Assessing Public Preferences and the Level of Transparency in Government Using an Exploratory Approach

Abstract

Any information disclosed by governments should serve the purpose it is meant to fulfill. This is an underlying pillar of transparency. Our article assesses whether the information citizens consider to be most relevant for interaction with the authorities is actually disclosed. Our research was conducted on the population of the 117 Italian provincial capitals. A sample of 500 Italian citizens were interviewed with the purpose of understanding which type of information they consider most relevant, given the choice of institutional, political, financial, and service delivery–related information. The results indicate that Italian provincial capitals currently fail to publish the information that citizens consider to be most relevant: Despite differences in opinions among users, the sample we analyzed tends to rate the importance of service-delivery transparency and financial transparency higher than institutional or political transparency, whereas most information disclosed by Italian provincial capitals is associated with data they are obliged to disclose in order to comply with transparency regulations.

Keywords

transparency ICT citizen preferences

Introduction

The principle of transparency is highly considered as a means for enhancing and underpinning democracy. Many authors have focused on this topic, adopting a variety of disciplinary perspectives that consider transparency as a way to enhance democracy (Romzek & Dubnick, 1994; Stodolsky, 2002; Vishwanath & Kaufmann, 2003) and increase accountability and trust in government (Gant & Gant, 2002; Koppell, 2005), investigating different streams of research and leading to some key considerations. Transparency is now considered a key part of democratic governance. Democratic countries are not only more likely to be transparent; they also tend to produce more information than authoritarian governments (Lord, 2006). Greater participation also gives the public more opportunity for making a contribution to policy making and offers the government the benefit of their collective expertise and input.

Transparency is a key concept in Italy too: when Italy’s new Prime Minister Matteo Renzi first addressed the Senate, he emphasized the role of transparency in his strategy: “transparency refers not only to the Freedom of Information Act, but implies a revolutionary change in the relationship between the public and public administration, so that each citizen can control every gesture done by those representing him, day after day.”

It is also fundamental to understand whether governments disclose the right information capable of facilitating public confidence, collaboration, and public participation. This implies more than just formal transparency, namely, the need to comply with regulations concerning the disclosure of information and achieving effective transparency in order to stimulate stakeholder engagement.

This article consequently aims to understand whether the information that the public considers to be most relevant for their interaction with the government is actually disclosed.

Today, many studies have shown that the practice of transparency is still limited (Heald, 2006). Finally, government transparency has been promoted by the use of technology, as it reduces the cost of collecting, distributing, and accessing government information (Cullier & Piotrowski, 2009; Roberts, 2006). Various studies (Gandía & Archidona, 2008; Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012; La Porte, Demchak, & De Jong, 2002) have offered an assessment of the degree of transparency with interesting results, showing that disclosure levels depend on several factors such as political competition, public media visibility, and public access to technology and their level of education.

Our study aims to make a number of contributions. The first is to address the imbalance in transparency literature, since there has been a lack of investigation and consideration of stakeholder orientation. Our second contribution is to add to the growing body of evidence on government transparency by analyzing public interest in four types of government information (institutional, political, financial, and service related) and comparing it with the associated degree of transparency.

We explore these issues in the Italian context. A sample of 500 Italian citizens was selected using stratified random sampling to reduce sampling error and improve representativeness. They were interviewed with the purpose of understanding the types of information they consider most relevant, given the choice of institutional, political, financial, and service delivery–related information. The degree of transparency of these types of information was measured by examining the websites of provincial capitals. Evidence taken from our analysis suggests that Italian provincial capitals do not currently publish the information that citizens consider to be most useful but, instead, provide details about how they function and the information they are obliged to disclose in order to comply with transparency regulations (Law 150/2009). This article is organized as follows: The research background and theory are introduced subsequently in the second section. The third section presents the empirical data and research methodology. The fourth section illustrates our findings followed by a discussion of the implications for research and practice.

Background

In the literature, transparency is discussed as a tool for enhancing the accountability of governments, as a principle to be implemented in order to reduce corruption, and a means for making information on government performance more readily available (Grimmelikhuijsen, 2012; Grimmelikhuijsen & Meijer, 2014; Hood & Heald, 2006; Mulgan, 2000; Reichard, 1998).

Transparency is now used in so many ways and in so many settings of government operations that it is paramount to clarify its meaning in our article. Several definitions have been offered in the literature. Hood (2006) argues that it is about openness to public scrutiny. He suggests a working definition of transparency to be “the right and the ability of citizens (and organizations, where relevant) to access government information and information about government.” This is not dissimilar to the definition used by the United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN, 1999, p. 1), that is, “transparency as public access to information and facilitating the public’s understanding of government decision-making processes.”

Von Furstenberg (2001, p. 107) stated that “the term has been stretched to the point of making its unqualified use almost meaningless,” since it has been attached to so many different world improvement missions (such as “the financial crisis and the need for transparency” or “transparency as an antidote to mismanagement and corruption”). As such, the underlying philosophy concerning the term of transparency plays a significant role in shaping how effective it is in each context. Despite the different concepts and definitions of transparency, most studies operate on a common underlying assumption: They refer to the extent to which an organization reveals relevant information about its internal workings, such as decision-making processes, procedures, functioning, and performance (Curtin & Meijer, 2006; Gerring & Thacker, 2004; Wong & Welch, 2004).

Some authors (Joshi & Houtzager, 2008; Mansuri & Rao, 2004) claim that initiatives that build on participatory processes of citizen engagement, such as designing policies and strategies, are more likely to generate government sensitivity toward public demands. This claim is based on the fact that the public is a valuable resource that policy makers can use in order to comprehend their external context. For example, they can gain knowledge of the types and risks of corruption as well as the challenges facing the implementation of any anticorruption policies that exist in the context (United Nations, 2012). This leads to the following definition of transparency: “transparency refers to the notion of informed citizens being able to engage in public decision-making processes, and shape the future directions taken by the government.” This is the definition used in this article.

Based on this definition, in order to enhance transparency and make governments work better and more efficiently (Norris, 2001; Northrop, Kraemer, Dunkle, & King, 1990), the public should be considered strategic in the disclosure of information, driving the fulfillment of transparency’s promise to enhance their relationships with constituents, thus improving their capacity to meet their objectives (Romzek & Dubnick, 1994; Stodolsky, 2002; Vishwanath & Kaufmann, 2003).

In studies claiming to focus on public-driven transparency initiatives, the public side of the accountability dynamic is poorly described. Public participation tends to be underdescribed, and a few studies focus on this important component, namely, the roles played by the public and the dynamics of their impact, thus affording only a superficial understanding of the role of citizen participation and civil society participation, leading to more transparent outcomes (Joshi & Houtzager, 2008).

This article argues that a stakeholder-oriented approach to transparency is necessary in order to move away from the more sterile and rational introspection that governments tend to show, with the aim of understanding which type of information is considered most relevant by the public and whether it is actually disclosed during their interaction with government.

Stakeholder (or user) orientation is not a new concept, but it is not necessarily being practiced (Bovaird, 2007; Osborne, Radnor, & Nasi, 2013) and has been considered as being invariably missing from most contemporary formulations of strategic management within Public Sector Organizations (PSOs; Andrews, Cowell, Downe, Martin, & Turner, 2008; Meier, O’Toole, Boyne, & Walker, 2007). Current literature on strategic management offers great insights in this direction (Boyne & Walker, 2004; Meier et al., 2007) and can be inspiring for a discussion of transparency. As Osborne and Radnor (2013) observed in relation to lean reform strategies for PSOs, they may produce internally efficient individual PSOs, but they can never provide external effectiveness if they lack external orientation. Thus, by placing the user at the heart of the service-delivery system (Osborne, Kinder, Radnor, &Vidal, 2014) when assessing priorities and disclosing relevant information, strategic stakeholder orientation facilitates and legitimates the capacity of governments to engage in activities with them and might ultimately help achieve effective public services, generating public value.

Furthermore, the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the public sector, generally known as e-government, has multiplied the potential for increased transparency in the public sector and for enhancing citizen engagement (Gascó, 2012; Putnam, 2000; Stolle & Hooghe, 2005). As such, e-government is not simply a means to help governments become more efficient, it is also a tool for transparency and for achieving citizen engagement and involvement. “If e-government is to be truly transformative of government in terms of citizen participation and engagement, then e-government must be citizen-centered in its development and implementation” (Jaeger & Bertot, 2010, p. 4).

Using e-government to promote transparency is reasonable in terms of technological capacity and also because it meets the expectations of many members of the public. According to several scholars (Dawes, 2009; Dunleavy & Margetts, 2000; Kubicek, 2008; Nasi, Cristofoli, & Frosini, 2011; Priebe, Welch, & MacGilvray, 2008), the vast majority of government information is in digital format and users will gradually expect to be able to access it electronically. The Internet has increased interest in accessing government information. There are positive correlations between the use of the Internet for gathering news and the Internet as a means for accessing government information (Cullier & Piotrowski, 2009). Furthermore, individuals have also increased their expectations of accessing government information and services electronically (Smith, 2010).

The Internet has also made it easier for governments to accomplish transparency in practical terms, since social media applications (Huijboom et al., 2009; Osimo, 2008) have great potential for answering the collective demand to express needs and find answers to social issues.

Many studies, including the transparency index (developed by Transparency International.org), assess the degree of online government transparency (Cucciniello, Nasi, & Valotti, 2012; Cucciniello & Nasi, 2014; Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch, 2012; Meijer, 2009) and have found that not all governments show similar degrees of transparency. However, there is scant evidence as to whether the information disclosed meets the needs and priorities of citizens and other stakeholders. It is fundamental to understand this whether we are to ascertain whether transparency has the potential to meet its promise of enhancing public participation and trust. Transparency strategies should be stakeholder oriented if they are to be useful for enhancing public participation, collaboration, and trust.

What’s more, even if governments have tried to measure and assess transparency in several ways, this does not imply they are able to reach their desired objectives (Meijer, 2009). We drafted some considerations related to this, based on an extensive review of literature (including Grimmelikhuijsen & Welch, 2012; Heald, 2006; Meijer, 2013; Pina, Torres, & Royo, 2010; Romzek & Dubnick, 1994; Stodolsky, 2002; Vishwanath & Kaufmann, 2003), leading to a definition of a comprehensive assessment framework based on four dimensions: institutional, political, financial, and service delivery.

The institutional dimension denotes the degree of transparency with regard to the government’s mission and operations, its institutional activities, and the information it is obliged to publish by law. The political dimension describes the degree of accessibility of information about political representatives, their political mandate, and activities, in addition to other information, such as absenteeism at council meetings and salaries. The financial dimension assesses the degree of transparency with regard to the use of financial resources, the solvability of governments, and other financial issues. The service-delivery dimension assesses the degree of transparency concerning the performance of governments with regard to the delivery of services to the public and businesses. Each dimension of the assessment framework was divided into several variables and assessed using specific measurements and checklists. Each was selected to check its applicability to different institutional contexts and types of governments.

This article investigates public interest in the four types of government information previously analyzed (institutional, political, financial, and service related) and compares it with the associated degree of transparency in the context of Italian provincial capitals.

At this stage, it may be helpful if we provide some information on the transparency process affecting Italian provincial capitals, which is based on Constitutional Law. The modernization process that started in the early 90s, whose aim was to make public agencies perform better while improving relationships with their constituents, embedded transparency as a tool for achieving such reform objectives. In particular, some of the laws in the 90s, aiming to introduce new public management principles, refer to transparency as a fundamental rule affecting how public agencies govern their relationships with external stakeholders in order to safeguard impartiality and democracy. In 2009, the Minister for Innovation and Public Administration passed a law to rationalize the existing regulations on government transparency and enhance its role with regard to government performance. This law forms the basis for the mandatory publication of information on all aspects of the public agency’s actions. All public agencies, including municipalities, were given a set schedule and required to gradually include this section: Public agencies, for example, had to publish information about the performance of individuals and the organization by early 2011. The new 190/2012 Anticorruption Law also came into being, requiring all Public Administrations to put specific measures in place in order to prevent acts of corruption or bribery. These include implementing an anticorruption plan, appointing a compliance officer and adopting a code of conduct for employees. The last step on the timeline was law 33/2013, known as the Transparency Decree, redefining the obligations for public administrations as regards the disclosure, transparency, and publication of information.

Method

Our survey took 500 people aged between 18 and 65 (working-age adults) and living in Italian provincial capitals and asked them about the importance of having access to different types of information via their city’s website. The sample was selected using stratified random sampling to reduce sampling error and improve representativeness.¹

The survey was conducted in March 2014 using computer-assisted telephone interviewing. Table 1 reports the sample characteristics. Fifty-four percent of respondents were male, with an average age of 40.2 years (SD = 12.8). Thirty percent had a university degree or post-university qualification.

Table 1.

Sample Characteristics.

		Mean/Percentage
Female		45.9
Age		40.2 (SD = 12.8)
Education
	Did not finish middle school	0.4
	Middle school diploma	14.6
	High school diploma	55.1
	University degree	23.0
	Post-university degree	7.0
Employment sector
	Public	40.1
	Private	57.7
	Nonprofit	2.2
Area of residence
	Northwest	25.3
	Northeast	19.2
	Central	28.5
	South	26.9
Internet use
	More than once a day	62.7
	Once a day	26.9
	Once a week	8.4
	Once a month	1.2
	Less than once a month	0.8
Social media use
	More than once a day	27.3
	Once a day	24.4
	Once a week	7.0
	Once a month	3.4
	Less than once a month	1.8
	Never	36.1
City website use
	More than once a day	4.8
	Once a day	7.8
	Once a week	15.0
	Once a month	17.8
	Less than once a month	24.8
	Never	29.9
Reasons for using the Internet
	Work	30.4
	Education	12.7
	Entertainment	40.5
	Transactions	16.4

Participants were asked questions regarding their demographic characteristics and their use of the Internet. They were then asked their personal opinion about how important it is for their city’s website to provide clear and detailed information on the following four different dimensions of transparency: institutional, political, financial, and service related. Respondents were asked to rate their opinions on a scale from 1 (lowest importance) to 10 (highest importance).²

We used the assessment framework developed and validated by Cucciniello, Nasi, and Valotti (2012) to assess the degree of transparency of Italian provincial capitals. We selected municipalities (that are also provincial capitals) since they are the government organization that is visited most frequently via the Internet and are also the government organization that is closest to citizens (Pina, Torres, & Royo, 2007; Van Dijk, Peters, & Ebbers, 2008).

The framework helps to monitor the degree of transparency in terms of the extent of information disclosure through the institutional website based on four dimensions (i.e., institutional, political, financial, and service delivery). The institutional dimension describes the degree of transparency with regard to the government’s mission and operations, its institutional activities, and the information it is obliged to publish by law (i.e., the salary of public managers, salary of consultants, contracts, etc.). The political dimension describes the degree of accessibility of information about political representatives (e.g., the Mayor or Cabinet and Council members), their political mandate and activities, as well as information such as absenteeism at council meetings and their salaries. The financial dimension assesses the degree of transparency with regard to the use of financial resources, the solvability of governments, and other financial issues. The service-delivery dimension assesses the degree of transparency concerning government performance with regard to the delivery of services to the public and businesses. When defining the items included in this variable, we built up a list of items that could be applied to several types of public services. For our case study, we chose nursery schools as our example of public service, since this service is provided by all the provincial capitals, and second, because it is listed as the public service that is of most interest for citizens based on the results of a survey conducted in 2009 by the Ministry for Innovation and Public Administration. Each dimension of the assessment framework was divided into several variables and assessed using specific measurements and checklists. Each was selected to check its applicability to different institutional contexts and types of governments.

We measured the degree of transparency of all 117 Italian provincial capitals that are also provincial capitals. The data were collected during the fall of 2013. It is a uniform sample in terms of geographical distribution (covering all 20 Italian regions) and is homogeneous in size, as small and very small provincial capitals, which invest less in ICT, were not included. As the majority of Italian provincial capitals serve a relatively small population (72% of provincial capitals have less than 5,000 inhabitants), their resources (personnel and budget), and the demand for services do not justify significant innovation in this area.

Results

Table 2 reports the mean and standard deviation of the importance that respondents attributed to having clear and detailed information regarding the four different dimensions of their provincial capital’s activity.

Table 2.

Mean and Standard Deviation of the Importance That Respondents Attributed to Each Transparency Dimension.

	Mean	Standard Deviation	N
Institutional transparency	7.63	2.05	484
Political transparency	7.67	2.05	484
Financial transparency	8.39	1.87	484
Service-delivery transparency	8.68	1.68	484

Note. SD = standard deviation.

A one-way repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate whether participants attributed the same importance to the four different dimensions of transparency of a municipal website: that is, institutional, political, financial, and service delivery (N = 484). The results of the within-subjects ANOVA indicated the four transparency dimensions were not equally important to respondents, Greenhouse-Geisser = 403.11, F(2.44, 1179.81) = 88.81, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .16, p < .001; Wilks’s λ = .75, F(3, 481) = 54.33, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .25, p < .001.

Follow-up comparisons suggested that the inhabitants of Italian provincial capitals aged between 18 and 65 attribute the highest importance to having clear and detailed information about the services provided by their provincial capital. The pairwise comparison in Table 3 indicates that respondents rated service-delivery transparency higher than each of the other three transparency dimensions at the .001 level. Clear and detailed information about how the city uses financial resources was considered the second most important dimension of municipal website transparency. Table 3 shows that respondents tended to rate the importance of financial transparency higher than both institutional (p < .001) and political transparency (p < .001) and lower than service-delivery transparency (p < .001). Finally, our data indicate that respondents tended to value institutional transparency and political transparency less (p < .001) than service-delivery and financial transparency. No significant difference emerged between the importance attributed to institutional and political transparency.

Table 3.

Pairwise Comparison Between the Importance of the Four Dimensions of Municipal Website Transparency.

(I)	(J)	Mean Difference (I-J)	Standard Error	Sig.^a	95% Confidence Interval for Difference^a
(I)	(J)	Mean Difference (I-J)	Standard Error	Sig.^a	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
Institutional	Political	−.048	.068	1.000	−.227	.132
	Financial	−.767***	.081	.000	−.981	−.552
	Service	−1.058***	.093	.000	−1.305	−.810
Political	Institutional	.048	.068	1.000	−.132	.227
	Financial	−.719***	.070	.000	−.906	−.532
	Service	−1.010***	.091	.000	−1.250	−.770
Financial	Institutional	.767***	.081	.000	.552	.981
	Political	.719***	.070	.000	.532	.906
	Service	−.291***	.067	.000	−.468	−.114
Service	Institutional	1.058***	.093	.000	.810	1.305
	Political	1.010***	.091	.000	.770	1.250
	Financial	.291***	.067	.000	.114	.468

Note. ^aAdjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

A series of within-subjects ANOVA showed that the results we found for the entire sample were true for frequent Internet users (i.e., using the Internet more than once a day) and for respondents who are more familiar with their city’s website (i.e., individuals who visit their city’s website at least once a month). In more general terms, the order of importance of the four transparency dimensions was confirmed when simultaneously controlling for the following variables: gender, age, education, sector of employment, frequency of Internet use, familiarity with social media, frequency of city website use, and type of Internet use. None of these controls had a significant effect on the order of importance of the four transparency dimensions.

But does the information published on the websites of Italian provincial capitals match the preferences of the public? In order to answer this question, we assessed the amount of information that Italian provincial capitals publish on their institutional website for each of the four transparency dimensions (i.e., institutional, political, financial, and service delivery).

The full list of the dimensions, variables, and items is provided in Appendix A. Table 4 reports the average scores of Italian provincial capitals websites for each of the four indices included in the assessment framework.

Table 4.

Mean and Standard Deviation of the Four Transparency Indices for Italian Provincial Capitals.

	Mean	Standard Deviation	N
Institutional transparency	63.85	14.93	95
Political transparency	56.74	16.19	95
Financial transparency	34.10	19.22	95
Service-delivery transparency	34.33	17.70	95

A one-way repeated measure of variance (ANOVA) indicated that the amount of information published on the websites of Italian provincial capitals differs significantly across the four transparency dimensions, F(3, 282) = 103.16, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .52, p < .001. Follow-up comparisons in Table 5 suggest that institutional transparency is the area where the websites of Italian provincial capitals tend to score highest, followed by political transparency (p < .01). Interestingly enough, the lowest scores are for financial and service-delivery transparency, which were seen to be the most important dimensions for citizens. The financial and service-delivery indices tend to be significantly lower (p < .001) compared to the institutional and political indices. No significant difference emerged between the financial and the service-delivery indices.

Table 5.

Pairwise Comparison Between the Transparency Indices of Italian Provincial Capital Websites.

(I)	(J)	Mean Difference (I-J)	Standard Error	Sig.^a	95% Confidence Interval for Difference^a
(I)	(J)	Mean Difference (I-J)	Standard Error	Sig.^a	Lower Bound	Upper Bound
Institutional	Political	7.112**	1.875	.002	2.058	12.166
	Financial	29.751***	2.190	.000	23.849	35.652
	Service	29.526***	2.042	.000	24.023	35.030
Political	Institutional	−7.112**	1.875	.002	−12.166	−2.058
	Financial	22.638***	2.151	.000	16.841	28.436
	Service	22.414***	2.063	.000	16.853	27.975
Financial	Institutional	−29.751***	2.190	.000	−35.652	−23.849
	Political	−22.638***	2.151	.000	−28.436	−16.841
	Service	−.224***	2.449	1.000	−6.824	6.375
Service	Institutional	−29.526	2.042	.000	−35.030	−24.023
	Political	−22.414***	2.063	.000	−27.975	−16.853
	Financial	.224	2.449	1.000	−6.375	6.824

Note. ^aAdjustment for multiple comparisons: Bonferroni.

*p < .05. **p <.01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

In recent years, several changes resulting from environmental conditions, the evolution of stakeholders’ needs, and the development of organizational models in public sector organizations have affected the concept of transparency in terms of the extent to which an organization reveals relevant information about its internal workings in order to engage citizens in public decision making and to shape the future paths taken by the government to facilitate the achievement of its goals.

Higher levels of transparency can enhance the value of public services and help transform the public sector and its relations (La Porte et al., 2002) but represent a major process involving profound cultural changes in terms of context and structure.

In such a context, transparency through the institutional website should not be limited to the mere “disclosure” of information about what a public administration does. However, the information published by Italian provincial capitals is apparently limited to certain types of institutional and political information. Furthermore, most data published online not only seem to be required by law but are also mainly about the public agency’s mission, its people (both officials and elected representatives), their contact information, and what they do. Information about how they are performing, be it nonmandatory or required by law, seems to be published less often for all the dimensions we identified (i.e., information from the organization about the allocation of funds and resources based on results; financial statements regarding the use of resources for certain programs; the status of the implementation of priorities in the political mandate).

Our analysis shows that complying with laws on transparency does not necessarily go in the same direction as public preference. The data emphasize that Italian provincial capitals do not currently publish what people consider to be most useful but, instead, what they are legally obliged to publish. Despite the differences among users, the sample we analyzed tends to rate the importance of service-delivery transparency and financial transparency higher than institutional or political transparency, although most information disclosed by Italian provincial capitals is associated with the institutional dimension. This can be due to several reasons. Controls of transparency regulations are strict due to their recent introduction in the Italian context and the need to fight corruption (Cucciniello et al., 2012). It is also much easier to publish information on what governments do, rather than collecting, providing, and updating information on service-delivery performance (Hood & Heald, 2006), but it might also be the result of a preached-and-not-practiced stakeholder-oriented approach. This might prevent governments from being successfully transparent and engaging with citizens.

Conclusion

This study points to several theoretical and practical implications. It helps to ascertain which types of information external stakeholders, especially the general public, would prefer to find on their provincial capital’s website. Transparency should not only be formal, it should be a strategic tool used by the administration to interact with its stakeholders, informing them about the main areas of its activity, including their priorities, the implementation of services, and the results obtained. This implies a constant and mutual exchange of information with the public, as well as in-depth knowledge of stakeholder preferences in terms of the information disclosed, as it can represent an opportunity to obtain feedback and increase commitment in order to achieve certain objectives.

“Transparency has to be useful”: Stakeholder orientation is a necessary condition for effective transparency. It may lead to more effective transparency since it should fuel further levels of tangible rather than formal transparency and may eventually facilitate government–constituent relations.

However, some unanswered questions do remain. The “right” information to generate trust might not be the right information for better government, since it is not necessarily true that more disclosure makes the government behave better (Prat, 2006). Some scholars adopting a critical approach in their analysis of transparency (e.g., Etzioni, 2010; O’Neill, 2002; Prat, 2005) showed that increased transparency would make government organizations more vulnerable in some cases. Other authors have emphasized that transparency needs receptors capable of processing it for it to work (Heald, 2006), since they could be inexpert and there are limits to people’s ability to process information (Etzioni, 2010).

These effects may be mitigated by a strategic approach to the defining of transparency policies and we believe this article represents an initial step to creating a roadmap for more effective transparency.

Strategic stakeholder orientation can start with a few small-scale innovations, such as tracking the most searched-for key words on a website and making them visible in a “popular searches” section. This helps provincial capitals to be more open and accessible in the short term and would also increase opportunities for feedback and interaction, thus encouraging user participation.

Footnotes

Appendix A

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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