Transparency through European corporate governance codes

Prior studies barely include transparency when analyzing Corporate Governance Codes. This article reflects the shortcomings of those codes in relation to transparency and proposes a new perspective beyond the concept of disclosure as dissemination of information. In this sense, it investigates how well transparency is advocated in 24 European Corporate Governance Codes by assessing not only what information is posed in the recommendations, rules or guidelines of each code, but also who is responsible to communicate, to whom or how that information should be communicated. Codes are classified according to the issuer type and the country's legal system, testing differences by using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Our results support the idea that the characteristics of the issuer type - and not the country's legal system - explain differences regarding transparency among Corporate Governance Codes. Our article is especially relevant for policy makers because it reflects the importance of a multidisciplinary team when developing future updates of Corporate Governance Codes. © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.