Call for papers

 

In the last few decades, recurrent scandals in the industrial and financial sectors across the globe have challenged the public’s trust in business and threatened to undermine public confidence.  While there is no ‘silver bullet’ that will prevent corruption, fraud, and malfeasance, transparency is now acknowledged to be an important component in the business practices of contemporary firms. Transparency is important because it assures various stakeholders and the public that a firm is operating with fair practices.  Transparency has also been recognized as an important ethical value in business. Indeed, Kaptein (2004) has recently showed that the most cited ethics principles in the codes of conduct of multinational companies have to do with transparency, honesty and fairness with the respective frequencies of 55, 50 and 45 percent. Additional confirmation of the importance of transparency for global citizenry is found in looking at the protests and boycotts organized by consumers’ associations around the world.  These activities pressure companies, in particular multinational corporations (e.g. Nike, Nestle’), to provide detailed information on how they conduct their business and generate profits. Transparency is also recognized as an important ethical concern that affects the relationship between a firms’ management and their employees (e.g. Pagano, 2004).

 

In the 21^st century transparency cannot be disconnected from information and communication technologies (ICT).  ICT is now so much a part of business that it seems reasonable to say that firms don’t just use and provide information,

they are their information technology (Johnson, 2005).  ICT makes possible a level of transparency that was never before possible.  Using ICT, corporations can make huge quantities of information available to all their stakeholders.  And, because of ICT, consumers, contractors, shareholders, and other stakeholders can access this information at their fingertips.  In principle, ICT could allow firms to become naked corporations (Tapscott and Ricoll, 2003) or completely transparent institutions, i.e. organizations that share  all kinds of information concerning their business activities requested by the society (Vaccaro and Madsen, 2006). In other words, ICT can support firms to become open systems that interact in multiple ways with the external environment (Kling and Jewett, 1994).

 

Although transparency can be considered as an ethical virtue that can be adopted easily by organizations to approach and resolve issues of social responsibility, there are various trade-offs that limit the public disclosure of information. For example, privacy and security are two important ethical concerns that can affect the transparency of an organization.

 

The Conference seeks submissions that focus on any aspect of the nexus of transparency in business, social responsibility, and the role of ICT.  However, two main streams will be emphasized: the first is related to the concept of “transparency” as it applies to social organizations of various kinds including governmental, as well as business, profit and non-profit; the second is related to the impact of ICT on organizational transparency. A list of possible topic includes:

 

· Ethical concerns related to transparency in business organizations.

· Transparency and ethics related issues in the framework of accountability processes in higher education and scientific systems.

· Case studies of transparent business practices and their use of ICT tools.

· Ethical concerns related to transparency in other types of organizations (e.g. NGOs, educational, heath, and humanitarian).

· Relationships and conflicts between the transparency and other ethical values (e.g. privacy).

· Philosophical justifications and criticisms of the value of transparency.

· Transparency metrics: How to measure it?

· Transparency and business performance:  enhancement or obstacle?

· The impact of ICT on transparency in business organizations.

· The impact of ICT on transparency in other social organizations (e.g. NGOs,  educational, heath and humanitarian)

· Wiki, Blogs and so on: social and ethical issues.

The Digital Divide: does transparency matter?

 

Submitted papers may be in form of research papers, case studies, review articles, etc.  It may also be a combination of different forms.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ICT, TRANSPARENCY AND

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY CONFERENCE

 

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