Meaningful Transparency Research Articles

Government regulators must steward drug transparency.

The pharmaceutical industry has recently taken steps to make clinical trial data more accessible. But for there to be meaningful transparency, governments—not drug companies—should set the terms of disclosure.

Reforming (and Saving) the IRS by Respecting the Public's Right to Know

The current controversy involving possible political targeting by the IRS in administering the exempt organization (EO) tax laws is simply the latest in a long succession of similar allegations spanning at least five decades. This article proposes to address the problem through increased transparency of the IRS’s administrative actions involving EOs. Greater transparency responds directly to the public’s frustration in not being able to monitor the agency and gain confidence that the laws are being applied in an even-handed manner.Proposals to increase the transparency of government commonly confront some claimed governmental interest in secrecy, such as a national security or law enforcement concern. Transparency of the government’s tax decisions, however, encounters the further problem that it violates the privacy rights of taxpayers. This latter clash arises because the government’s tax administration decisions generally turn on the information it has extracted under compulsion from taxpayers. Thus, meaningful transparency of one (the government’s tax decisions) almost necessarily requires meaningful transparency of the other (taxpayer tax return information). Fortunately, Congress has long recognized good policy reasons to make public a substantial amount of EO tax return information. Thus, slight liberalizations of the existing disclosure rules for such information may allow sufficient transparency to satisfy the public’s right to know in the precise area of the law that has generated the most controversy. Opening up more EO tax return information and IRS EO decision-making to public scrutiny would tend to deter IRS misbehavior, reduce suspicions of such misconduct, and promote fuller communication both to establish any impropriety and avert false charges against the agency.

Organizational Characteristics and Disclosure Practices of Non-profit Organizations in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of organizational characteristics on the extent of disclosures in the annual reports of non-profit organizations (NPO) in Malaysia. Organizational characteristics and the extent of disclosures are obtained from the content analysis of annual reports of 213 NPOs registered with Registrar of Societies in Malaysia for the financial period 2010. This study provides evidence that the overall extent of disclosure is low. Of the organizational characteristics, this study revealed significant positive relationships between size and some types of funds available to the NPOs. The significant positive relationships between certain types of funds and extent of disclosures in some parts of the annual reports indicate selective disclosure strategies by non-profit managers, thus reducing meaningful transparency in the non-profit sector. Nevertheless, it indicates that non-profit managers are using disclosures in annual reports in managing their inter-organizational relationships in ensuring continuous flow of resources to their organisations.

Policies and practices on competing interests of academic staff in Australian universities

To document the existence and provisions of Australian universities' policies on the competing interests of academic staff and university practices in recording, updating and making these declarations publicly accessible. A 14-item survey was sent to the vice-chancellors of 39 Australian universities and university websites were searched for relevant policies. Twelve universities declined to provide any information. Of the 27 that did, all had policies on staff competing interests. Fifteen did not require regular declarations from staff and only four required annual declarations. Eight universities maintained a centralised register of COIs of all staff and six had a mechanism in place that allowed members of the public to access information on COIs. None reported that they required that staff place their COI declarations on their website profiles and none had policies that indicated that staff should declare COIs when making a public comment. Australian universities vary significantly in their approaches to the declaration and management of competing interests. While two-thirds of Australian universities require staff to declare competing interests, this information is mostly inaccessible to the public. Australian universities should adopt a standard approach to the declaration and management of competing interests and commit to meaningful transparency and public accountability. This could include frequently updated declarations on website profiles of all staff. In addition, dialogue about what is needed to effectively deal with competing interests should be encouraged.

The corruption of political elites in Iraq – an economic analysis

This article examines the corruption of political elites in Iraq in the wake of the 2003 American occupation – a phenomenon that has had disastrous consequences for the country as well as astronomical fiscal costs. The corruption that has now become endemic has served not only to undermine reform and reconstruction efforts – while simultaneously accomplishing the embezzlement of billions of dollars – but also has left the Iraqi people exposed to a wide array of harms from contaminated wheat imports to an infrastructure in complete disarray to foreign machinations, including those of international food conglomerates. Through the acquiescence of corrupt Iraqi elites, the country has been laid open to external interests and foreign initiatives as well as those of the World Trade Organization (WTO) through means such as the 100 ‘orders’ signed by US ‘Ambassador’ Paul Bremer III under the auspices of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Graft and kickback schemes of every stripe are rife throughout the country, and monies donated in the form of international assistances have served to line the pockets of the corrupt, never reaching the intended recipients among the average Iraqi population in many instances. The vicious cycle is further perpetuated also through a corrupt judiciary that militates against any sort of meaningful transparency or oversight. Corruption, and that of the powerful elites in particular, has not only squandered genuine development opportunities that might have benefited the country at large and done much good to facilitate reconstruction efforts, but also it has – for the foreseeable future – thrown the issues of Iraqi oil revenues and food security as well as that of national sovereignty into a peril of the first order.

Beyond Transparency: Information Overload and a Model for Intelligibility

ABSTRACTThe role and evaluation of the modern corporation is being challenged by multiple stakeholders, changing markets and public expectations. Unfortunately, corporate governance, regulation and accounting have played a prominent role in business failure for the past decade resulting in a growing lack of public confidence in our markets. We present a new model that contributes to improving the quality of corporate information by providing not more, but better information through increased intelligibility of overall information, benefiting both the firm and its broad array of stakeholders. It has become apparent that boards, management and regulators have been unable to cope with the rise of business failures by adding increasing layers of regulation that have often served only to exacerbate the complexity and further cloud the transparency of needed information. We have identified a growing number of forward‐thinking firms that have found alternative means to provide betterinformation and strengthen their companies. We offer a stakeholder‐centric model for improving information intelligibility based upon the extensive scope and variety of external input derived from the growing social movement organizations. With the added focus on intelligibility, these groups can help foster greater corporate responsibility, meaningful transparency, increased stakeholder benefits, and improved overall performance of the firm.