Vulnerable consumers and satisfaction with public services: does country matter?
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852317691341 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
Vulnerable consumers and
satisfaction with public services:
does country matter?
Judith Clifton
University of Cantabria, Spain
Daniel Dı
´az-Fuentes
University of Cantabria, Spain
Marcos Ferna
´ndez-Gutie
´rrez
University of Cantabria, Spain
Abstract
Within Public Administration, increased attention is being paid to ‘vulnerable citizens’ –
groups of citizens who, for reasons beyond their control, are disadvantaged in com-
parison to other citizens – when consuming public services. Initial research focused on
how citizens’ socio-economic background shapes their behaviour and satisfaction.
Citizens, however, take decisions within a context, but we know little about how
their experiences differ depending on their country of residence. We comparatively
analyse the experience of vulnerable citizens in telecommunications and electricity
markets in three large European Union countries, selected to represent ‘advanced’,
‘intermediate’ and ‘laggard’ stages of reform. We first establish that citizens’ socio-
economic characteristics matter for patterns of expenditure and perceptions of service
affordability and then show how citizen vulnerability differs depending on country con-
text. Results are useful to practitioners seeking to target regulation to improve the
experiences of vulnerable citizens.
Points for practitioners
Practitioners recognize that public service reform has brought with it greater market
complexity and choice, and that this poses challenges to citizens, particularly vulnerable
citizens. Initial empirical work demonstrated that citizens’ socio-economic background
affects their satisfaction; however, we know little about how this vulnerability is shaped
by country context. We analyse electricity and telecommunications markets in three
large European Union countries, establishing that consumers’ socio-economic
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
2019, Vol. 85(2) 264–285
!The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852317691341
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Corresponding author:
Judith Clifton, Department of Economics, University of Cantabria, Av de los Castros SN, Santander,
Cantabria, 39005, Spain.
Email: judith.clifton@unican.es
background matters for citizens’ expenditure and perceptions of ser vice affordability,
and then demonstrating that country context also influences these experiences.
Less-educated, elderly and non-employed citizens experience more frequent problems
with these services than other citizens, and the country context conditions these
experiences significantly.
Keywords
behavioural sciences, country differences, public infrastructure services, regulation, vul-
nerable citizens
Introduction
From the late 1980s, public infrastructure services – including telecommunications
and electricity – underwent significant, market-oriented reform, including liberal-
ization, deregulation and privatization policies, across the European Union (EU).
While the UK was a first mover, most other EU countries followed suit, albeit
unevenly, by country and sector (Clifton et al., 2006). The stated beneficiaries of
these reforms were citizens – recast as consumers – who would enjoy greater choice
and lower prices. Simultaneously, following international trends associated with
New Public Management, the European Commission (EC) commenced surveying
citizens about their satisfaction with service performance after reform.
Gradually, evidence mounted that public infrastructure services reform was
more complex than first thought (Bel and Warner, 2016; Chakrabati and Ray,
2017; Clifton et al., 2016, Kuhlmann and Wayenberg, 2016). From a ‘top-down’
perspective, attaining real competition was challenging as some incumbents clung
on to market power (Fiorio and Florio, 2011). From a bottom-up – or citizen –
perspective, reform success had been predicated on an ‘active consumer’; however,
the EC (2012) acknowledged that citizens were often less informed and proactive
than had initially been assumed. Scholars (Clifton et al., 2011, 2014; Jilke, 2015)
and practitioners (EC, 2012, 2015a; EP, 2012) worried that vulnerable citizen
groups may be less well positioned than other citizens to deal with newly reformed
public infrastructure markets as they were more complex than previously, due to
choice, switching and so on, and may present particular difficulties to vulnerable
citizens. The salience of the concept of ‘vulnerable citizens’ increased.
Practitioners therefore called for more empirical evidence on vulnerable citizens’
experiences in diverse markets (Van Bavel et al., 2013), including liberalized public
service markets (Sousa Lourenc¸o et al., 2016), with a view to implementing specific
new regulation (EC, 2015b; ECCG, 2013; EP, 2012). Unfortunately, of the EC
surveys conducted on citizen satisfaction from 2000 onwards (with the singular
exception of EC, 2007), opinions only of citizens who consumed services were
recorded. This biased the survey results since opinions of citizens who could not
afford/access/use services were excluded. In this article, we focus on the unique data
set of all citizens (EC, 2007).
Clifton et al. 265
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