As I was scrolling some financial issues on the Harvard university website the following caught my eye :
ESG: Investors Increasingly Seek Accountability and Outcomes
and I realised that the term “accountability” is one many people have difficulty grasping. Let’s start by saying what it’s not: “accountability” is not related to accounting or accountancy. It is related to the expression “to account for something” or to explain or justify the outcome or result of something especially when an individual or organisation experiences consequences due to their actions.
The above article mentions that the consequences can be shareholders not voting for proposed board directors if the board lacks diversity or investors not providing funding to companies who are not reducing their carbon footprint.
The British Institute for Government website has the following comment to make
Strong accountability provides the foundation of a healthy
IFG
democracy. It ensures a relationship between the public and those
in government who have power to shape their lives. People expect
performance to be rewarded if good or penalised if poor, and the
demonstration that this happens matters for their trust in
government. But the rules of accountability also need to enable
those in government to learn from failure.
While the website Global Banking and Finance claims that investors attach great importance to transparency and accuracy in reporting and that;
Globally, 79% of investors indicated that the CEO should be held accountable for a company’s financial reporting errors, while nearly four in ten (38%) thought the CFO should also be held to account.
GB&F
In other words CEOs’ and CFOs’ should pay the price in the event of misreporting of figures.
The presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren proposed, as senator in 2018, the Accountable Capitalism Act to radically overhaul fiduciary duty and governance issues, explaining in a New York Times article why companies shouldn’t be accountable only to their shareholders. While we know that she was not elected to be the 46th President, by some accounts, her proposals are becoming slightly more mainstream, there’s no accounting for taste.
On no account should I leave you without giving you the opportunity to see more related expressions. Click here for an exercise related to account word expressions.