Information Provision Practices, Grid Group Cultural Theory and Worldviews of Accountability in Regulatory Agencies

Recent scholarship has expanded conceptualizations of accountability from formal political/bureaucratic notions of ‘account giving’ and ‘account holding’ to informal practices that manage expectations in multi-level... [ view full abstract ]

Recent scholarship has expanded conceptualizations of accountability from formal political/bureaucratic notions of ‘account giving’ and ‘account holding’ to informal practices that manage expectations in multi-level regulatory fields. This article reigns in and captures the variability exhibited in this scholarship by applying the framework of Grid Group Cultural Theory (GGCT) to ‘account giving’ and ‘account holding’ in three diverse regulatory agencies at different levels of governance: the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the bilateral Food Safety Australia New Zealand agency (FSANZ), and the sub national Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in New South Wales. Using an innovative method of unobtrusive website data mining, we develop a conceptual scheme for examining cultural worldviews of accountability and examining similarities and differences across the cases. We find a general predominance of hierarchical worldviews despite agency diversity. We argue this can be explained by the salience of particular forms of information provision – those with formal political consequences – as opposed to information that may have consequences for public or stakeholder opinion at different jurisdictional scales or regulatory arenas.