Pfeffer, J.
(1998).
The Human Equation: Building Profits by Putting People First.
Pfeffer reviews studies that "make a business case for managing people right". Among the factors that cause trouble for companies trying to implement such change, are: "Demands for accountability and reproducibility in results and decisions that destroy the benefits of expertise, which is inevitably dependent on tacit knowledge." (p. 132)
McGregor, D.
(1967).
The Professional Manager.
"Another device, common to many managerial control systems, that is likely to induce threat is represented by the concept of 'accountability'. The logic of accountability within the framework of conventional managerial principles is clear. However, it takes relatively little experience with or observation of this principle in everyday organizational life to recognize that its practical use is to discover and punish noncompliance with externally imposed standards and controls. The real meaning in practice of the principle of accountability is: 'Find out who goofed'." (p. 121)
Gladwell, M.
(2002).
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference.
"The mistake we make in thinking of character as something unified and all-encompassing is very similar to a kind of blind spot in the way we process information. Psychologists call this tendency the Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE), which is a fancy way of saying that when it comes to interpreting other people's behavior, human beings invariably make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of the situation and context. We will always reach for a 'dispositional' explanation for events, as opposed to a contextual explanation."