Accountability in social service organizations has been considered as an important issue in terms of the reason for their existence. The previous studies suggested that program management and improvement of internal management system as ways to consol...
Accountability in social service organizations has been considered as an important issue in terms of the reason for their existence. The previous studies suggested that program management and improvement of internal management system as ways to consolidate accountability of social service organizations. Therefore, examining the accountability of programs and internal management system is important in terms of understanding accountability of organizations.
In this context, the key purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between program and leader accountability of social service organizations and the organizational commitment of social workers which is considered as one of the important factors in measuring organizational effectiveness. To achieve this purpose, 300 social workers who work in social service organizations in Seoul and Kyung-gi province answered the questionnaires by mail. The data was analyzed using SPSS 15.0.
The major findings were as follows.
First of all, the perceived level of the program accountability was higher than that of the leader accountability. This result indicates that the respondents recognized the program accountability as more important than the leader accountability. In the case of the program accountability, the level of program resources, activities, and outputs was higher than the indicators and evaluation plan of the programs.
Secondly, the level of social workers' organizational commitment which was consisted of three aspects of affective, continuous and normative was reported to be on the average level. In detail, the affective commitment was the highest, with the continuous and normative commitment following behind. In other words, tended to be more committed to their organizations because of their emotional attachment to their current work places rather than factors such as cost or loyalty.
Thirdly, there was a statistically significant relationship between the social workers' perception of accountability and organizational commitment. These results indicates that the more the social workers feel that the program is being planned, run, and evaluated responsibly, the more emotionally united they are to their organizations. Also, when the chief manager of the organization demonstrated the responsibility of running and managing the organization, and the openness when communicating with his or her staff, the social workers are more devoted to their organizations and more accountable to their given work.
In conclusion, in order to improve the social workers' level of commitment to their organizations, and furthermore, prove the efficiency of an organization, social service organizations must secure the accountability in terms of both the programs and the organizational management of the chief manager.
This study has theoretical implication to shed light on the relationship between the accountability of social welfare organizations and the organizational commitment of social workers. Moreover, it has provided the grounds on why accountability must be secured as a condition to improve organizational efficiency. On the practical aspect, this study has emphasized the importance of not only the process of executing the programs, but also the process of drawing outcomes and evaluating the programs. It has further emphasized the necessity of securing accountability of the chief manager of the social service organization in running the organizations.