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Promoting Public Trust in Public Organizations: Explaining the Role of Public Accountability

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Abstract

This paper is aimed at explaining the role of public accountability in promoting public trust in public organizations. Initially a conceptual model was developed. Then, the model was tested empirically in Iran. The result shows that public accountability influences the public trust by improving citizens’ satisfaction. In other words, legal, ethical, financial, functional, and utmost political accountability affect public trust through influencing citizens’ satisfaction. This study also confirms that changes in social trust, citizens’ trust in government, and media will moderate trust in public organizations.

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Acknowledgement

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers who read our manuscript and made suggestions for improvements. We also especially express our deep gratitudes to the Editor in Chief, Professor Farazmand for taking his time with us, guiding us with the latest theoretical literature on the subject, for his instrumental suggestions in revising the manuscript several times, for his insightful and time consuming guidance in enhancing it to a publication level, and of course for his generous professional editing of the manuscript into a quality English article. We finally appreciate the production staff at Springer and POR for their professional help in getting our article published.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tarbiat Modares University, TMU, Tehran, Iran

    Hassan Danaee Fard & Ali Asghar Anvary Rostamy

  2. Iran Management and Productivity Study Center (IMPSC), No. 12, Shahid Rahnama Alley, Saidi St., Lavasani Ave., Tehran , P. O. Box 19546, Iran

    Ali Asghar Anvary Rostamy

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  1. Hassan Danaee Fard
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  2. Ali Asghar Anvary Rostamy
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Correspondence to Ali Asghar Anvary Rostamy.

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Danaee Fard, H., Anvary Rostamy, A.A. Promoting Public Trust in Public Organizations: Explaining the Role of Public Accountability. Public Organiz Rev 7, 331–344 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-007-0041-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-007-0041-4

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