Managing Opacity: Information Visibility and the Paradox of Transparency in the Digital Age

Organizational transparency is in vogue. When technologies make it possible for information, decision processes, and behaviors to be visible to others, actors and organizations will presumably be forced to behave more responsibly because they can be held accountable for their actions. In this article, we question the theoretical assumption that higher visibility results in more transparency. We distinguish between transparency and visibility and offer a conceptualization of visibility as the combination of three attributes: availability of information, approval to disseminate information, and accessibility of information to third parties. The management of each of these attributes independently or jointly contributes to the relationship between visibility and transparency. Our discussion surfaces a phenomenon we call the “transparency paradox,” in which high levels of visibility decrease transparency and produce opacity. The theorization of this transparency paradox and the mechanisms through which it operates have important implications for theory and practice surrounding the role of technologies in organizational action in the digital age.

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