DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY MoUie Painter-Morland Abstract: This paper challenges some of the basic epistemological assumptions that underpin our current conceptions of accountability. Recent legislative developments like Sarbanes-Oxley attempt to enhance accountability in the business environment through the employment of checks and balances and the threat of individual liability. This kind of legalistic strategy still seems to assume the existence of an individual agent who employs moral principles to come to decisions in a deliberate, impartial manner This paper will emphasize that moral decision-making often does not take place in this manner, but is rather a tacit process of sensing what the appropriate behavior would be. Accountability, both with respect to individuals and organizations, is less a matter of "accounting for" a set of concrete assets, than a question of being accountable to a set of internal and external stakeholders, or in terms of the tacit sense of moral propriety that develops among business associates and colleagues over time. Introduction When things go wrong, society wants to hold someone, or something, accountable. It is as if we feel more secure when we can blame, shame and punish someone. Insdtudonalizing stricter mles that facilitate this punitive impulse seems to reassure us that we have done what we can to avoid recurrence of such problems. The aftermadis of ethical failures like Enron and WorldCom provide telling examples of this strategy. Corporate agents were held responsible and punished, and stricter penaldes and dghter procedures were insdtudonalized through new legisladon like Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX). Though such measures cannot recdfy the harm done, or compensate the vicdms, they theoredcally make execudves and their subordinates more aware that they will be held accountable for the ways in which their day-today acdons and decisions play out in the marketplace. At the very least, it is hoped that these strategies will insdll some kind of fear of punishment that will serve to curtail unethical behavior. Part of the comfort that is to be had in finding someone or something to blame, is that it allows us to believe that the cause of the harm has been idendfied and that the root of the problem has therefore been addressed. In reality, however, such an approach may do litde more than scratch the surface when it comes to addressing accountability failures in the contemporary business environment. © 2007. Business Ethics Quarterly, Volume 17, Issue 3. ISSN 1052-150X. pp. 515-534 BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY This regulatory, prevendve sdategy is based on a number of quesdonable assumptions. In the first place, it assumes that there is a direct cause and effect reladonship between the decisions of individuals and organizadons and the negadve consequences of those decisions. It also conceives of particular decisions and acdons as the deliberate responses of rafional individuals. In order to exercise the radonal capacity that is ascribed to them, individuals have to possess a clear understanding of the principles or values that organize social life within a particular society, and the concrete behavioral parameters these values impose on daily life. The understanding of accountability that informs the impulse to legislate is based, in part, on the belief that decision-makers can develop a clear, objecdve concepdon of "right" and "wrong." It is also supported by a third assumpdon: that stricter mles can assist execudves and organizadons to exercise greater control over the acdons and decisions of their employees and that fear of punishment would disincendvize misconduct. In what follows, these implicit assumpdons will be crifically examined. I will argue that they are unable to offer a convincing account of the dynamics of contemporary business Ufe as ordinary pracddoners experience it from day to day. For one thing, business events are not always suscepdble to the kind of simple cause-and-affect analysis that punitive regulatory prevention strategies require for their efficacy. Such events often emerge as anomalous side effects of the mulddirecdonal interacfion of a large number of diverse actors or insfitudons. In such business environments, it is the erradc dynamics of the system as a whole that determine the meaning and significance of particular actions and decisions, rather than individual decision-makers. Furthermore, I submit that the ideas and acfions of decision-makers or moral agents are generated through the complex interacfions of various conscious and subconscious, corporeal and mental, social and subjecfive percepfions. The assumpdon that the ideal moral decision-maker is an individual who is able to remain impartial by deliberately ignoring such percepdons, will therefore be subjected to cridcal scmdny. The assumpdon that radonal individuals will agree on the universality of certain moral maxims, and that they will have the ability to consider in abstract terms the reasonable consequences of acdons, has become the bedrock of many of our beliefs around accountability. I will argue that such assumpdons are both pracdcally and philosophically flawed. In pracdce, more and more corporate scandals seem to indicate that legal theory and compliance-driven ethics intervendons fail to engender accountability on both individual and corporate levels. Philosophically, a lack of understanding about the nature of accountability under contemporary business condidons may be pardy responsible. This state of affairs can be addressed only by looking very closely again at what exacdy is assumed and presumed when we speak of accountability. Such a reconsideradon of accountability is not aimed at the suspension of normative judgments. Instead it should be seen as part of an effort to find a more appropriate way to define normative boundaries and moral agency in contemporary business life. To this end, this paper will attempt to redefine accountability as a kind of condngent responsiveness to emergent stakeholder concems and interests. DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY Accountability and the Dynamics of Contemporary Business Life In the opening statement of his book. The Moment of Complexity, Mark Taylor alerts us to the fact that we are living in "a moment of unprecedented complexity, when things are changing faster than our ability to comprehend them" (Taylor, 2001: 3). This statement not only reflects the precariousness of our existence within systems and stmctures, but also the verdgo that we experience when we lose our ability to understand its dynamics. In the informadon age we are continually bombarded with more informadon than we can coherently process. One of the consequences of our inability to adequately organize our experience is that wom-out paradigms, systems and stmctures, and the beliefs that support them, remain largely unchallenged in our thinking. A central issue that may prolong some of the misconcepdons around accountability is the way in which legalistic approaches to enhancing corporate ethics force us to regress to a mechanisdc response to the problems that confront us. Taylor points out that this mechanisdc understanding of how the world funcdons is based on Newtonian physics (Taylor, 2001: 24). Newton describes the physical universe, as well as society and culture, in terms of intrinsically stable and self-enclosed systems. Within such systems, universal laws ostensibly allow the objecdve observer to reliably describe and accurately predict strict cause and effect reladonships between particular acdons and events. From this mechanistic perspective, it would be possible, and indeed necessary, to disdnguish between objecdve fact and biased opinion, between public commitments and private allegiances and between "rigbt" and "wrong" when various possible courses of acdon are weighed against each other. Accountability from a mechanistic perspective allows us to rely on the ability of a business pracddoner or execudve team to consider in an unbiased fashion only the objecdve facts that pertain to a given situadon, and to act strictly in accordance with the mandate afforded by professional or legal codes. This nodon of accountability assumes direct cause and effect reladonships, bases judgment on a factual analysis of right and wrong and encourages mle-driven behavior. It is tbese assumpdons that underpin the confidence placed in legisladon like SOX to prevent accountability failures. In the process, this legalisdc strategy sustains a variety of misconceptions about how organizations and individuals within them actually funcdon. Understanding the world in Newtonian terms has direct implicadons for how legality and morality are interrelated. Within a closed system govemed by a set of immutable mles, one can in fact argue that the right thing to do is to figure out the mles and follow them. However, Newton's worldview has long been replaced by a more organic way of understanding both natural and social systems. Hence, the way in which legality has become a synonym for morality must be reconsidered. Contrary to Newton's theories, natural and social sciendsts, as well as philosophers, came to the conclusion that neither natural nor social nor cultural systems were in fact closed. In the field of science, complexity theorists challenged the prevailing belief in a world composed of closed, determinisdc stmctures and began to develop an altemative view. They proposed that natural forces and organisms, as well as BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY individual and collecdve human life could be described more meaningfully in terms of the dynamics of so-called complex adapdve systems. Complex adapdve systems are open, changing and condnually responding to new developments. Though order sfill emerges from within them, they cannot be reduced to the sum of their components. Parts within the whole connect in multiple ways, with components interacdng both serially and in parallel. These systems are non-linear and operate far from equilibrium (Cilliers, 1998). Importandy, they are not at all stmctured as orderly, mle-govemed grids. From the perspecdve of this more complex model then, the convendons and expectadons that organize and guide business acdvity come into being and are developed as people interact with one another. Such order as exists within business life reflects, then, the "intemal logic" of business as a system of funcdonal reladonships between various individuals and organizadons. The advantage of this more organic understanding of business is that it looks for signs of funcdonal organizadon within the dynamics of business acdvity itself, instead of trying to force it to conform to some preconceived operafional model. As such, it has the potenfial to provide a far more relevant and appropriate understanding of the dynamics of business acfivity than mechanisfic models. In "Complexity and the Role of Ethics in Health Care," Mills, Rorty, and Werhane analyze the actual and potendal damaging effects of approaching adaptive systems mechanically (Mills, Rorty, & Werhane, 2003: 7-8). Whereas mechanical systems assume that one can predict in great detail the interacdon of each part given a particular sdmulus, social systems such as healthcare organizadons, are characterized by a number of complex funcdons, processes, and roles, where objecdves are often divergent, and power is diffuse. As a result, the parts of the system respond to sdmuli in unpredictable ways. It would be a mistake to view these unpredictable responses as errors, since it is often precisely through these responses that creadve soludons to problems emerge. Another objecdon to a mechanisdc understanding of business is that it offers too simple and inflexible a way of establishing the value of certain dimensions of the organizadon. For instance, from the perspective of those who subscribe to a mechanistic view of business, the individual corporate executive or management team is supposed to be able to base his/her/its decisions on a full and objecdve understanding of only the hard "facts." A command of the facts is, however, often gained solely through a survey of the terse debit and credit entries that are encoded in the double entry accoundng system. The problem with this approach is that the positive and negadve values of particular behaviors and decisions cannot readily be assessed in terms of this limited paradigm. The double entry accoundng system is unable to adequately account for so-called "intangibles." Markets today are driven as much by percepdon as by analysis, and the value of brand and reputafion in such an environments is as important as it is non-quantifiable. The trust and respect that organizadons or individuals come to command within the business environment are often simply the cumulative effect of coundess acts of personal investment in the intangible quality of reladonships. Since the effects of these acdons are often DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY 519 not immediately apparent, it is difficult, if not impossible, to assess their value in simple concrete terms. To discount them though, would be to ignore one of the major factors that drives business acdvity today. The numbers may therefore fail to reflect the tme state of a business organizadon's affairs or even create an endrely false impression of its health and prospects. It can be argued then that the disdncdon between objecdve facts and subjective opinion that is assumed to be so self-evident in the mechanisdc view, has become blurred in contemporary business life. Other macro-economic factors contribute to a business environment that funcdon more like a complex adapdve system than like a mechanisdc, mle-govemed whole. Within the U.S., the overall trend has been toward radical dereguladon. Since the Carter administration, the U.S. economic policy environment has been characterized by the easing of bureaucradc control and the decentralizadon of the economy, making it a more open and dynamic system (Taylor, 2004: 153-54). Organizadons are given more freedom to explore new partnerships and associadons and to take the inidadve in gaining compeddve advantages over their compedtors. This often has the effect of sdmuladng innovadon and creadng complex and interdependent cooperation networks. As companies seek and terminate strategic partnerships and as they introduce new strategies and products, the economic landscape is constantly transformed, making business a far more voladle and uncertain affair. In this dynamic network of reciprocal business relations, organizations and tbe market as a whole are open to manipulation by those who possess the necessary informadon and are able to play the confidence game well. Taylor cites Brian Cmver's book. The Anatomy of Greed: The Unshredded Truth from an ENRON Insider to draw attendon to the risks involved in these new business dynamics (Taylor, 2004: 147). The book describes how Enron newcomers were inducted into the company by leaming thefirst all-important principle: "At Enron percepdon is everything." Enron execudves also boasted that with Republicans in the White House, dereguladon was the law of the land. What this demonstrates is that a dematerialized and deregulated economy can create new forms of risk and different kinds of challenges. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to regulate percepdon through mle-driven intervendons. In an environment where "percepdon is everything," business pracddoners may have to find new ways of protecting themselves and their investors from those who would recklessly abuse their confidence. The case of fifteen-year-old Jonathan Lebed, who succeeded in manipuladng the market from his bedroom in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, serves to illustrate the inadequacy of our current legisladve measures for insuring investors' interests. When confronted by the SEC, Jonathan argued that he wasn't doing anything that everyone else was not also doing or attempdng to do. All stock investors, he insisted, try to influence the market's percepdon in their own favor. Why was he being punished for his success? And how, he asked, could the regulators at the SEC be so sure that his transactions alone were responsible for particular fluctuadons in certain stock prices when there were so many factors and players involved in the market? Jonathan's case shows how difficult it is, under current condidons, to establish the BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY kind of direct causal links between specific events and particular actions that are required to assign accountability. The network society presents regulators with a conundmm. While privadzadon and dereguladon fuel the economy and therefore need to be maintained, there is an increasing need for more condol in order to prevent abuses. As a result, regulatory agencies are trying to curb the lack of accountability that has emerged by promulgating very stringent reguladons in certain areas of business life. This knee-jerk reacdon is a good example of the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direcdon. Though understandable, it is a mistake to address the accountability crisis in a complex adapdve system by means of a mle-driven approach. The whole nodon of accountability, as it is convendonally understood and applied in corporate legislation, must be revisited. In order to understand the implicadons of the new business dynamics for the nodon of accountability, it is necessary to consider their consequences for our understanding of moral agency. Who is the moral agent, the individual and corporate decision-maker to be held accountable? We must also reconsider what we mean when we say that an individual or business organizadon did the "right" thing. If the new dynamics of contemporary business acdvity challenge the way we think about individual accountability, they also compel us to reconsider the normative framework for holding people accountable. Challenges to Moral Agency and Moral Epistemology Our ability to hold individuals and organizadons' accountable for their decisions and actions depends on our understanding of why agents made certain decisions, as well as our judgment as to whether or not they gave proper consideradon to the normadve implicadons of their decisions and acdons. Jones, Parker, and Ten Bos, in their publication For Business Ethics, argue that business ethics have "foreclosed" philosophy by restricting analysis to a very limited number of philosophers and almost completely excluding twentieth-century thought (Jones, Parker, & Ten Bos, 2005: 3). As a result, business ethics as a discipline seems to have bought into a very specific nodon of moral agency, namely that of the radonal decision-making subject. This view of agency is essendally a product of the Kandan deontological approach, Bentham and Mill's utilitarian thinking, and Rawlsian "jusdce as fairness" principles.^ Two of the most prominent views of agency that result from a focus on these schools of thought are "radonal choice theory" and "integrated social contracts theory" (Freeman & Werhane, 1999). Both of these theories rely on the assumpdon that individuals can come to some conclusions on what consdtutes moral behavior through deliberate radonal analysis. The way in which prominent business ethicists discuss moral decision-making clearly displays this emphasis. Bowie describes being rational as essential to moral agency (Bowie, 1999: 45). He explains that radonality entails the udlizadon of the Kandan test of universality, i.e., that valid moral maxims will be accepted unanimously in an ideal kingdom of ends. DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY He also views the ability to "see future consequences" and to "reason abstracdy" as qualifying characterisdcs of humanity (1999: 62). Dreilinger and Rice put forward a systemadc problem-solving model that starts with idendfying the desired outcomes and carefully avoids subjecdvity and personal percepdons that can create barriers to objectivity (Dreilinger & Rice, 2001: 95-96). Tbey stress diat emodons get in the way of logic and suggests that one should avoid words like "faimess" or "doing right" since they carry an emotional content that might introduce bias. These approaches to decision-making stress die importance of autonomy and impardality. It may be helpful to understand the origin of these elements that are so central to the understanding of moral agency in business ethics. Their roots may be found in the deontological thinking that Kant introduced in his Groundworkfor the Metaphysics ofMorals. Kant's ideal moral agent is the impardal, radonal decision- maker who depends on a priori reasoning processes to formulate universally tme moral statements. The Kandan nodon of the radonal subject appeared to provide a solid basis for holding individuals accountable for their actions. It assumed that the decision-maker could funcdon as an impardal individual, who would reach universal moral tmths through the use of reason and therefore gain reliable knowledge of right and wrong, without the consideradon of consequences. Evaluating the moral appropriateness of a particular form of business behavior on the basis of the specific form and nature of the reladonships that exist between particular individuals or within specific contexts would be permissible only for the formuladon of hypothedcal imperadves, but hypothedcal imperadves are always tmmped by categorical imperadves (Bowie, 1999: 64). Kandan theory therefore assumes that the mature moral agent should have the ability to step back from his/her immersion in role-responsibilities and employ the universalizadon test to judge the categorical validity of his/her decision. Even scholars who embrace the nodon of moral imagination, like Werhane, argue that because organizadonal expectadons may demand immoral acts from those fulfilling roles within the system, moral agents must be able to evaluate their role responsibilides from a more "common sense morality" (Werhane 1999). It is this assumpdon of the availability of "a common sense morality" that needs to be interrogated further. Within organizations that funcdon as complex adapdve systems, this view of moral agency and epistemology has become both pracdcally and philosophically problematic. Developments in twentieth-century philosophy contested the ideas central to moral agency as described above, namely the importance of radonal impardality, as well as that of deliberate individual decision-making based on reason. Prominent critiques of Enlightenment subjectivity can for instance be found in communitarianism, poststmcturalism and pragmatism. Due to the limited space available for such discussion within the confines of a joumal paper, these approaches cannot be discussed in depth. What follows is an attempt to highlight the main implicadons of these critiques by summarizing the implicadons that the work of a few authors has for moral agency and epistemology. I will specifically refer to the Enlightenment cridque of Alasdair Maclntyre, the pragmadst thought of Richard BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY Rorty, the moral language theories of Mark Johnson and Vemer Petersen and the genealogical thought of Michel Foucault. Maclntyre puts forward his basic objecdons to Enlightenment's approach to justifying morality in his seminal texts After Virtue and Whose Justice, Which Rationality? In After Virtue he argues that Enlightenment approaches to morality, like that of udlitarianism and deontology, suffer from a deficient perspecdve on human nature, as well as a flawed epistemology. The main problem, according to Maclntyre lies in the fragmented conceptual scheme that Enlightenment thought employs (Maclntyre, 1981: 54). He argues that Enlightenment thought's rejecdon of a teleological view of human nature robbed it of the one element that moral statements require to make any sense, namely, a teleological context. K one has no nodon of one's purpose and role within a specific context, judgment about the morally "correct" behavior becomes nonsensical. Maclntyre is not blind to the fact that defining morality only in terms of one's specific role harbors certain dangers. In his later work, Maclntyre makes us aware of the fact that many individuals today participate in a number of different "pracdces," which compel them to selectively exercise their moral agency in accordance with different kinds of role-responsibihdes and obligadons (Maclntyre, 1999: 321). He calls this phenomenon "compartmentalizadon," and is alarmed by the fact that individuals no longer seem capable or willing reevaluate their assigned role morality from the perspecdve of what it means to be human (1999: 317). But even in this appeal to always seek another, broader perspective, Maclntyre has a teleological scheme in mind. He emphasizes the importance of certain social stmctures in suppordng moral agency. He believes that everyday milieus like the home are the kinds of contexts where agents engage in extended cridcal reflecdon with others about conflicts in virtues, or about issues like the meaning of life and death (1999: 324). This kind of social setdng is crucial in creadng the kind of agency that is capable of moral reffecdon. The "reframing" that takes place in and through one's muldple reladonships with others is key in fostering moral responsiveness. It is in this respect that pragmadsm's insights into how moral progress takes place become invaluable. Rorty describes morality from a pragmadst perspecdve as follows: "Moral development in the individual, and moral progress in the human species as a whole, is a matter of re-making human selves to enlarge the variety of reladonships which consdtute those selves." (Rorty, 1999: 79). Moral development, as Rorty describes it, is a matter of increasing sensitivity and responsiveness to the needs of an ever-larger variety of people. Pragmadsts reject the disfincfion that philosophers like Kant make between morality and pmdence, and between reason and sentiment. Instead of constmcting a foundadon for moral tmth on the basis of some arbitrary set of metaphysical first principles, pragmatists direct their efforts at the extension of exisdng networks of reladonships. For Rorty the pragmatist emphasis in considering moral issues is on breadth, rather than depth (1999: 87). He compares this accommodadng process of cridcal inclusion to the sewing together of a very large, elaborate, polychrome quilt. DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY Insight into the funcdoning of moral decision-making lends further support to rejecdng the nodon of "pure" moral reasoning. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) and Vemer Petersen (1999a, 1999b) have convincingly argued that our moral decision- making is in fact a far cry from an exercise in deliberate principled reasoning. They have done much to draw attention to the way in which historical contexts, social pracdces, metaphoric language, and our embodiment, shape the moral agent's judgments. According to Petersen, the moral fabric that facilitates social life within different contexts weaves itself, without a radonal conductor (Petersen, 2002). Our moral judgments reflect tacit knowledge and social grammars of which we are seldom conscious. As such, they are often neither purposeful, nor willful. Moral knowledge is not gained through a decontextualized radonality, nor is it to be found in an analysis of the presumed stmcture that underlies all of reality. In fact, we seem to develop our moral sensibilides through an ongoing process of trial and error. Transmission and inculcation of moral values are not direcdonal processes, but take place spontaneously. In Petersen's view children develop their personal sense of moral agency through a process that involves negodadng reladonships with others and the world (2002). When one considers these observadons, it becomes clear why leadership example is so cmcial to the success of ethics intervendons. Senior members of business organizadons often provide moral guidance unconsciously, through their responses to the behavior of new colleagues and subordinates. Petersen draws attendon to the cmcial role that observing, imitadng and participadng play in the process of moral inculcadon. As moral agents, we don't leam through explicit instmcdon, we rather experience pattems of co-variadon for ourselves. The norms and values that are established in the process often resist ardculadon and formalizadon in a readily transmittable form, somewhat like giving someone a dicdonary to leam a language. Such a person may end up knowing the vocabulary, but is unlikely to be able to use it in a meaningful way. The knowledge, awareness, and sensidvity to context of conversadon can uldmately be gained only through the experience of interacdon with others who speak the same language. Foucault reiterates the important interplay between the subject, his or her context, and the power reladonships in which he or she is embedded. He draws attendon to the fact that certain insdtutional pracdces create discursive limits that determine what can be discussed within certain contexts (Foucault, 1972:44). Our conceptual frameworks and categories are the result of specific power interests, but these are effecdvely concealed by the creadon of "objecdve" categories and stmctures that "normalize" our insdtudonal life. For Foucault, historical influences, power interests, conceptual frameworks, and insdtudonal pracdces always inform individual moral judgments. Moral decisions are influenced by where decision-makers find themselves in terms of the corporate hierarchy, the discursive limits that come with a particular posidon, and the extent to which power reladonships both restrict and enable the opdons available. The quesdon then remains: what are the guidelines that inform the moral agent's decisions? Instead of referring to some universal principles to define normadve BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY guidelines, complex adaptive systems display an inner purpose that has normadve quaUdes. Intricate interrelafionships hold the system together, and hence consdtute the tacit moral fabric and values that inform the behavior of agents who are part of the system. Frederick has defined values as "enduring beliefs about preferable states of existence" (Frederick, 1995). They express and arficulate, "those things we care about and that we think create a better world." As expressions of the reladonships that exist within the network, these values are reladonal through and through. However, the development of moral values within a business organizadon is not simply a dressed up form of relativisdc emodvism. Nor is it a soft-focus kind of determinism that forces the individual agent, or the organizafion as agent, into a monodiscursive sdaitjacket. Individuals acdvely contribute to the organizadonal culture and the interacdons between moral agents condnually contribute to the moral fabric of die broader network, providing cridcal perspecdves on each odier. This muldple interacdon of agents within and without the system contributes to the creadon of a moral fabric that allows for self-referenfiality, order and stability. By pardcipadng in the creadon of a business organizadon's moral fabric individual employees are, in a very real sense, wridng their own history, creadng their professional world, and condnuing to fashion the future of the insdtudon. As Collins and Porras argue in Built to Last, a successful company succeeds in fostering a "reason for existence" amongst its members (Collins & Porras, 2002). It builds on certain core values, or enduring beliefs, but is also committed to a particular purpose, i.e., a desire to add something excepdonal to human existence. Collins and Porras seem to see the creadon of purpose as a leadership funcdon, the effects of which can influence organizadonal dynamics. Without discoundng the importance of leadership example, the emergence of normadve orientadons within organizadons may be a more complex affair. I propose that the sense of shared purpose that exists within a business organizadon is bom at the intersecdon of its collecdve memory, its leaders' inidative and example, the various contextual variables that inform and limit its endeavors, and the reladonships that it builds and maintains with its host community and other stakeholders. It entails a responsiveness that allows the corporation to establish its sense of morality, and its decisions about appropriate actions. The quesdon that must be posed is, "Who are we now, and how do we respond to the 'others' that confront us?" Johnson & Johnson is a corporation that has been praised for the way it remains "tme" to its organizadonal idendty and its credo. Business ethicists often assume that this is a result of the deliberate application of J&J's principles to various cases. However, an analysis of the corporation's behavior may actually show that it defines its responsibihdes reladonaUy. It may be quite significant that J&J's values statement is called a credo, and not a "code." It starts with their responsibility towards those who use their products. But instead of referring to these users through the generic term "customers," they are listed in terms of their various role-responsibilities, i.e., doctors, nurses, mother and fathers. Their credo ends with a statement that reflects DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY the spirit of experimental pragmatism: "Our final responsibility is to our stockholders. Business must make a sound profit. We must experiment with new ideas." Johnson and Johnson also stress the importance of diversity in their organizadon, and their definidon of diversity reflects an insight into the fact that people do not fall into neat categories hke "us" and "them." They define diversity as "a variety of similar and different characterisdcs among people." In response to moral dilemmas like the Tylenol case, the corporadon seems to idendfy the appropriate response by evaluadng whether it allows them to sustain important relationships. The case of Johnson and Johnson shows that this reladonal responsiveness has to be sustained over dme in order for a strong sense of normadvity to emerge. On their website, various iteradons of their credo as it was adapted over dme appear. Hence the normative identity of the corporation is constantly at stake. The daily decisions of a complex network of stakeholders will determine whether what arises and passes away is "good" or "bad." One significant objecdon to defining a values system as an emergent property of a complex adaptive system is the risk that the system itself is prone to a kind of solipsism, which would make cridcism of its ethos impossible. What safeguards the organizadonal system against the potendally harmful effects of such insularity is die fact that complex adapdve systems are organized as open networks of reladons. As such they cannot funcdon in isoladon. They are dierefore unlikely to devolve into determinisdc environments that undermine the possibility of dissent and cridcism. Participadon in complex adaptive systems also exposes the moral agent to a plurality of perspectives that result from the network of reladons within which the individual is embedded. The various systems that agents inevitably participate in may actually subject them to a number of compedng and contradicdng demands. Foucault would argue that it is never really possible to develop an independent vantage point from which one can objecdvely assess the moral implicadons of one's fulfillment of contradictory role expectadons (Foucault, 1994). Foucault would not, however, have perceived this as impairment to personal morality. He argued that our embeddedness and participadon in insdtudons and pracdces actually consdtute the condidons of freedom which make ethical responses possible. The fact that we participate in different systems of social reladons makes us more aware of their respective limidng condidons. Olivier points out, in this regard, that the multiple discourses in and through which our subjectivities are constmcted are bound to generate, at some point, the ability to exercise "free will" though certain "volidonal discursive spaces," which provide a foothold from which dominant discourses may potendally be cridcized (Olivier, 2003: 335). For Olivier, "die existence of intersecdng altemadve or counter-discourses allows one to escape the straitjacket of monodiscursive determinism." The fragmentadon of experience that an open network of complex adapdve systems exposes the individual to thus facilitates the kind of cridcal autonomy that is a prerequisite for a relational understanding of accountability. BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY What is cmcial in moral decision-making today is not so much the availability of an immutable source of moral orientadon or our ability to access it through the applicafion of appropriate logical protocols, but rather our skill in managing and negodadng the various reladonships within which we are enmeshed. Moral judgments need not depend on our ability to find an independent "vantage point" from which to establish the "right" course of acdon. "Accountable" agents are those decision-makers who take account of a specific situation in collaboradon with other stakeholders and who are able to determine, in the course of this process, die specific nature of their accountability. Reconsidering Accountability within an Open Network of Business Relations The contribudon that this paper hopes to make lies in its insistence that these philosophical perspectives, combined with the dynamics of the current business environment, precipitate an urgent reconsideradon of how we talk and write about, as well as act on, notions of accountability. A new understanding of accountability requires an awareness of the reladonal context within which responsibilides and duties develop. It demands an acknowledgement of the dynamic network of interacdve relationships within which individuals and organizadons are embedded in the business environment, as well as a willingness to seriously consider the very consequenfial role and effect of expectadons and percepfions within such a context. What is required is a broadening of our understanding of accountability. We usually think of moral agents as being accountable/or something. However, considering the interacdve way in which moral knowledge comes about and moral decisions are made, we may need to re-envisage a moral agent as being accountable to others or in terms of some shared sense of normative propriety. The nodon of being accountable "for" something is usually associated in the business environment with responsibility for a set of defined, concrete assets. There is, naturally, merit in this, but it is hardly sufficient within the context of an open network of interactive reladonships where perceptions and other intangible dynamics play such a cmcial role. Individual business pracdfioners and organizadons also need to consider whom they are accountable to in the determinadon of their moral dudes. To do so is to acknowledge that much of the value of an organizadon is generated in and through cooperative business reladonships and that the quality of these reladonships may represent an organization's most valuable assets. The emphasis in such an approach is in the way in which a business organizadon and its employees engage with and respond to its partners and compefitors within an extended network of reciprocal business relationships. In addition, the nature and limits of an individual or organization's moral responsibility to those with whom they interact could be clarified if it were understood in terms of a pardcular relational form of moral orientadon. This is an approach that remains cognizant of the fact that an individual's professional inclinations and an DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY organizadon's moral priorides develop reladonally in the course of the interpersonal interacdons among agents within a system of reladons as well as under the infiuence of contact with altemadve perspectives that may enter die system from without. The tacit sense of reciprocal responsibility, loyalty and common cause that develops among colleagues and collaborators in this way may resist formal articuladon in the form of rules and procedures, but it nevertheless forms the normadve backdrop against which the acdons and decisions of individuals and organizadons become intelligible. As such, it is also an understanding of the nature of accountability that acknowledges the need for discredon and discernment. The acdons and responses of individuals and organizadons cannot adequately be appreciated or evaluated without considering die specific business episode and context within which it is situated and of which it is a part. Redefining accountability has definite implicadons for the way in which one perceives business pracdce and it may therefore be helpful to consider what implemendng these proposals may entail. A recent interview with author Alice Petersen,' founder of a unique whisUe-blowing service called "Listen-up," brought up an intriguing example of what it might mean, in concrete terms, for an organizadon to fulfill its moral responsibilides to those with whom it interacts in an open network of reciprocal business reladons. According to Petersen, her company's research suggests that whistle-blowers tend to respond very negadvely to the scripted responses that are usually employed by those whom companies contract to man whisde-blowing lines. These consultants are usually located in call-centers that serve a wide variety of clients with divergent needs. It is for this reason that pre-prepared scripts are employed. They are designed to ensure responses that are considered consistent and appropriate to the issues that need to be addressed in the course of the consultadon. The agents who answer calls are rarely instructed or trained to be responsive in a spontaneous way or to establish a relationship of tmst with callers who have sensitive informadon. Instead scripted responses are used to idendfy, as quickly as possible, the issue at stake and to offer a standard soludon or response. Whisde-blowers tend to take this as evidence that the organizadon does not take his/her/their unique situadon seriously, or that it simply seeks as expedient a soludon as possible to the problems raised. Standardized procedures of this nature therefore tend to send the message that the organizadon does not consider itself accountable to either the caller or the various stakeholders involved, but rather seeks to limit its liability/or anything that might have gone wrong. Instead of adopdng a reladonal perspecdve and recognizing that whistle-blowing is an act of loyalty, the organizadon places the whisde-blower in opposidon to itself. Petersen's firm developed an altemative service that allows for more responsive interactions with whistle-blowers. It recognizes the problem and acknowledges the fact that it arises in and from a unique set of circumstances and reladonships. The agent who answers such a call would have to demonstrate that he/she cares about die whisde-blower's concerns and about the possible implicadons that it may have for all concemed. In addidon, it is essendal that such calls be treated with the utmost BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY confidenfiality and that the problems raised by them receive immediate attenfion. In this way the tmst and confidence necessary for the system to funcdon effecfively develop over dme. Such an approach takes the organizadon's responsibility to its employees and stakeholders seriously. A more reladonal understanding of accountability also requires that the responsibilides and dudes of the individual or organizadon be interpreted in terms o/the tacit and flexible logic that confinually informs their interacdon with others in a system of reciprocal relafionships. As such, it demands a new way of disfinguishing morally appropriate and inappropriate behavior within the organizadonal context. The values that become manifest in the behavior of individuals within a particular organizadon represent an "emergent order" within a system of funcdonal reladonships. This "order" is unique in that it is not formulated in reference to some absdact and supposedly independent point of moral orientadon, nor does any one agent or body within or outside of the organizadonal system unilaterally impose it. Instead it spontaneously emerges over dme in and through the interacfion of individuals who participate in the system. A more reladonal understanding of the responsibilifies of the organizadon therefore requires that those who contribute to it, and participate in it, condnually consider what they collectively care about, and make these priorides an integral part of the organizadon's operadonal goals. In other words, the organizadon needs to aUgn its strategic goals and organizadonal values. In addifion, care needs to be taken to ensure that some form of congmence exists between the moral priorides of the organizafion as a whole and the values of its individual employees. In order that it should be a tmly participative environment in which everyone assumes co-responsibility for the actions of everyone else as well as for the organizafion as a whole, it is cmcial that all voices be heard. In the absence of a set of a-contextual, a-historical moral imperatives, it is important that communides of discemment come into being within the organizadon to assist individuals in their daily decisions. One could think of such communides as "clusters of responsibiUty," within which individuals accept co-responsibility for the creation of an organizadonal culture. According to Collier and Esteban die recognidon of, and respect for "othemess" form the ethical glue which allows integradon and pardcipadon in these communides of discemment and co-responsibility (Collier & Esteban, 1999: 184). There is some support for Collier and Esteban's ideas in the work of Foucault. In his analysis of what he calls the "cridcal ontology of the self" Foucault claims that the development of the self is "kick started" by deliberate pardcipadon in "limit experiences." This involves exposing one's beliefs and values to risk by placing it on the table of dissent. Only in this way, argues Foucault, are we likely to become aware of how our potential has been limited by the intemalizadon of particular discursive pracdces (Brewis, 1998: 65). Exposure to the cridcal light of dissent inidates a process of moral self-formadon that does not have to rely on impersonal absdacdon. Self-policing and self-motivadon thus become possible. DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY For Foucault this amounts to a form of "lived morality." The dynamics that Foucault describes here in connecdon with the moral development of the individual are of course equally valid with respect to the organizadon as a whole, which benefits in a similar way from exposure to dissent and difference. The multiple acdons and interacdons of its various agents combine to produce a tacit sense of moral self- hood, which makes it possible for colleagues to motivate and police one another through their mutual participadon in the intemal life of the organizadon. This kind of organizadon exercises its freedom and creadvity in reference to a communicadon framework that connects organizadonal "purposing" and individual responsiveness. The ethical dimension of that communicadon framework resides in the fact that each individual is required to exercise moral judgment in decision-making. Instead of trying to inculcate employees with some set of foundadonal principles, ethics training should be devoted to an open discussion about what is important to the organizadon and its various individual employees. Case studies that reflect everyday occurrences could be employed to facilitate such a discussion. It should challenge employees to define how they see themselves individually and collecdvely in particular situadons, and ask them to consider what is important to assert and protect under such condidons. Debates on macro-ethical issues are not particularly useful within the context of this form of pracdcal engagement. Situadons that occurred in the organizadon's past and the personal experiences and recollecdons of pardcipants are far more meaningful points of reference in developing an appropriate moral orientadon within the organizadon. The kind of approach that this paper proposes allows no "passing of the buck." In a very real sense, the "buck" stops not only at the desk of every single employee, but also at the address of the organizadon as a whole. Corporations that encourage this kind of self-reflectivity therefore not only create intemal environments that are conducive to responsible behavior, but also increase the likelihood that it will enjoy posidve reladonships with its extemal stakeholders and partners. By constantly working to improve the moral quality of its intemal life, the organization creates agents that are capable of building reladonships of tmst with agents and institutions in a broader business network. It is these reladonships that uldmately add value to the organizadon. As a complex adapdve system, the organization's responsibilities to other pardcipants in an open network of interacdve reladonships extend beyond the names on its payroll. An organizadon's extemal stakeholders are affected as much by its actions, perceptions and agendas as theirs affect the organization. It therefore has a duty to build and nurture reladonships of tmst and cooperadon with these agents and insdtutions. As such it is accountable not only "to" its own employees, but also "to" its various extemal stakeholders. It is duty-bound to consider the effect of its decisions and actions on its relationships with a wider network of agents and insdtutions. Its aim should be to maintain relationships of tmst and confidence with as broad a network of stakeholders as possible. To do so successfully, the organizadon would be compelled to take into serious consideradon the impression that its acdons and decisions are likely to make on its partners and consdtuencies. The task of the BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY organizadon then is to try to determine what it has to do to gain and retain the tmst and confidence of those with whom it interacts. A sustainable relafionship is based on shared priorities and expectafions, and it is therefore up to both the organizadon and its stakeholders to negotiate acceptable terms for their sustained association. The organizadon's duty to its extemal stakeholders therefore requires it to acfively engage with them in order to condnually develop appropriate protocols for their condnued interacdon and cooperadon. These protocols then become the basis upon which the appropriateness of its various acdons and decisions is assessed. It is interesdng to note how Maclntyre and the pragmadsts' advocacy of the imperafive to widen the circle of consideradon in moral deliberadon beyond the organizadon's intemal system of relations corresponds with Ed Freeman's stakeholder model. Freeman makes a disdncdon between so-called "wide" and "narrow" concepfions of the stakeholders involved in corporate activity. The wide definifion includes any group or individual who might be affected by the organizadon, whereas the narrow definition includes only those groups who are vital to the success of the organizadon (Freeman, 2001:163). Pragmadsm's view of reladonal morality clearly favors the wide definifion, i.e., an acknowledgement that the business organizafion is part of a wider network of reladonships. To expect business organizations to take responsibility for the quality of their relationships with such a wide range of stakeholders has definite implications for the govemance of corporadons. If companies are to succeed in fulfilling their social responsibilides, boards will have to acquire the habit of asking, "What are the quesdons that we are not asking? What are we not being told?" The "facts" as they are presented may be misleading and boards therefore have to ask themselves, "What do we remain unaware of in and dirough what we are being told?" To recognize diat die presentafion of "facts" can be misleading means that boards can no longer simply rely on the opinion of "experts" to decide important issues pertaining to the operations of the organizadons that they govem. Phillips disfinguishes between stakeholders to whom the organizadon has a moral obligadon, i.e., normadve stakeholders, and derivadve stakeholders, whose acdons and claims must be considered by managers because of their potendal effects upon the organizadon and its normative stakeholders (Phillips, 2003: 30). The benefit of this insight is that it acknowledges the shifdng boundaries of stakeholder reladons that may result from power dynamics and complex interactions between the organization and various stakeholder groups. The "balancing" of these interests does not take place according to the principles of strict equality,'* but rather depends on the specific purpose of the stakeholder interacdons. Obligation exists between discrete entides, rather than as a diffuse, all-encompassing concept (Phillips, Freeman, & Wicks, 2003: 493). These insights reflect die realizadon diat the nodon of "stakes" and "relationships" can make sense only if there is an ongoing sensitivity to what moral responsiveness may require in each situadon. There are no hard and fast mles within this new understanding of accountability. DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY In visual representadons of this network of stakeholder reladonships, the organizadon typically is pictured in the center of the network of reladonships, and this assumpdon often determines a corporadon's percepdons of the importance of its own interest within moral deliberadon. Understanding accountability as an ongoing responsiveness towards a broader group of stakeholders may entail drawing a more decentralized stakeholder map. The organization somedmes needs to assume a less central posidon, and to perceive itself as simply one partner in an interacdve network of reladons wherein everyone influences and is infiuenced by the dynamics of the system as a whole. From this perspecdve a more relational understanding of the organizadon's accountability towards its various stakeholders can develop. This perspecdve is echoed in the work of Phillips, Freeman, and Wicks, who describe stakeholder relationships as organic in nature, best served by the spirit of pragmatic experimentalism (Phillips et al., 2003:496). Thinking about accountability requires openness towards unpredictable influences from stakeholders that may previously not even have been on the map. It wants the organizadon and the individual to respond intuidvely to moral responsibilides as they are encountered. As dynamic, complex adapdve systems, contemporary business organizadons' reladonships with one another and with their other stakeholders are flexible and subject to condnuous adaptadon and renegodadon. It is for this reason that organizadons are compelled to condnue to engage their extemal stakeholders in a sustained process of pardcipadve cooperation. The duty of contemporary business organizadons to sustain reladonships of tmst and confidence with their extemal stakeholders compels organizadons to act in good faith in the course of these exchanges. One of the concrete implicadons of this duty relates to the sharing of information that could potendally affect the reladonships among different agents and insdtutions. Informadon about an organizadon's decisions, actions, priorides and liabilities should be readily available to its extemal stakeholders so that they are able to adjust their expectations of the reladonship in an appropriate way. The nodon of "triple bottom-line repordng" represents a promising proposal in this regard. This model offers an exemplary vehicle for sharing infonnation and invidng feedback about the organizadon's acdvities and priorities. As such, it deserves serious consideration. As we become more aware of the way in which the intemal dynamics of organizadons like Enron contribute to moral failure, we begin to appreciate how an organizadonal culture can create dominant discourses which preclude the discussion of certain issues and systemadcally screen out the consideradon of particular sets of stakeholders. Sherron Watkins, one of the whisde blowers in the Enron debacle, described the organizadon's culture as "indmidating" and "aggressive." It is easy to see how it would be difficult to develop and sustain a tmly self-reflexive, open system within such an atmosphere. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines compel organizadons to create an organizadonal culture that encourages ethical behavior. They make business organizadons aware that they are accountable, not only for the acdons of individual employees, but also for the intemal culture that shapes and informs employees' moral sensibilides. If business organizadons are to fulfill their BUSINESS ETHICS QUARTERLY responsibilifies in this regard, they are well advised to direct dieir efforts toward creafing an environment conducive to open interacdon and development of a sense of shared responsibility. Conclusion Employing a mle-oriented approach through the promulgadon of legislafion like SOX is much like using a square peg to fill a round hole. Rules are unlikely to provide a meaningful source of moral orientadon or a feasible basis for holding business practitioners and organizations accountable for their acdons and decisions under current condidons. The complex dynamics of an open network of interactive business reladonships are simply too demanding for such an inflexible form of moral orientation. It is no longer appropriate to think of the moral agent as an autonomous, impardal individual whose moral judgments are the deliberate rational operafionalizadon of universal maxims. Under current condidons, it is more reahsdc to think of the moral agent as an individual whose understanding of the world and moral compass responds to the many different pracdces and reladonships in which he/she is embedded. Today's business practidoner finds his/her moral orientation in the tacit sense of mutual responsibility and common cause that emerges in the daily interactions among colleagues and other stakeholders. Because of this a more flexible, relational understanding of accountability is required. From a relational perspecdve, the duty of the individual and organization is not only to take responsibility/ or a set of concrete assets, but also to be responsible to those stakeholders with whom they share a business relationship and in terms of the tacit sense of moral propriety that develops over dme among colleagues and associates. These dudes compel individuals and corporations to do everything they can to establish and sustain reladonships of tmst and cooperadon with as many intemal and external stakeholders as possible. In the process individuals and corporations will have to contend with dissent, contestation and uncertainty. Such however, are the demands of accountability in a complex business environment where an organization's prosperity and an individual's prospects may tum entirely on the on the quality of the reladonships that they are able to build. Notes I would like to thank Pat Werhane, as well as the editors of this special section, Shawn Berman and Rob Phillips, and Associate Editor Norm Bowie, for their invaluable input in improving this manuscript. 1. The assumption upon which this argument relies is that the corporation can be viewed as a moral agent in much the same way that an individual can. It draws, in this regard, on the work being done in agency theory by authors such as Peter French. The article by Goodpaster and Matthews "Can Corporations Have a Conscience?" provides a rationale for extending moral agency to corporations (1983[2001]). DEFINING ACCOUNTABILITY IN A NETWORK SOCIETY 2. Jones, Parker and Ten Bos, in their publication For Business Ethics, argue that business ethics has "foreclosed" philosophy through its focus on virtue-ethics, deontology and utilitarianism (2005:3). 3. Interview with Alice Petersen at the Listen-up head offices, Chicago, January 2005. 4. 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