), and ensure organizational legitimacy (Collingwood & Logister, 2005). However, critical scholarship argues that in the context of competitive funding markets and in the absence of international legal regulation INGOs give primacy to the accountability demands of powerful donors and regulatory authorities over those of stakeholders that hold less negotiation power – i.e. beneficiaries (Clerkin & Quinn, 2019; Cordery & Sim, 2018; Heiss & Kelley, 2017; Pallas et al., 2015). This donor-focused accountability approach is criticized for fostering the power-imbalances between different stakeholders and promoting a paternalistic attitude of INGOs (Crack, 2013b; Schmitz et al., 2012). It, further, implies an understanding of accountability that primarily focuses on financial efficiency (Coule, 2015; Jegers, 2008), but provides little accountability for other organizational performance measures, such as the effective achievement of the INGO’s mission. This has initiated a discourse within nonprofit management research on how to reconceptualize INGO accountability and has yielded many valuable concepts of a more comprehensive approach to INGO accountability (Berghmans et al., 2017; Brown et al., 2004; Brown et al., 2012; Brown & Moore, 2001; Cavill & Sohail, 2007; Crack, 2013b; Ebrahim et al., 2017; Schmitz et al., 2012). However, these concepts often remain normative in nature, and the theoretical foundation to adequately conceptualize comprehensive INGO accountability remains weak. To address this gap, this article takes the first step in establishing a theoretical foundation for researchers interested in further developing a comprehensive approach to INGO accountability. It does so by reviewing the general literature on nonprofit accountability, the specialized literature on INGO accountability, and recent research in the field to offer a systematic overview of the current discourse on INGO accountability. This then allows advancing nine propositions on the implications of different theoretical approaches to the conceptualization of INGO accountability. In particular, these proposition highlight the short-comings of neo-institutional economic theories – including principal-agent theory, stakeholder theory, and property right theory - to adequately theorize comprehensive INGO accountability. Instead, an institutional logics approach is suggested as a viable theoretical venue to adequately theorize comprehensive INGO accountability. This will allow researchers to make more informed theoretical choices when further developing a comprehensive approach to INGO accountability. 1.2 Reconceptualizing the Accountability of INGOs: A Synthesis of the Current Discourse Accountability implies a relationship between two or more parties and involves the idea of a right to require an account; and a right to impose sanctions, if the account is inadequate (Leat, 1988). Scholars distinguish between verification accounts, i.e., providing information about what has been done, and justification accounts, i.e., providing information as to why things have been done a certain way (Benjamin, 2008). Accountability refers to the duty of responding to external claims (Cavill & Sohail, 2007). Consequently, one may ask whether a comprehensive approach entails more rights to require an account, more verification of accounts, more justification of INGO actions, and more responsiveness to external claims. To address this question, the following section provides an overview of how the concept of INGO accountability is changing in the nonprofit management literature from a narrow toward a more comprehensive conceptualization. Regardless of the definition of INGO accountability, all of the accountability literature starts by asking: accountable to whom, accountable how, and accountable for what (Cordery & Sim, 2018; Jeong & Kearns, 2015; Weinryb, 2020). In line with this literature, this article focuses on the changes along the following defining properties of INGO accountability: the primary recipients (accountable to whom), the content (accountable how), and aim (accountable for what). 1.2.1 Primary recipients: Broadening the set of relevant stakeholders INGOs engage with a broad variety of stakeholders (e.g., beneficiaries, private and public donors, state agencies, peers) that all have their respective accountability demands and logics. Yet, despite this diversity, some academic discussions portray INGO accountability as following a singular logic, characterized by a mere focus on accountability toward stakeholders with negotiation power. Those stakeholders generally include large public and private donors who provide financial as well as non-financial resources for the organization to pursue its mission (Brown et al., 2012; Goncharenko, 2019), and legal authorities that set the rules of the game (Coule, 2015; Jeong & Kearns, 2015). When these powerful stakeholders demand an account, it is in the interest of the INGO to respond to, and comply with, these accountability demands in order to secure the flow of resources or avoid legal sanctions. From this perspective, INGO accountability is primarily donor-focused and driven by requirements of the funding market and by legal regulation, and primarily serves a functional purpose of organizational financial survival (Ebrahim, 2003). This implies a narrow approach to INGO accountability, which has been referred to as upward accountability and functional accountability (Ebrahim, 2003), legal accountability (Bovens, 2007), and compliance accountability (Crack, 2013a). Being accountable to donors and legal authorities is one important aspect of INGO accountability. However, recent scholarship argues that comprehensive INGOs accountability must include a broader set of primary stakeholders. In particular, it should not only include those that hold negotiation power, but to include those that are on the receiving end of INGO services – i.e. beneficiaries (Crack, 2013; Schmitz et al., 2012). Paralleling the terminology of upward accountability, scholars have created the term downward accountability (Cordery & Sim, 2018; Crack, 2013). The reasoning for broadening the set of primary stakeholders is normative as well as strategic. First, it is argued that INGOs have a moral obligation to be accountable to the people they work with and for, even if these people cannot demand an account through negotiation power (Bovens, 2010;...