Transparency: Should It Be a Stand-Alone Governance Principle?

Abstract

The topics of corporate governance and transparency are discussed in this article. In recent years, the term "transparency" has expanded its application beyond the realm of non-governmental and supranational institutions and into the fields of international relations, public policy, administrative literature, and non-profit organisations. In order to determine whether or not transparency should be used on its own, qualitative study was carried out. The findings were conceptualised via the lens of corporate governance. The research comes to the conclusion that transparency can be used as a standalone principle of governance and describes three different descriptions of the concept: transparency as a public value that is embraced by society to combat corruption; transparency being identical to open decision-making by governments and non-profit organisations; transparency as a complicated instrument for good governance in programmes, policies, organisations, and countries; and transparency as a synonym for openness. In the first definition, responsibility and openness are described as being interwoven. Second, there is a risk to one's privacy and secrecy when information is readily available. Third, those in positions of power need to be forthright, accountable, and productive in their work. It is not appropriate for the idea of transparency to be a property of corporate governance; rather, it should be founded on the function that transparency serves in corporate governance.