Accountability in multicultural settings: The impact of culture on the implementation of accountability verification processes of international nongovernmental organizations

Accountability has become a crucial issue for executives and trustees of international nongovernmental organization (INGO), as their stakeholders are increasingly calling for them to demonstrate higher levels of performance and program effectiveness. Accountability has been traditionally conceptualized as a set of formal procedures used to obtain information that can be used to verify performance, output, and input of an organization. INGOs tend to rely on this rational/legal approach as primary methods to manage accountability expectations. Local nongovernmental organizations (LNGOs) and grassroots organizations (GROs) have been encouraged and/or mandated to adopt these formal/rigid procedures upon receiving funding from INGOs.This study contends that the accountability verification processes (AVPs) between INGOs and their local partner organizations take place within cross-cultural settings. It examines the extent to which culture affects the implementation of AVPs of INGOs in three countries (UK, India, and Thailand) using Hofstede's cultural framework. It answers how and why adjustments of appropriate accountability methods are made in each cultural context to make the AVPs of INGOs more effective and useful for the important actors.Results show that "one size does not fit all." Verification of accountability in Third World development efforts takes place in multicultural settings, which implies a need for multidimensional approaches. The use of a rational/legal approach to AVPs is ineffective in lesser-developed societies because it violates cultural values and norms of partner organizations and service recipients. Accountability results suffer when AVPs contradict with cultural values of partner organizations and service recipients. Therefore, country officers have no choice but to modify accountability approaches to be suitable for cultural values of the community to obtain more accurate and complete accountability information.Based on empirical data and field experience of one international NGO in three countries, this dissertation contends that INGOs have recognized this and vary their accountability processes in light of cultural expectations. This study concludes that as INGOs learn more about how culture affects AVPs the necessary steps can be taken to adjust how accountability is established and maintained.