REPOSITÓRIO CIENTÍFICO
PRESERVAÇÃO, DISSEMINAÇÃO E ACESSO ABERTO À PRODUÇÃO CIENTÍFICA
Entradas recentes
Measuring the use of financial information by politicians in local government
2024-09-27 - JORGE, SUSANA; GOMES, PATRÍCIA; PIMENTEL, LILIANA; NOGUEIRA, SÓNIA; BAIÃO, LARA
This article presents a tool to assess levels of financial information (FI) use by politicians—the FIU Index. The index provides a multidimensional perspective, whereby items of information used are combined with the main types of meetings where FI is discussed (annual budgets and accounts), and also with members of political bodies (local council, parliament, executive, government, political committee, etc.) in which FI is used. Entities may be ranked as below or above the average of those considered for the analysis each year. The FIU Index evidences the need for improvement, so that politicians can make the best use of FI to improve decision-making and dialogue with various stakeholders.
The importance of making financial information (FI) available to politicians is well recognized. However, despite the recent attention by scholars to the use of FI in political contexts and by politicians, empirical research has failed to produce accurate tools to assess the degree to which politicians make use of FI. This exploratory study proposes a new tool to analyse levels of FI use—the FIU Index. The level of use is assessed by the number of times an FI term is mentioned by politicians. A test case using the new index in Portuguese municipalities illustrates its potential.
Financial resilience perspective on COVID-19 business support, a comparative study of four European countries
2024-06-04 - HELDEN, JAN VAN; BUDDING, TJERK; GOMES, PATRÍCIA; HESSE, MARIO; SMOLDER, CARINE
This paper investigates COVID-19 business support in Belgium, Germany,
the Netherlands, and Portugal. Simple and generally applicable programs
for wage and fixed-cost support are predominant. From a financial resilience
perspective, support programs can be seen as coping responses to the crisis
through attempts at bouncing back to the situation before the virus
outbreak. This also holds for the dynamics of the support during the
pandemic, where governments balanced the desire to return to normal
economic circumstances that called for stricter access conditions, and the
need to provide support for a longer-lasting pandemic that required the
opposite. Bouncing-forward responses, such as setting up new post-shock
configurations, were largely absent, which is likely to be due to the need for
quick and adequate responses that gave limited time for critical reflection.
The impacts of business support on the number of bankruptcies and
employment figures were positive. Unemployment and fiscal impacts
diverged among the four countries, and it is suggested that governmental
structure was influential: unitary states performed better than federal states.
The paper also reflects on the lessons learned from COVID-19 for support
in future crises, like the recent energy crisis, and points to an increasing
attention to information-sharing within the government system, but also
notes limited progress in critical thinking
Drivers of the use of digital platforms by Portuguese parishes – how small government entities struggle with the demand for transparency
2024-08-09 - Gomes, Patrícia; Budding, Tjerk; Fernandes, Maria José
Purpose
The provision of online information through the use of digital platforms (websites and social networks) can be helpful for public sector organisations to promote transparency and accountability, thereby bringing it closer to citizens, more accessible and with higher added value for society. Whereas the call for government transparency is manifest and seems to be equal for all parts of government, this paper investigates whether small government entities are able to cope with this demand. In addition, the drivers of digital platforms are investigated in the context of Portuguese parishes.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper follows a quantitative research approach based on an original data set with more than 3,000 observations collected in two different time periods (2015 and 2020), which looks at the parishes’ use of website and Facebook.
Findings
Findings show that about half of Portuguese parishes, which are mostly small entities with on average fewer than 3,500 inhabitants, have an institutional website, whereas almost three out of four have Facebook. The empirical analyses reveal that a lack of organisational capacity of small entities can be an obstacle for the use of an institutional website and of Facebook. Furthermore, factors from the provider side (e.g. being part of a merger, participation in previous elections) and the user side (e.g. having access to broadband internet) are also found to have an influence on the adoption, use, and dropping of a digital platform.
Originality/value
The use of an original data set with more than 3,000 observations, and the research of the influence of size as a proxy of organisational capacity on the presence of parishes on the internet and Facebook, are innovative elements of this paper. In addition, this study adds to the knowledge about the influence of organisational, political, and socio-demographic characteristics on the use of digital platforms by small government entities.