The purpose of this paper is to theoretically reflect on the concept of accountability and the characteristics (objective, rendering agent, receiver, means and purposes in reference to controls) that this process assumes in four distinct management models: the typical Weberian model, the populist-bureaucratic model, the technocratic model, and the New Public Management model. We believe that the characteristics of the accounting are related to the control system in each case. The methodology consisted of documentary and empirical analysis. The results reveal that: 1) term accountability has been substituted by responsibilization, responsibility, and accountability, and this is a product more of the desire to change the content than the reality of the study, especially in the framework of the proposals as to the New Public Management model. 2) the objective of accountability varties according to the public management model. 3) with the exception of the bureaucratic-populist model, in which accountability at the highest administrative levels, in other models accountability at all directive levels. 4) There are differences between models in relation to who accountability, but in none of the cases is the common citizen taken into account. 5) The means utilized differ depending on management style, and range from a confidencial-restricted format to those methods proposed in the New Public Management Model as to the use of mass media. 6) In the bureaucratic populist management system, accountability is not a control instrument, and is related to the very weak role that this process fulfills in this model. The conclusion is that accountability, which until now has been a practical process in the new proposals, is still far from constituting an element of social control of the process.