Rita Martins

Promoting sustainable residential water use: a Portuguese case study in ownership and regulation

This article reports a survey of consumers of water in the Portuguese autonomous region of Madeira. The survey was designed to establish the extent to which bills for that service inform users about critical aspects of the supply and encourage them to behave in environmentally-friendly ways. The evidence collected suggests that the bills lack this educational quality, suggesting that they should be redesigned to have that effect. The results constitute a wake-up call for regulators in this and other service industries: focusing on the design of bills may well have very positive effects in the development of more environmentally-friendly consumption, behaviour, and attitudes. This recognises the need for communities to own the water scarcity problem by responding in ways that ensure sustainable levels of water consumption.

Equidade: a chave para explicar os tarifários de água em Portugal?

Given the gap in the literature regarding equity analyses in the water industry, the objective of this paper is to evaluate whether or not income-related equity considerations are embodied in water supply tariffs, in the Portuguese municipalities. Essential minimum quantities of water are determined for representative households, which are then compared with the first tariff block’s upper limit applying on their respective municipalities. Next, representative households are ranked by costs underlying minimum quantities and by income. The methodology used in this paper is also based on concentration curves and indexes. We conclude that payments of water bills are regressive, or, in other words, there is inequity favourable to the better-off representative households.

Privatization in Portugal: Employee Owners or Just Happy Employees?

The aim of this article is to evaluate the impact of measures designed to enhance employee ownership in the context of the Portuguese privatization process. The authors seek to quantify the advantages offered to employees in the bundle of special conditions they were entitled to, using data from 60 privatization operations between 1989 and 1999. The risky decision to buy shares in their own firms sometimes enabled employees to make a good investment, when stock market activity permitted it. In other cases, in spite of the breadth of the potential benets offered to encourage employees, the results associated with these investments were actually negative.

Data quality requirements for water bills

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to uncover the customers’ concerns with the information disclosed in water services invoices and to analyse them with reference to the data quality dimensions usually proposed in the literature. In the context of services of general interest invoices are particularly relevant as a vehicle to convey information to all consumers. Design/methodology/approach Based on the principles of quality planning, the research uses a qualitative approach to identify the data quality requirements of water invoices. Customer voices were collected by means of focus groups and their meanings analysed using an affinity diagram. Findings Findings show that plain language efforts and strategies to enhance trust on the service provided need to be further reinforced. Consumers’ requirements together with the regulator recommendations also confirm the data quality dimensions identified in the literature. Practical implications This research highlights that avoiding technical language and making visible the consequences of different consumption levels on the amounts to be paid is essential when designing water invoices. Moreover, it emphasises that there is still room for improvement in the way the economic regulator performs its role in ensuring the provision of sound information. Originality/value This research addresses a literature gap by conducting a study on data quality requirements outside the context of information systems for organisations. The study is original because it looks at water invoices as a “product” that can be designed to meet the needs of their users.