Values, Institutional Quality, and Development in Portugal, 2012-2013 (ICPSR 36289)

Version Date: Mar 28, 2016

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Principal Investigator(s):
Alejandro Portes, Princeton University, and University of Miami; Margarida Marques, New University of Lisbon

https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36289.v1

Version V1

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Summary

The purpose of this study was to arrive at an authoritative and nuanced assessment of the functioning and quality of Portuguese institutions through an intensive analysis of organizations and agencies deemed emblematic of the nation's institutional framework. The study selected a sample of organizations of national scope, public and private, that are both intrinsically important and capable of casting light on the character on the broader national institutional universe. Investigators were asked not only to provide historical background and detailed analysis of the internal structure and modes of operation of each organization, but to rank them in a series of strategic dimensions of institutional quality drawn from previous theoretical literature in Economics and Sociology. These topics included meritocracy, proactivity, immunity to corruption, technological flexibility, and fairness. The organizations included in this study are: the Energy Corporation (Energias de Portugal - EDP), the Food and Economic Security Authority (Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica - ASAE), the Postal System (Correios de Portugal - CTT), the Public Health System (Serviço Nacional de Saúde - SNS; Hospital de Santa Maria), and the Stock Exchange (New York Stock Exchange - Euronext Lisbon - LSE), and the Tax Authority (Autoridade Tributária - AT). Surveys were conducted with personnel of the selected organizations to gauge their general value orientations as well as their attitudes toward the organization itself. Questionnaires were answered anonymously and with full guarantees of confidentiality. Surveys were completed with personnel of five of the six institutions selected for the project; the Tax Authority did not participate. Demographic variables include age, sex, gender, education, occupation, and length of employment.

Citation

Portes, Alejandro, and Marques, Margarida. Values, Institutional Quality, and Development in Portugal, 2012-2013 . Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2016-03-28. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36289.v1

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Funding

Fransisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation of Lisbon

Subject Terms

Geographic Coverage

Smallest Geographic Unit

Country

Restrictions

Public and restricted versions of the data are included in this collection. Due to the sensitive nature of the restricted data, users will need to complete a Restricted Data Use Agreement before they can obtain the restricted version. These forms can be accessed on the download page associated with this dataset.

Distributor(s)

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
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Time Period(s)

2012 -- 2013

Date of Collection

2012 -- 2013

Data Collection Notes

  1. This study was conducted with support of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation of Lisbon.

  2. This study was made available with assistance of Jean C. Nava of Princeton University, Department of Sociology.

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Study Purpose

The study consisted of surveys of the personnel of all selected institutions conducted with the purpose of establishing the evaluation of each organization by the people employed in it and their general value orientations. The original proposal for the project argued that these surveys could provide a check on the evaluations of the institutions provided by the respective investigators and that a value profile of the personnel operating such strategic entities is as, or is more, important than those routinely obtained from the general populations.

Sample

Convenience sample of individuals in key Portuguese institutions.

Time Method

Cross-sectional

Universe

Employees in key Portuguese institutions.

Unit(s) of Observation

Individual

Data Type(s)

Mode of Data Collection

Response Rates

Response rates varied from an almost perfect 96 percent for EDP and a high 87 percent for ASAE to approximately half of the contacted personnel in the Stock Exchange and the Postal System to just 3.4 percent in the Santa Maria Hospital. These differences must be taken into account in any analysis. With the exception of the first two institutions, surveys in the remaining three cannot be considered statistically representative since participation was not determined by project personnel but by the respondents themselves. Despite this serious limitation, the absolute size of samples - including those obtained in CTT-Correios and the Santa Maria Hospital - represents valuable information since returned questionnaires give us a glimpse into the attitudes and value orientations of a sizable component of their respective personnel.

Presence of Common Scales

Schwartz Value Scale

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Original Release Date

2016-03-28

Version History

2018-02-15 The citation of this study may have changed due to the new version control system that has been implemented. The previous citation was:

  • Portes, Alejandro, and Margarida Marques. Values, Institutional Quality, and Development in Portugal, 2012-2013 . ICPSR36289-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2016-03-28. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36289.v1

2016-03-28 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

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Notes

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