The Strategic, Cognitive, and Institutional Perspectives of Transparency: The Meijer’s Model Applied to Italian Local Government

Public administrations are introducing managerial innovations, accounting and control systems into their organizations to enhance economic, financial, and organizational performance. Transparent communication is an important vehicle to increase the accountability of public administrations toward the community, contributing to a lasting development of the degree of credibility and trust toward the institutional system. Transparency generates the basis for social control, consensus building, and networks between public organizations and stakeholders, but also requires greater openness to the external context. This study investigates transparency processes in public governments, highlighting their complexity and the effects on the activities of open governments. To analyze the managerial approach to transparency, we have adopted Meijer’s model (Public Administration Review, 73, 429–439, 2013). The model studies transparency in public organizations from a strategic, cognitive, and institutional perspective and the way in which it is developed through the interaction between governments and stakeholders. The results show how power games, cognitive frames, and institutional rules influence the creation of government transparency. They highlight the importance of analyzing their interrelation in order to gain a better understanding of the complex dynamics of transparency in open public organizations.