Employee accountability: accounting for unaccounted for and under-studied employees
这篇特刊导言指出，现有员工问责研究多基于中产阶级、西方、白领背景，忽视了边缘化、临时工、移民等群体，并通过中国外卖骑手等案例揭示身份如何影响问责期望，呼吁发展更包容的理论。
Accountability shapes how individuals think and act in the workplace and influences nearly all human resource management practices. Yet much of what we know about employee accountability is grounded in a middle class, Western, Caucasian, whitecollar context despite ample evidence that demographics and identity matter. In addition, dramatic changes in the nature of work necessitate an update to our understanding of accountability to include minoritized and marginalized workers, contingent and precarious workers, immigrants, employees with disabilities, lowwage earners, and others. Papers in this Special Issue explore such varied contexts as food delivery drivers in China, low-status expatriates in Germany, and lessprivileged social class entrepreneurs. The studies show how identity shapes accountability expectations and perceptions and thus provide meaningful and practical insight into how employees and businesses can successfully navigate the diverse and constantly changing work environments. Collectively, this research extends existing theories of accountability and challenges the field to move beyond generalized models to develop richer, more inclusive theories of accountability that reflect the realities of today’s workforce. This introduction to this Special Issue also offers suggestions to researchers for fruitful topics of accountability research such as the role of employee benefits in assisting low-wage workers balance off-work accountabilities and the potential benefits of coworking (also known as “body doubling”) to increase accountability and performance.