Transparency as a Product of Processes of Power and Liquid Modernity: A Conceptual Paper

High-profile revelations of organizational malpractices in the last few years such as unethical business deals based on large-scale conflicts of interest, insider trading, overvaluation of housing mortgages, doctored inventories of inadequate capital holdings to raise finances, and manipulation of facts and figures have made transparency an important value in today’s organizational world. Stakeholders, whether internal or external, expect to have access to information and organizations have little choice but to open up in keeping with current trends (Christensen, 2002; Christensen & Langer, 2009). This paper offers a tentative examination of what we believe to be an original conceptual framework for a critical understanding of processes of and motivations for organizational transparency, including its paradoxes, by drawing on and combining theories of power, hegemony, legitimacy, and liquid modernity.