Transparency in Business: The Perspective of Catholic Social Teaching and the “Caritas in Veritate”

Abstract

Transparency in business and society is one of the challenges raised in the encyclical Caritas in Veritate by Benedict XVI. This paper focuses on the issue by extending the literature on business ethics, corporate social responsibility, and corporate transparency in two dimensions. First, it reviews the understanding and framing of the transparency issue in Caritas in Veritate and in a selection of relevant Catholic Social Teaching (CST) publications. Second, this paper provides normative indications for corporate transparency decisions which reflect four permanent principles of CST, that is, the common good, solidarity, subsidiarity, and respect for the human being. Inasmuch as human beings are worthy of love for their own sakes, the dimension of gift should always be present in relationships among them. This paper also provides insights for further studies on corporate transparency and the impact of religion on business ethics and corporate social responsibility.

Antecedents of Corporate Reputation in the Hotel Industry: The Moderating Role of Transparency

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COVID-19 in Italy and issues in the communication of politics: bridging the knowledge-behaviour gap

“…Under normal circumstances, transparent communication arguably leads to a certain level of trust (Albu & Flyverbom, 2019) if it is mediated by knowledgeable groups who report real facts and fully disclose "all relevant information in a timely manner" (Berglund, 2014, p. 362). But transparency is a controversial, "volatile and imprecise" (Williams, 2005, p. 359) concept per se that is sometimes misused even by practitioners and academics (Vaccaro & Sison, 2011). Transparency is also paradoxical by nature (Albu & Flyverbom, 2019) and is difficult to generalise and standardise.…”

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