Cross pressures of accountability: Initiative, command, and failure in theRon Brown plane crash

Contemporary political rhetoric and management reforms have highlighted acc ountability issues for government. A troubling feature associated with thes e management reforms is a gap between the expectations of management reform and the reality of the American culture of accountability This culture gap is likely to be particularly evident in organizations that are structured around principles of command and control, such as the military. This articl e explores the cross pressures individuals Face when they are urged to demo nstrate initiative and obedience to command while operating within a web of accountability relationships that represent several different behavioral s tandards against which their performance can be judged. To conduct this res earch, the authors interviewed members of the Accident investigation Board appointed by Major General Ryan, Commander of the United States Air Force E urope (USAFE), to investigate the April 1996 crash in Croatia of the milita ry transport plane carrying United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown a nd his party of distinguished visitors. These personal interviews were supp lemented with the official reports of the Accident investigation Board and transcripts of testimony before the Board. Based on these data, we analyze the accountability dynamics involving the various military officials associ ated with the "mishap flight." We find that while institutional rhetoric an d managerial conditions encouraged entrepreneurial behavior and initiative, the administrative reality still emphasized a risk-averse, rules-oriented approach to accountability when things went wrong.