Final answer:
Accountability ensures that employees are responsible for their work within an organization. The chain of command organizes responsibility and reporting through a hierarchical structure. Conflicts can arise when individual accountability does not align with organizational support or priorities within the chain of command.
Step-by-step explanation:
Accountability is a fundamental concept in the workplace, which means that employees are responsible for their actions and decisions, including both processes and outcomes. In many job settings, a manager will outline expectations for an employee—this sets the stage for accountability.
The chain of command is a hierarchy of authority that organizes who is in charge of whom within an organization. Each person in this hierarchy is answerable to their immediate superior, and this continues up the organizational ladder. For instance, in a retail setting like Walmart, a shift manager assigns tasks to employees and is in turn accountable to the store manager, who reports to the regional manager, and so on until reaching the CEO and the board members.