DOI: 10.3886/icpsr36289.v1
title: Values, Institutional Quality, and Development in Portugal, 2012-2013
title: Version 1

description: 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.
description: 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.
description: 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..
description: Presence of Common Scales: Schwartz Value Scale
description: 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.
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: The Energy Corporation (Energias de Portugal - EDP) Public Use Data 
 DS2: The Energy Corporation (Energias de Portugal - EDP) Restricted Use Data 
 DS3: The Food and Economic Security Authority (Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica - ASAE) Public Use Data 
 DS4: The Food and Economic Security Authority (Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica - ASAE) Restricted Use Data 
 DS5: The Public Health System (Serviço Nacional de Saúde - SNS; Hospital de Santa Maria) Public Use Data 
 DS6: The Public Health System (Serviço Nacional de Saúde - SNS; Hospital de Santa Maria) Restricted Use Data 
 DS7: The Stock Exchange (New York Stock Exchange - Euronext Lisbon - LSE) Public Use Data 
 DS8: The Stock Exchange (New York Stock Exchange - Euronext Lisbon - LSE) Restricted Use Data 
 DS9: The Postal System (Correios de Portugal - CTT), Public Use Data 
 DS10: The Postal System (Correios de Portugal - CTT), Restricted Use Data
description: mail questionnaire, web-based survey 
This study was conducted with support of the Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation of Lisbon.
This study was made available with assistance of Jean C. Nava of Princeton University, Department of Sociology.
description: Employees in key Portuguese institutions. Smallest Geographic Unit: Country
description: Convenience sample of individuals in key Portuguese institutions.