Transparency is considered a key value for trustworthy governments. However, the effect of transparency on citizens' trust across different national cultures is overlooked in current research. This article compares the effect of transparency on trust in government between the Netherlands and South Korea. The effect is investigated by two similar series of three experiments. We hypothesize that the effect of transparency differs, because both countries have different cultural values regarding power distance and short and long-term orientation.Results reveal similar patterns in both countries: transparency has a subdued and sometimes negative effect on trust in government. However, the negative effect in South Korea is much stronger. This implies a subdued and negative effect of transparency on trust in the short term in both countries. Nevertheless, the difference in the magnitude of transparency's effect suggests that national cultural values play a significant role in how people perceive and appreciate government transparency.3

This article synthesizes the cross-disciplinary literature on government transparency. It systematically reviews research addressing the topic of government transparency published between 1990 and 2015. The review uses 187 studies to address three questions: (1) What forms of transparency has the literature identified? (2) What outcomes does the literature attribute to transparency? and (3) How successful is transparency in achieving those goals? In addressing these questions, the authors review six interrelated types of transparency and nine governance-and citizen-related outcomes of transparency. Based on the findings of the analysis, the authors outline an agenda for future research on government transparency and its effects that calls for more systematically investigating the ways in which contextual conditions shape transparency outcomes, replicating studies with varying methodologies, investigating transparency in neglected countries, and paying greater attention to understudied claims of transparency such as improved decision making and management. Practitioner Points• Government transparency is no cure-all and does not always have positive outcomes. • Transparency is effective at achieving certain outcomes, such as increasing participation, improving financial management, and reducing corruption. • Transparency is less effective at engendering trust in and legitimacy of government. • Our analysis suggests that government transparency "works" under some conditions but not under others.What these conditions are needs further investigation.

No abstract

The objective of this study is to provide a more nuanced assessment of the relationship between public sector transparency and trust in government. Specifically, we examine how different tools used to enhance transparency-social media and e-government websites-relate to citizens' perceptions of government trustworthiness. We then examine how these relationships vary according to how frequently citizens exercise voice. Findings indicate respondents' use of public sector social media is positively related to perceptions of government trustworthiness. E-government website use lacks a significant relationship to perceptions of government trustworthiness. However, a strong negative relationship emerged between e-government website use and perceptions of trustworthiness as respondents' frequency of voice increased.

The expectancy disconfirmation model (EDM) posits that disconfirmation (the difference between expectations and perceived performance) affects citizen satisfaction. Van Ryzin experimentally manipulated expectations and performance and found a direct effect of performance, but no disconfirmation. We performed: an exact replication; a conceptual replication with extreme manipulations; a conceptual replication that reversed the order of a performance and expectations manipulation. Study 1 and 2 reproduced original findings. In contrast, study 3 indicates that expectation cues are retrospectively used to anchor prior experiences of performance. As the rational assumptions underlying the EDM are increasingly challenged, we need a better understanding of how cognitive biases shape citizen satisfaction.