Inside the Push for Good Governance: Institutional Predictors of Administrative Transparency in Public Organizations

Abstract

Policy actors around the world perceive transparency as a means to achieve good governance. Research often focuses on the determinants of fiscal and economic transparency and gives less attention to administrative transparency. This study examines whether multiple types of institutional factors influence administrative transparency in the context of the hiring of college and university presidents in U.S. postsecondary education. Across 54 contracts obtained between institutions of higher education and third-party search firms, no contract explicitly referred to the term transparency, but contracts varied in attention given to issues of confidentiality. Using data for 157 presidential searches between 2010 and 2018, we find that few structural components predict indicators of transparency, though the presence of state sunshine laws and whether a governing board oversees multiple institutions can influence specific portions of the executive search process.