Accountability: Its Effects on Information Search, Evaluation and Integration in Multiattribute Decision Making

Decision makers are often made accountable for their decisions, especially when these affect or are made on behalf of other people and may have serious negative consequences for others. Accountability is typically regarded as a remedy against poor decision making and more generally an important tool in overcoming the crises of modern society - but is it? The work presented here investigates the effects of accountability on information search, evaluation and integration in multiattribute decision making, combining classical social psychological with decision-analytical approaches. A process model of accountability is introduced, which outlines how accountability affects decision processes like information search, evaluation and integration to become both more thorough and more biased and therefore has not the exclusively beneficial effects commonly attributed to it. This is backed up by the results of two empirical studies carried out to test the role of pre-and post-decisional internal and external accountability and accountability to different interest groups. The implications of the findings for the use of accountability in organisations are being discussed.