Accountability - What is meant by making people accountable?

I hear many times people saying there is no accountability in the organization. What is the meaning of the term? What is a good meaning of the term.

I liked the explanation in the blog post :
http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadingblog/2011/09/the_3_core_elements_of_delegat.html

Accountability is the moral compulsion felt by a team member to meet the objectives and goals of an assigned task.

The team leader must be able to choose people and assign tasks that each member of the team is committed morally to achieve the goal. What is moral commitment? Moral commitments create a guilt feeling the in the person when he could not achieve the desired result or show appropriate behavior in the effort.

Originally posted at
http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao/accountability-what-is-meant-by-making/2utb2lsm2k7a/5806#