This question has been troubling me for quite some time. “Is not voluntarily revealing the truth or not practicing absolute transparency same as telling a lie?. Does it have the same impact on the recipient of the messages as a lie has”.
Let’s take an example of organization. Every organization has so many drawbacks and lot of internal politics and turmoil. The employees of the organization have the first-hand information about such things. The outside world does not have any idea about such things. The organization creates an official ‘PR’ group or ‘corporate communications’ group to communicate the messages about organization to the outside world. Needless to say, the messages are carefully and selectively let out. Of course, the near and dears of the employees will have a much deeper insight about the happenings within the organization. This sort of ’selective communication of good things’ creates the so called ‘Information asymmetry’.
The governments are subject to the utmost scrutiny by the Media and Analysts. The more the scrutiny, the less the information asymmetry. The same level of scrutiny applies to some of the most famous organizations and institutions across the world.
Let me turn my attention towards the Universities and Institutions. There is really no ‘absolute transparency’ in any Universities/Institutions/B-schools. Every institution has the so-called ‘interface’, which is responsible for official communications. Take for example, the recent placement scenario in the B-schools. The news floating around like “86 lakhs International salary”, “34 lakhs international salary” is portraying only the bright side of the situation. No news comes out about the infamous ‘bottom-of-the-pyramid’. This information asymmetry inflates the hopes on millions of aspirants to pursue Business education. After all, only a handful can command such salaries.
But then, if you look from the B-school’s perspective, they are playing the game according the rules. The maturity level of the audience also comes into the picture. The readers if they read some negative news should be mature enough to gauge the unpleasantness and appreciate the reality. There is (mis)expectations from both sides. The day when everyone is mature enough to accept the news and every institute is nice enough to be truly transparent…this ‘information asymmetry’ will die down. Until then…it’s the ‘due diligence’ of the individual which will reduce the information asymmetry for him/her.
I am hoping that the growing popularity of blogs and anonymity provided by the blogs will help in reducing the ‘information asymmetry’. In the absence of anonymity, the individual will face pressure from the institution or the organization in writing about all the things…Sometimes even from his own peers. Because the ‘brand’ of the institute is under the hanging knife.
If there happens to be an individual who is completely dissatisfied with the institution, then no one can stop him/her from writing about this ‘disappointment’ anonymously. But then, some people might dismiss that by saying ‘biased opinion’!
On all probabilities, there will be 50+ blogs for the class of 2007. This is good for increasing the transparency…After all, not all 50 students will have the same opinion! So, gauge the transparency level of an institution by the number of blogs from the institution 
PS: The information asymmetry can be witnessed anywhere and everywhere. Be it the case of buyer-seller, recruiter-interviewee (remember the resumes and PPTs!), Classifieds (matrimonials, rentals, for sales), media (some television channels and news papers are biased too!)…
http://govar.blogspot.com/2005/02/when-spade-is-never-spade.html. This post is more relevant to the topic…
