|
Transparency, as used in science, engineering, business, the humanities and in a social context more generally, implies openness, communication, and accountability. Transparency is operating in such a way that it is easy for others to see what actions are performed. For example, a cashier making change at a point of sale by segregating a customer's large bills, counting up from the sale amount, and placing the change on the counter in such a way as to invite the customer to verify the amount of change demonstrates transparency. A new consumer dynamic, called Customer Transparency - i.e., the transparency of date required in to support real-time service, sales & marketing interactions in a social and 24X7 world - was recently introduced by famous author and business futurist Dennison J. DeGregor. See The Customer-Transparent Enterprise at customertransparententerprise.com.
All organizations have a transparency culture, that part of the culture that relates to transparency; but few have a culture of transparency, i.e., a culture of being aware of transparency and incorporating it routinely into how things are done.
Bank Transparency is the notion that there is too much opacity in the valuation and evaluation of commercial banking assets, both from regulator and investor perspectives. So-called "level III" assets and/or illiquid and structured debt securities caused great challenges during the last crisis from a valuation standpoint. FAS Statement 157 (promulgated by the Financial Accounting Standards Board) attempted to address this issue but its language and application were amended through legislation (see Emergency Stabilization Act of 2008) as it was perceived to create additional difficulties for banks which had to "mark-to-market" this class of debt securities. This issue is discussed at length in Macrowikinomics by Don Tapscott.
In 2009, UK City minister Lord Myners proposed that the pay and identity of up to 20 of the highest-paid employees at British companies should be disclosed.[1] In the UK, employees outside the boardroom are currently granted anonymity about their pay deals.[1] He also called for the pay of all employees to be banded in grades. In his interim report in July, David Walker suggested that bankers' pay levels should be disclosed in bands and that the number of staff falling in each band be included.[1] However, it is unlikely in the UK that disclosure requirements will be made a legal requirement, with hopes being placed on recommendations being undertaken voluntarily.[1]
Regulations in Hong Kong require banks to list their top earners – without naming them – by pay band.[1]
In Norway, tax authorities annually release the "skatteliste" or "tax list"; official records showing the annual income and overall wealth of nearly every taxpayer.[2]
In 2009, the Spanish government for the first time released information on how much each cabinet member is worth, but data on ordinary citizens is still private.[2]
Radical transparency is a management method where nearly all decision making is carried out publicly. All draft documents, all arguments for and against a proposal, all final decisions, and the decision making process itself are made public and remain publicly archived. Two examples of organizations utilizing this style are the GNU/Linux community and Indymedia. Customer Transparency is the seamless availability of customer-facing data across service, sales & marketing required to support customer operations in a 24x7 social media-driven world connected by mobile devices and supported in the cloud.
Corporate transparency, a form of radical transparency, is the concept of removing all barriers to —and the facilitating of— free and easy public access to corporate information and the laws, rules, social connivance and processes that facilitate and protect those individuals and corporations that freely join, develop, and improve the process.[3]
Accountability and transparency are of high relevance for non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In view of their responsibilities to stakeholders, including donors, sponsors, programme beneficiaries, staff, states and the public, they are considered to be of even greater importance to them than to commercial undertakings.[4] Yet these same values are often found to be lacking in NGOs.[4]
The International NGO Accountability Charter, linked to the Global Reporting Initiative, documents the commitment of its members international NGOs to accountability and transparency, requiring them to submit an annual report, among others.[5][6] Signed in 2006 by 11 NGOs active in the area of humanitarian rights, the INGO Accountability Charter has been referred to as the “first global accountability charter for the non-profit sector”.[7] In 1997, the One World Trust created an NGO Charter, a code of conduct comprising commitment to accountability and transparency.[8]
Media Transparency is the concept of determining how and why information is conveyed through various means. If the media and the public knows everything that happens in all authorities and county administrations there will be a lot of questions, protests and suggestions coming from media and the public. People who are interested in a certain issue will try to influence the decisions. Transparency creates an everyday participation in the political processes by media and the public. One tool used to increase everyday participation in political processes is Freedom of Information legislation and requests. Modern democracy builds on such participation of the people and media. There are, for anybody who is interested, many ways to influence the decisions at all levels in society.[9]
In politics, transparency is used as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption. When a government's meetings are open to the press and the public, its budgets may be reviewed by anyone, and its laws and decisions are open to discussion, it is seen as transparent, and there is less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system for their own interests.[10]
When military authorities classify their plans as secret, transparency is absent. This can be seen as either positive or negative; positive because it can increase national security, negative because it can lead to corruption and, in extreme cases, a military dictatorship.
While a liberal democracy can be a plutocracy, where decisions are made behind locked doors and the people have fewer possibilities to influence politics between the elections, a participative democracy is more closely connected to the will of the people. Participative democracy, built on transparency and everyday participation, has been used officially in northern Europe for decades. In the northern European country Sweden, public access to government documents became a law as early as 1766. It has officially been adopted as an ideal to strive for by the rest of EU.
To promote transparency in politics, Hans Peter Martin, Paul van Buitenen (Europa Transparant) and Ashley Mote decided to cooperate under the name Platform for Transparency (PfT) in 2005. A similar organization that promotes transparency is Transparency International.
21st Century Culture affords a higher level of public transparency than ever before, and actually requires it in many cases. People no longer have a high level of control over what is public information. Modern technology and associated culture shifts have changed how government works (see wikileaks), what information people can find out about each other, and the ability of politicians to stay in office if they are involved in sex scandals. This is particularly interesting for mental health professionals, whose clients can now find out their sexual orientation, home address, and many other pieces of personal information online (see digital divide for more info).
Scholarly research in any academic discipline may also be labeled as (partly) transparent (or open research) if some or all relevant aspects of the research are open in the sense of open source, open access and open data,[11] thereby facilitating social recognition and accountability of the scholars who did the research and replication by others interested in the matters addressed by it.[12]
Some mathematicians and scientists are critical of using closed source mathematical software such as Mathematica for mathematical proofs, because these do not provide transparency, and thus are not verifiable.[13] Open-source software such as Sage aims to solve this problem.[14]
In the computer software world, open source software concerns the creation of software, to which access to the underlying source code is freely available. This permits use, study, and modification without restriction.
In computer security, the debate is ongoing as to the relative merits of the full disclosure of security vulnerabilities, versus a security-by-obscurity approach.
Sports has become a global business over the last century, and here, too, initiatives ranging from mandatory drug testing to the fighting of sports-related corruption are gaining ground based on the transparent activities in other domains.[15]
16. The Customer-Transparent Enterprise by Dennison J. DeGregor