Consumer Perceptions of Transparency: A Scale Development and Validation

Transparency is an essential part of the effort to build a socially responsible brand. Communicating with stakeholders about labor violations in manufacturing is an important aspect of this transparency. Previous research has suggested that consumer perception of transparency is related to brand trust, which in turn increases aspects of the consumer–brand relationship such as loyalty. In this study, items measuring consumer attitudes toward the transparency of social responsibility were developed, and multistep analysis was used to demonstrate that the resulting measure called Transparency is reliable and valid. The measure developed in this study can be used to explore consumer perceptions of the social responsibility efforts of brands and other organizations.