Abstract

In contemporary organizational life, credible communication is part and parcel of making transparency work as a good governance tool. At the same time, there is more to communication than disclosure of information—it is also about the quality of openness, the ways the organization narrates its actions, and what tools it utilizes to keep the stakeholders in the loop. In this light, this article explores how the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), the world’s governing body of motorsports, has used its official magazine “AUTO” to integrate transparency into its good governance reform initiated in 2009. Based on a discourse-historical analysis of all editions of AUTO between 2012 and 2018, three discursive devices were identified as crucial to the FIA’s transparency work: “consistency,” “facilitation,” and “discretion.” Whereas all three devices contribute to nuancing the FIA’s organizational actions, the FIA lacks an interactive procedure to adequately justify transparency’s role in good governance reform. This analysis marks an incentive for researchers to examine the theoretical implications of seeing transparency as a communicative act, as well as being a practical nod to sport governing bodies on the importance of engaging with stakeholders as part of their transparency policies.