Towards a Conceptualization of Corporate Accountability: A Consumer Perspective.

This article focuses on developing and validating a consumer-based measurement scale for perceived corporate accountability, a concept often ambiguous in business practice despite its prominence in theory. The research identifies perceived corporate accountability as comprising three factors: proactive expectancy (voluntary transparency), reactive expectancy (responsiveness to consumer demands), and accountability enforcement (consumers’ perceived capacity to sanction corporations). Using three consumer samples, the study confirms that these factors form a reliable construct positively related to consumer trust and supportive behavioral intentions. The findings highlight the importance of both information provision and enforcement mechanisms in shaping consumer perceptions of genuine corporate accountability, offering a framework for empirical assessment and future research on accountability in business-to-consumer contexts.