Abstract
While both regulators and academics insist that business risk is reduced when corporations comply with corporate governance guidelines on transparency through greater disclosure and reporting, we have contended that although this is outwardly desirable it can hinder both the building of trust and corporate responsibility. As a norm, transparency can simply become a box-ticking exercise, where corporations tactically are more willing to share what stakeholders want to hear while concealing or avoiding more complicated issues. Transparency thus can encourage strategic ploys which are not guided by moral rectitude but are more concerned with perpetuating the corporate image and reputation than being trustworthy. The chapter considers the conceptual relationship between trust and transparency. With regard to corporate governance and moral behaviour these concepts are also considered as components of a legal construct and from a philosophical, moral perspective. Rather than building trust and alleviating public mistrust, transparency paradoxically may lead to public, social and market distrust.
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Notes
- 1.
Schoorman et al. (2007) regard ability as an antecedent rather than a dimension of trust. However, they agree with these three components as factors which contribute to trust in an organization.
- 2.
“Onora O’Neill combines writing on political philosophy and ethics with a range of public activities. She was Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge from 1992–2006, President of the British Academy from 2005–9, chaired the Nuffield Foundation from 1998–2010, and has been a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2000 (Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve). She has chaired the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission from 2012–16 and served on of the Medical Research Council and the Banking Standards Board until 2018. In 2017, she was awarded the Holberg Prize and the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture. She lectures and writes on justice and ethics, accountability and trust, justice and borders, as well as on the future of universities, the quality of legislation and the ethics of communication”. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/onora-oneill-FBA (Accessed May 08 2019).
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Janning, F., Khlif, W., Ingley, C. (2020). Transparency a Paradoxical Proxy for Trust?. In: The Illusion of Transparency in Corporate Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35780-1_4
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