Blog Line

With Sarbanes-Oxley and the growing embrace of social media, “transparency” is bandied about as the watchword for organizations. Are we transparent? Are we transparent enough?

This morning a group of us at GCI discussed “transparency” in regard to organizational communications. What started out as a pretty straightforward conversation interestingly became a rabid debate. The conclusion in the room was adequate ” transparency” was hugely subjective depending on the issue at hand, the organization’s culture and of course the regulatory and governnance framework they were part of…but even more than that was the absolutely individual defintions of what appropriate transparency is. We then moved on to how corporate reputation and brand equity can impact what is deemed appropriate transparency for an organization particularly in a crisis. The team this morning agreed that the well-regarded companies and iconic brands enjoyed greater trust from consumers and therefore consumers assumed already that these organizations and brands executed a high degree of transparency in their communications. Interesting coffee chatter first thing in the morning.