Responsibility Concept

The term responsibility designates the obligation of a subordinate to perform a duty that has been designated and to answer, before his superior, for his own actions; results from the relation of hierarchy existent between superior and subordinate, namely from the fact that the first has formal authority to demand specific services to the other. This way, unlike the authority, the responsibility is established in the way subordinate-superior.

Two important responsibility characteristics are that cannot be delegated for the lower levels of the hierarchy and that none subordinate reduces his responsibilities by delegating to other the authority to perform a task.

A related concept is the social responsibility, which respects not the obligation of a subordinate before his superior, but rather the obligation of an individual or an organization before the society in general.