DOI: 10.3886/e204581v1
title: Water Supplier Decisions & Institutional Change During Transitions - Focus Groups

description: This research investigates the influence of
institutions on the selection of adaptive actions by local public service providers (drinking water utilities) as they seek to respond to climatic stressors. Focus
groups were conducted with high-level managers and supervisors from mid-sized
drinking water utilities in the USA during Summer 2023. Participants were
presented with a description of hypothesized institutional dependencies and
asked how each of those institutional dependencies affect them and whether other institutional dependencies exist.
This discussion was followed by a realistic, yet hypothetical, scenario which
described a utility deciding between two potential adaptive actions after a
flood event. Once the scenario was presented, participants were asked to
deliberate how, if at all, each of the hypothesized institutional dependencies
would affect selection and implementation of each of the two potential adaptive
actions. Participants were also asked to describe any additional factors that
would influence the implementation of the two potential adaptive actions. <br>
description: N/A<br>
description: Response Rates: N/A<br>
description: Presence of Common Scales: N/A<br>
description: N/A<br>
description: High level managers and supervisors of mid-sized drinking water utilities located in regions at risk of flooding in the USA<br>. Smallest Geographic Unit: N/A
description: other; One pilot and three
full focus groups were conducted with representatives from 17 drinking water
suppliers. Focus groups were conducted over Zoom, audio recorded, and transcribed.
The following steps were taken to de-identify the transcripts and prepare it
for public and long-term archival.    

 

<br><br>1) All recordings
were transcribed using an AI software. 

  <br>2) Transcriptions
were lightly edited manually for accuracy and consistency.  <br><br>3) Files were named
using the following template: FocusGroupA_MMDDYYY, where:   

A = focus group
 number <br>MMDDYYYY = is
 the date of the focus group<br>

4) Each utility in the focus group was given a unique identifying number [hereafter, Utility Number].<br><br>5) Identifying
information was removed using the following replacements, all replacements are formatted in <b>Bold</b> in the transcriptions. <br>Utility Name was replaced
by Utility Number Participant Name was
replaced by Participant Utility Number, followed by a or b if there were multiple
participants from that Utility. <br>Position Titles were redacted.Utility City or State were replaced
by Utility Number City or State.Specific Characteristics of the Utility (e.g.,
bond rating, meter connections, costs, etc.) were redacted. Governmental Agencies or
Municipal Departments were replaced by generic name for that type of agency.Geographic names (cities,
counties, major rivers, roadways) were replaced by text describing the type of geographic feature.Project names were redacted.Hurricane or Major
Weather Events names were replaced by a weather event number.Dates of Events were
redacted. <br>Company Names were redacted. <br>