Accountability in hybrid organizations: the indigenous markets of Indonesia

This paper explores the practice of accountability in traditional indigenous markets (pasar) in Indonesia. We present a case study of two pasar in Indonesia to address our research questions: how do pasar managers perceive the stakeholders; and how does the extent of stakeholder salience affect the practice of accountability functions in pasar? Our investigation found that the Governor, and related governmental units, were the stakeholders with the highest salience. Thus, pasar managers successfully met vertical accountability criteria. However, they failed to satisfy the accountability functions for the merchants and customers, due to their possessing lesser stakeholders’ attributes. This paper contributes to the extant literature by exploring pasar as hybrid organizations, offering both theoretical development, and new empirical evidence, with significant implications for public policy.