Editing Accountability (section)

===Individuals within organizations===
Because many individuals in large organizations contribute in many ways to decisions and policies, it is difficult even in principle to identify who should be accountable for the results. This is what is known, following [[Dennis F. Thompson]], as "the problem of many hands".<ref>{{cite book | last=Thompson | first=Dennis F. | chapter=The Problem of Many Hands| title=Restoring Responsibility: Ethics in Government, Business and Healthcare | publisher=Cambridge University Press | date=2005 | isbn=978-0-521-54722-2 | pages=33–49}}</ref> It creates a dilemma for accountability. If individuals are held accountable or responsible, individuals who could not have prevented the results are either unfairly punished, or they "take responsibility" in a symbolic ritual without suffering any consequences. If only organizations are held accountable, then all individuals in the organization are equally blameworthy or all are excused.

Various solutions have been proposed. One is to broaden the criteria for individual responsibility so that individuals are held accountable for not anticipating failures in the organization. Another solution, recently proposed by Thompson, is to hold individuals accountable for the design of the organization, both retrospectively and prospectively.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Thompson | first=Dennis F. | title=Responsibility for Failures of Government: The Problem of Many Hands | journal=The American Review of Public Administration | publisher=SAGE Publications | volume=44 | issue=3 | date=9 March 2014 | issn=0275-0740 | doi=10.1177/0275074014524013 | pages=259–273| s2cid=154304430 | url=http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:12172792 }}</ref>

Accountability is an element of a [[responsibility assignment matrix]] which indicates who is ultimately answerable for the correct and thorough completion of a deliverable or task, as well as the delegation of the work to those responsible.