Filling empty vessels: Accountability and responsibility in management and corporate governance.

Abstract

Accountability and responsibility are terms with deep resonance in the field of corporate affairs, where their often-confused meanings both inform our thinking and prevent understanding. Each has normative implications for the practice of corporate governance, and yet each, like an empty vessel, leaves practitioners with an unhappy sense of knowing they have a use but not knowing what to do with them. This essay explores both concepts through lenses of philosophy, literary writing, and management studies to show how in their flux they overlap and diverge. It concludes with an attempt to clarify these muddy waters by speculating on how their ambiguity demands reflexive, thoughtful action and interaction between the parties in absence of clear hierarchy of command or greater authority. How meaningful that interaction is questionable, when the words are so full of meanings without an iterative process of understanding. Insofar as these concepts reflect abilities, they represent our ability to embrace their ambiguity and just be – accountable and responsible.