Information Technology and Services

Abstract

While a growing body of academic literature has examined issues of social responsibility and accountability within commercial organizations, little attention has been paid to these issues within non-governmental organizations (NGOs). This paper addresses this lacuna in the literature by developing a theoretical framework of the need for social accountability by policy formulating and campaigning NGOs, and examines the apparent commitment of a sample of such NGOs to accountability through a content analysis of their websites. The theoretical framework draws on the works of Ulrich Beck to theorise NGO accountability from the perspective of competing risk narratives.