Relationships between accountability, job satisfaction, and trust

Abstract With the trend toward self‐management comes increasing accountability of individuals to their coworkers and organizations. There is an implicit assumption that workers like self‐management and the accompanying accountability, despite little supporting empirical evidence. This study examines the idea that workers' perceptions of their level of accountability are related to their job satisfaction. A significant correlation was found between job satisfaction and perceived accountability to coworkers and perceived accountability to management. In addition, we found that accountability to both coworkers and management was positively related to trust in supervisors and managers. However, only two aspects of accountability—manager and coworker awareness—seem to explain the variance in job satisfaction and trust. Practical applications of the findings are explained.