This paper examines the possibilities and limits of social accountability, characterized by face-to-face interactions between organizational actors and beneficiary others. We explore how social accountability is produced in and through visibility relations which recognize or may expose the other. We examine the consequences of such changing visibility relations on social accountability in two case studies of acute and chronic refugee crisis in Rwanda. Our study contributes to ongoing debates on accountability and the implications for responsible action towards the other. We argue that social accountability initially presents a way to recognize the other as valid and entitled to assistance, which spurs an important sense of responsibility. Prolonged exposure to social accountability, however, continuously reinforces the other as ‘in need’, which becomes a burden for the exposed as well as for the exposing actor in their response to a situation. We argue that exposure risks organizational actors developing a rather myopic perception of others’ needs, to the extent of becoming irresponsible in their action towards the other. We conclude the paper with reflections on the importance of proper distance for social accountability and outline the potential of our findings to inspire future work on social accountability and visibility relations in other organizational settings.

本文研究了以组织行为者与受益人之间的面对面互动为特征的社会责任的可能性和局限性。我们探索如何通过认识或暴露他人的能见度关系来产生社会责任。我们在卢旺达的急性和慢性难民危机的两个案例研究中，研究了这种可见度关系的变化对社会责任的影响。我们的研究有助于就责任制以及对他人采取负责任行动的含义进行持续的辩论。我们认为，社会责任最初提供了一种方法来承认对方是有效的并有权获得援助，这激发了一种重要的责任感。但是，长期处于社会责任感之下会不断增强对方的“需要”，这对于被曝光者和被曝光者在应对情况时都构成了负担。我们认为，暴露可能会使组织行为者对他人的需求形成近视感，以至于他们对他人的行为变得不负责任。在总结本文时，我们对适当距离对社会责任的重要性进行了思考，并概述了我们的发现对激发其他组织环境下社会责任和知名度关系的未来工作的潜力。