The role of accountability in fostering effective team collaboration

Abstract

In a post-Covid 19 business environment, the strategic endeavours of senior leaders in organisations to harness team collaboration benefits have been accelerated. The business conversation has progressed from debating the value of collaboration in teams towards how effective team collaboration may be embedded to achieve greater financial performance and organisational resilience. The present research considers the role that accountability may play in embedded collaboration within cross-specialist teams, particularly in a professional services environment. This arises from the limited theoretical understanding which currently exists in relation to the construct of accountability and the construct of effective of effective team collaboration, particularly in relation to accountability within teams. This research study’s scope considers the role that different forms and levels of accountability play in relation to driving and embedding effective team collaboration, through a qualitative inductive phenomenology study conducted within a single professional services organisation operating from different offices across Africa. The research findings highlight 11 enabling conditions, collectively, at an individual, team and organisational level which together suggest an Effective Team Collaboration Accountability Framework which contributes to existing theoretical literature relating to formal and informal accountability, as well as peer accountability within a team context, and which provides a framework for organisational management to create and diagnose effective team collaboration accountability ecosystems in pursuit of enhanced effective team collaboration within organisations.