The Unexpected Effects of Workplace Transparency

Workplace transparency provides a foundation for learning and control, and therefore for satisfaction and productivity. Yet my research shows that an obsession with transparency-enhancing tools and structures can backfire, producing the unintended consequences of too much digital and physical visibility at work.

When transparency serves organizations effectively, why does it work so well? And when it doesn’t, why does it disappoint? Using multiple methods to address those two questions, my research is centered on the idea that transparency not only reveals but also changes employee behavior, like a bright light that helps you study a painting but can also alter or fade the colors. Just as museums must balance the need to view artwork with the need to protect it, so must organizations balance the need to observe employees with the need to provide privacy. 

Organizations that privilege the observers over the observed find themselves susceptible to what I have called a transparency paradox or transparency trap: environments that leave employees feeling overly exposed may lead people to actively conceal what they are doing—even when making improvements—thus reducing productivity and, paradoxically, transparency. 

However, organizations may create other problems for themselves by shying away from useful forms of transparency because of assumptions about stigmatization, for example, or public shaming. My research shows how making employee transgressions transparent—a modern-day version of having people wear scarlet letters—can, through a mechanism called personal narrative control, increase the odds of rehabilitation and prevent bad behavior from reoccurring.

This work is ongoing, as I continue to conduct research to make transparency transparent.