Measuring organizational transparency with 10 items: Validation of a German short scale

Abstract

In recent research on transparency in organizational settings, a multidimensional understanding of supervisor transparency has gained acceptance. Following recent operationalizations, the construct can be measured by the five dimensions of Disclosure, Clarity, Accuracy, Timeliness, and Relevance of shared information. Initial applications of the scale already show its usefulness in that theoretically well-founded relationships, e.g., to trust, could be empirically supported using the instrument. As the instrument consists of twenty items, it can be too long for specific application fields. A shorter, more economical instrument is of value, especially in surveys that include many different constructs. In this article, we report on our testing of the suitability of a German shorter version consisting of only ten items. The results show that this instrument respects the dimensionality of the construct and leads to similar effects concerning its relationship to trust (-worthiness) and job satisfaction compared to the long scale. The findings also support the notion that individual transparency dimensions have different and distinct effects. Thus, the importance of a multidimensional understanding of transparency in organizational settings is also underlined by the short scale.