Who Is Accountable? How Citizens Attribute Success and Failure in Cross-Sector Collaborations

Who Is Accountable? How Citizens Attribute Success and Failure in Cross-Sector Collaborations Angela L. Samuel, Mary K. Feeney, Jurgen Willems Open Access Article: https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.70054 Cross-sector collaborations bring together organizations with different values, missions, and goals to achieve shared outcomes. However, how accountability is attributed across sectors remains unclear, particularly given the potential influence of sector bias on citizen perceptions. Recent research suggests that clear information can mitigate such bias. Using a pre-registered 3 × 2 between-subjects experiment (N = 1515), we examine whether information cues about sector contributions (leading vs. non-leading sector) and performance outcome (success vs. failure) shape perceptions of accountability. Additionally, we assess whether the public sector is held more accountable for failures when leading the collaboration, compared to the private or nonprofit sectors. Consistent with blame attribution theory, citizens attribute accountability for both success and failure primarily to the leading sector. We find no evidence that the public sector is disproportionately blamed. These findings suggest that information on sector contribution, rather than inherent sector bias, plays a crucial role in shaping accountability perceptions.