ABSTRACT
The Paradox Principle then guides organizational accountability, expanding out through socially responsible initiatives consistent with organizational values and contracting to bring about renewal and second-order change. This chapter examines the role of public relations in organizational accountability and show how different forms of accountability are manifested in the personal experiences of veteran practitioners. Voluntary acts of accountability present their own problems, especially if the public perceives them to be self-serving and inauthentic. The chapter presents the concept of reframing and the fluid center of Kirk Schneider’s Paradox Principle. Reframing means to change the way one perceives a situation and place it in another frame with new perspective that still fits the situation. “Accountability assumes that the agent of whom such answerability is demanded is both self-aware and in possession of the necessary means to cause an event or act to occur”.
