Globalisation and the Future Of Governance

Environics Thursday, 9th November 2000 Toronto, Canada

The toughest job a researcher is asked to do is to research the future. Some social scientists can predict with accuracy what will likely happen in the future. Demographers know today what will happen tomorrow in terms of the percentage of old age pensioners in the year 2020, for tomorrow's 65-75 year old OAPs are today's 45-55 year old cohort, and while mortality rates change slightly over time, these too are pretty predictable. Demographers can't tell you who will be alive then, but they can say with remarkable accuracy how many will be, and the demographic and physical breakdown of those.

Weather forecasters claim to get it right about 70% of the time. If we pollsters had their record, we'd have been out of business long ago.

The medical profession, one of the most trusted occupational groups in this or any other country, are even less certain than the weather forecasters.

One doctor recently was asked by one of my colleagues before an operation 'I suspect that half your diagnosis is based on knowledge, and half on judgement?' 'No', he replied, 'more like 10% knowledge and 90% judgement.'

Not only are we survey researchers at the mercy of people's opinions and attitudes, but the weather, the medical profession, the economy, the political scene, and all those indefinable things that make up perk up, or hunker down.

What we do in our trade-unions

My definition, for what it is worth, is 'Public opinion is the collective view [of a representative sample of] a defined population.'

Thus workers in a factory, of interest to the factory manager, trade union or civic leaders in the local community; residents of a local community, of interest to civic leaders again, politicians, the local media, pressure groups, industrialists thinking of siting a plant there; students at a university, of interest to the government students at LSE when they conducted an opinion poll in advance of a mock American presidential election, and had more taking part in the poll than took part in the mock election! (which, asked I, was the more representative?); 'certain to' voters, of greater interest to me at the last British general election in determining who I thought was going to win, and of greater interest to my client, The Times, and therefore of greater interest to the broadcast media who diffused my findings, and therefore to the political actors whose hold on office or prospect thereof was promised or threatened, and therefore to the public: full circle. Or young people, or the elderly, or women, or Captains of Industry, or institutional investors, or editors, or parliamentarians, or any slice of society that can be defined with precision and replicability.

There are five things that we measure with the tools of our trade-unions:

• behaviour
• knowledge
• opinions
• attitudes
• values

The first two are easy to define and understand. Behaviour is what we do, and knowledge is what we know (or think we know). The other three are certainly more difficult to define and understand, and certainly much less commonly agreed. I finally settled on 'collective view' in my definition of public opinion to incorporate the three levels of thought that I perceive that we are trying to measure, opinions, attitudes and values. I have defined these terms, rather too poetically I fear for scholarly adoption, as

"opinions: the ripples on the surface of the public's consciousness, shallow, and easily changed; attitudes: the currents below the surface, deeper and stronger; and values: the deep tides of public mood, slow to change, but powerful."

Opinions in my own view are those low salience, little thought about reactions to pollsters' questions about issues of the day, easily manipulated by question wording or the news of the day, not very important to the respondent, not vital to their well being or that of their family, unlikely to have been the topic of discussion or debate between them and their relations, friends and work mates, easily blown about by the winds of the politicians and the media.

Attitudes, the currents below the surface, derive in my view from a deeper level of consciousness, are held with some conviction, and are likely to have been held for some time and after thought, discussion, perhaps the result of behaviour (Festinger's cognitive dissonance), and harder to confront or confound.

Examples of these are the Scots' support for a separate assembly, held with some force over generations and based on strong beliefs that they are not fairly represented either in Parliament or in our system of government, perhaps attitudes to the taking of medicines or exercise, forms of education, local authority service delivery for services used frequently and by large percentages of citizens such as rubbish collection, street lighting and schools.

Values then are the deepest of all, the powerful tides, learned parentally in many cases, and formed early in life and not likely to change, only harden as we grow older. These include belief in God, attitudes to religion generally, views about abortion or the death penalty, family values, and the like. It is almost impossible for these to be changed by persuasion, by media discussion or propaganda, or by the positions and arguments of political debate, except over long periods, concerted thought and discussions, a feeling that one is out of step with others they know and respect, and, often, new evidence, changing circumstances or continuing behavioural experiences.

The tools of our trade-unions are chiefly the qualitative and quantitative methodologies that have been developed over the past sixty or so years.

What polls (and I use the term more or less interchangeably with surveys, as does the Oxford English Dictionary, although there are those who use 'polls' to describe 'political' soundings) cannot tell us well are likely future actions of the public generally and especially the future behaviour of individuals. They are better at telling us what , rather than why .

To find out why is the principal function of qualitative research and especially focus groups which major on the interaction of the group rather that the question and answer, 'expert' on respondent, format of the individual depth interview. Focus groups aren't very good at sussing out what people do, or might do.

Polls are not particularly good at exploring concepts unfamiliar to respondents, nor are they good at identifying the behaviour, knowledge or views of tiny groups of the population, except at disproportionate expense.

My own position on the role of polls, surveys and assessment of public opinion by the way is one not of advocacy of any particular policy, subject or topic, but of the provider of both objective and subjective information, obtained systematically and objectively, analysed dispassionately and delivered evenly. (Worcester 1981) I do feel passionately about the principle that decisions about public policy (and both party policy and corporate policy for that matter) should be made in the knowledge of rather than in the absence of the knowledge of the public's view.

Indeed, a heartening trend I have observed during the past two decades is an increasing recognition in industry that public consent and goodwill are vital to their prosperity.

Communications

The speed of communications today means that more information, in both width and depth, is available to more people, faster, than ever before. The Internet, mobile phones, pagers, laptops, scanners, modems, faxes, photocopiers and digital photography -- most unknown when I came here over 30 years ago -- are all now employed to ensure what one knows we all know.

Knowledge is still power, as it always has been, but now in the hands of the many and not just the few. To cite one small example, the Canadian Government failed to ban the publication of opinion polls during their last election effectively, because the results were available on the Internet as soon as they could be sent, electronically, out of Canada, by our friends at Environics in Toronto and we could put them up on our web site, for all interested Canadians to see. It was big news in Canada, and was on the hourly news bulletins. Our web site hits went up by a factor of four that week.

We all know the speed at which money travels and the implication that has for financial management and control, for governments, for multinational companies, for investors and for you personally.

The past century has been called the 'Measured Century', the first when economic, social, political and environmental conditions have been put to the discipline imposed by statistical systems, tracked over time, and the results distributed to both policy makers and, more and more frequently, to the people. First to the educated elites in the first half of the century, and in the latter half much more widely, both within countries and cross-nationally.

I can remember as a young McKinsey associate seeing the first input-output table, by industrial sector, from the American Federal Government., and realising that an important event had occurred. And having public sector clients awed by public sector value for money in public services comparisons. That was in the early '60s, when our trade-unions was in its infancy.

Over the years the work you and I do has modernised and globalised. The World Values Survey, the Eurobarometer, this past five years, the Latinobarуmetro, and for nearly three years, the 'People's Panel', a world first, for the British Government's Cabinet Office, have been used to inform policy makers in both business and government not just people's opinion, and attitudes, but also their values, to help develop products and services provided by industry to consumers, but also 'joined-up government to citizens, for the people, and by the people, not to dictate to policy makers, but to better inform them, so they make better, more user friendly policy.

Business in Britain

While we find over those thirty years that at least two thirds of people (68%) consistently agree that 'Large companies are essential for the nation's growth and expansion', some eight in ten (78%)-believe that "As they grow bigger, companies usually get cold and impersonal in their relations with people'. But while in 1971 a majority of the British, 53%, believed that '-the profits of large companies help to make things better for everyone who uses their products and services", now under a third, 28%, believe they do. While these are not happy findings for business, they won't sink the ship. But ponder this: in 1969, my first year here, three people in four thought that a company with a good reputation would not sell poor quality products and now just over half, 58% do.

There has been a sharp and sustained fall in those who say they believe that 'The profits of large companies help to make things better for everyone who buys their products and services' over the past two decades. While in 1969 the British public agreed with this statement by a factor of about two to one, now by nearly the same ratio the British public disagrees.

And two people in three in 1999 think that British companies neither pay enough attention to their social responsibility, nor their treatment of the environment. As do 39% of Captains of Industry themselves and as do 76% of MPs, including 83% of Labour MPs. These are worrying figures, and the trends are down. There is a mistrust of institutions generally, and both business and government suffer from it. That can't be good for the country.

Only 28% of the public tell us that they trust business leaders to tell the truth; even fewer, 23% say they trust government ministers to tell the truth. That can't be good for the country either.

In the foreword to the our annual Motorola Report "The British and Technology", a study we have carried out for them annually for the last eight years, Motorola UK Chairman David Brown pointed out that there have been social disparities reflected in technology usage -- the divide between the 'IT haves and IT have nots', which followed traditional differences in income and social class. This theme is still being picked up, and Chancellor Gordon Brown has developed a host of measures to break the barrier between what he called "the wired-up superclass and information underclass".

Change

The pace of change, corporate, product, political and consumer, is accelerating at an accelerating rate. To some people that's frightening all of the time. And to most of us it's frightening at least some of the time.

Longevity threatens economic stability, global money movement and speed and independence of communications from government restrictions threaten economic sovereignty. The family structure is under threat, with the greatest projected growth the single person household, trends to the service economy and an increasing proportion of women in the workforce, downsizing and growth in part-time jobs, equally desired by both men and women, the rise of the civic society, rejection of role models and loss of confidence in institutions, acceptance of feminism and informality, loss of status and breaking down of hierarchies all present both threats and opportunities to our society.

Europe and America's share of world trade-unions is approximately the same: about 18%. Gigantic mergers are announced every day. Deregulation, technological change (look at the public reaction to GMOs!), corporate restructuring, all are having their impact.

Our work with the Socio-Vision consortium of research companies across Europe has identified a number of 'cross-cultural convergences' to be taken into account:

• A growing gap between institutions and people
• A move from self-centeredness to autonomy
• A flow from ideology to the need for meaning
• A trend from an organised social structure to a network culture
• A current from feminism to feminisation of society
• A drift from rational to polysensorial

  All of these will affect our society. Let me develop these for a moment.

• A growing gap between institutions and people
  • Lack of leadership, failure of top-down solutions, institutional inertia
  • People are less hierarchical and formal in family life and daily interaction, less submissive to authority and status quo, rigid in planning of their lives
  • Also more interested in self management and organisation, willing to join 'grass roots' efforts to combat problems and intolerant towards inefficiencies and lack of voice, in tune with authenticity and integrity
  • Business ethics matter and have to be transparent, think small and local as well as big, authoritative communication is less credible, less arrogance wanted
• A move from self-centeredness to autonomy
  • More about "me-you" now, move away from self-gratification, people wanting to do things for themselves e.g. DIY, learning, health, growing frustration with institution e.g. informal association and barter exchange
  • Rethinking personalisation so products suitable for self and sharing
  • Good opportunities for products and services offering self-diagnosis and self help
  • Growth of networking and autonomy -- personal consultants and life organisers, product kits that allow people to make their own mixes from food to furniture + anything supporting the autonomous individual
• A flow from ideology to the need for meaning
  • More emptiness in people lives with decline of old ideologies and belief systems
  • Greater search for meaning in everyday life, motivates many activities including purchasing
  • People want an anchor in their lives but want their own meaning systems to be flexible
  • Wanting balance in their lives and focus on quality of life not lifestyle
  • Good will for brands with strong core identity
• A trend from an organised social structure to a network culture
  • Ease of communication has resulted in massive increase in level and diversity of interpersonal contact
  • Increase in word of mouth and more 'human' networks
  • People also want to 'unplug' when they want privacy
  • Opportunities for new services which put people in touch with products, information and other people
• A current from feminism to feminisation of society
  • Female values pervading society -- team spirit, quality of life, complex lives, aesthetics, wellness
  • Personality, softness etc more important in products
• A drift from rational to polysensorial
  • People more in touch with emotions, feelings and intuition and want to experience through senses
  • Greater sensitivity to aesthetics
  • Heightened interest in design content
  • Taste is more minimalist and neo-romantic
  • Sensorial aspect of products must be enhanced + products which embody female values

  Other convergences include

• Going from saving time to savouring time
  • Changing relationships with time -- experiencing different qualities of time
  • People want products and services which let them take a break and savour time
• Going from pleasure-seeking to parallel crude and discerning hedonism
  • Pleasure still important element of consumption but must display one or other of above
  • Crude hedonism is particularly strong in Britain, especially among young men; growing among young women
  • Desire to experience intense, instant pleasure and to accept risk and acidic humour
  • Discerning hedonism also on the increase -- more middle-aged, better educated and more about appreciating refinement and nuances
  • Mingles with attraction to authenticity and meaning
• Going from 'ecology' to daily environmental friendliness
  • Now entered everyday life and increasingly taken for granted
  • Increased expectation of companies -- especially sustainability
  • Growing sensitivity of natural products (authenticity not ecological)
• Diversification of Attitudes towards Technology
  • People want end benefit and not hi tech, especially women
  • New technology per se is of less interest
• Emerging Consumption Patterns: Little Motors of Consumption
  • Signs of increased desire to consume but not necessarily translated into purchases
  • Marketing strategies not necessarily in line with consumer thinking
  • Consumers looking for something new -- authenticity, small luxury, meaningful products, suitable for me, optimal product lines, new forms of communication
  • Need to tap into latent desire and make small changes which could make a big impact: alleviate sources of micro-stress, provide easy mental access, increase availability, shorten a product line, offer only essential options improve the aesthetics

But there is a growing sense that daily life has become too stressful and that security is undermined. In the application of Maslow's 'Hierarchy of Human Needs', sustenance is assured, but security is threatened. Esteem is under attack, and self-actualisation comes hard.

Crude hedonism is on the rise; more drugs, and more anti-social behaviour, and growing faster with young women than young men; too many are what we call the 'underwolves' , which we define as the underdog who bites back .

In the rich world today there are three people in work to support one pensioner; by 2030 this ratio will fall to 1.5 to 1; most of the people in this audience today will be a pensioner. It will take between 9% and 16% of the GDP in these countries to support today's pension promises, never mind the increased cost of health care and housing that will be required.

Now pensioners represent one in five of the adult population, and one in four will be a pensioner in two decades. The typical retired household occupant in 20 years will be a lone woman.

All of this will result in resentments building up

• Young against old
• Poor against rich
• Rural against urban
• Scientists against the People
• Producers against consumers
• The People against the Institutions
• Central government against local government
• Globalised against the globalisers
• Everybody against big business

Engineers want high tech; people want high touch. And most challenging of all: Working class groups feel excluded and are anxious about new technologies and most resistant to new ways of working

The media are part of the problem, not part of the solution.

In light of these changing needs and wants, what does it mean when, according to our last Annual Study of 'The British and Technology' for Motorola that:

• The proportion of the workforce -- nearly half -- who fear they are being left behind on IT skills has changed little over the last four years: 1996 -- 46%; 1997 -- 45%; 1998 47%; 1999 46%?
• One in four workers think that IT developments mean that they spend more time working now than two years ago?

And what are the implications that:

• The MORI Technology Tracker, which monitors uptake of various technologies, finds Internet penetration in Britain at 35%.
• Four in ten Internet users have already bought something on-line.
• Half of people in work, and everybody in this room, use a PC at work, and most do at home; in fact, one in four people in Britain have home desk PCs.
• Four people in ten (39%) have a mobile phone
• One in 20 has made an international call over the Internet. But almost half (46%) of the adult population in Britain are not aware that they can -- yet.
• Almost half the public say they would like to bank electronically
• One in three say they'd like to purchase travel tickets electronically
• Almost a third, 31%, say they'd like to shop electronically
• Roughly half of the British public say they would like to vote electronically?

Previously, we have also found that over a third, 36%, say they'd like to fill in census forms electronically. And just under a third. 31 %, say they'd like to fill in their tax forms electronically.

And what are the implications from our research amongst children and parents that:

• Our research for Compaq showed that more than three in four (77%) of British 10-16 year olds find learning about the Internet and technology more fun than maths and English. About the same proportion -- about 4 million children -- find playing on the Internet more fun than watching television.
• And nearly half believe that their school should spend more money on computers than on teachers and books. In fact, more than half believes they learn more from the Internet than books.

And Motorola were delighted when our i-generation study for them showed that if 10-16 year olds could choose one piece of technological equipment, top of the list would be a mobile phone.

The i-generation has very traditional expectations. Over half expect to get married and buy a house, 42% expect to go to university, 43% expect to be rich and one in four expects to run their own business.

Our other work for Motorola has shown:

• Eight in nine, 87%, of children think that it's important to learn computers at school.
• Eight in ten, 82%, of children say that computers make learning more enjoyable, and six in ten. 59%, say they don't get as much computer tuition in school as they'd like.
• But nearly half, 46%, of parents worry that children spend too much time on computers and do not mix with other children enough, And over six in ten, 62%, are concerned that children prefer to play on computers than get some exercise.

And it's not only the younger generation we need to be mindful of. Our 'Silver Surfers' study for Which? On-line last year showed that there were almost one million over 55s using the internet.

And what are the implications from our recent study on the impact of technology for the BBC that:

• Two in three corporate communications managers in British industry agree that 'We have the right communications technology, but do not use it to its full extent'.
• Only 52% think their company uses the Internet effectively, and 11 % of those we spoke to had never (yet) used the Internet themselves -- one in 25 had never used e-mail!
• And a third, 32%, say the main challenge for their organisation is exploiting information technology and new media.

Governance

I mentioned earlier that there is receptivity in the electorate to electronic government and at the same time dissatisfaction with being governed.

This Government currently in control in Britain aims to make policy by learning and not thinking it always has the right answer. By listening to, and learning from, people's views, government is better able to provide the services that people want.

The use of surveys by government dates back to the Second World War and these days most government agencies use a variety of market research methods to inform their thinking. The People's Panel we are doing for the Cabinet Office, and therefore for all of Government, takes this one step further by providing a research tool that can provide consistency in approach over time to examining the public's views of public services.

Dr Jack Cunningham when Minister for the Cabinet Office described it as a milestone in their drive to improve the service government provides to the citizen. He called it a unique development and a world first at a national level.

It has been used recently to carry out research about the development of electronic government.

The Government has published the results from the research using the panel. The summary and the full topline results have also been published on the service first Internet site at www.servicefirst.gov.uk. And on the MORI website as well, on www.ipsos-mori.com

At first, Sir Humphrey was having fits, but I think he's getting used to a more open (just) government.

Key findings from the People's Panel research include:

• Strong support for being able to contact government through call centres. But 9 out of 10 people thought it was important for a person to answer rather than hear a recorded menu of options.
• Significant support for local services becoming more directly responsive, for example, through referenda and the election of local mayors;
• People's satisfaction with individual public services increases in proportion to how well a service keeps them informed about what it does. Openness is key to public satisfaction.
• Attitudes towards new technology are mixed. On balance, people agree that it will make dealing with government easier; but confidentiality and other issues cause concerns. There is also a mis-match between those more attuned to the potential for electronic government and those who make most use of public services.

The benefits from the People's Panel of being able to deal with the government electronically are seen as:

• It would save time (46%)
• You'd be dealt with more quickly (45%)
• Easier (43%)
• Convenience (42%)

But the drawbacks were seen as:

• Problems with equipment might cause errors (42%)
• Your personal details might not be kept confidential (39%)
• If it broke down your details might be lost (37%)
• You might find it difficult to use (31 %)

By 52% to 16%, more than 3: 1, people agreed that new technology will make it easier for them to deal with the government.

Conclusions

All of us here today know that new technology brings benefits to people both through business and through government. Yet half or more of the public aren't convinced. It ain't easy to either prosper in business or govern in a technological age. Yet that is the Age we are in, in this, the first year of a new millennium.

We have to worry not only about adults who are sceptical or afraid of new technology, we have to worry about the children who are as well.

They are not many, but they include the one in twenty who disagree that it is important for them to learn about how to use computers at school, the 8% who reject the idea that computers make learning more enjoyable, and the 15% who say they find computers too complicated to use.

Technology brings people together across the world. It can be, is being and should be a force for good in our society. Information is power, and technology is an enabler of people power in the hands of the people. And that's got to be good.

Our Socio-Vision arm, Socio-Consult, found in our most recent study that

• There is more exacting expectations for all aspects of service performance delivery, lower tolerance for product failure/shortcomings, rejection of delays, hassle implications for workers in service industries, and that includes government.
• There is increasing concern about the positive influence of technology, and growing scepticism of the 'man in the white coat'.
• That there will be more women than men in the workforce by 2005
• Half of people in work, and everybody in this room, use a PC at work, and most do at home; in fact, one in four people in Britain now have home desk PCs.
• Young people are downsizing, wanting a better balance between work and homelife.
• Many are adjusting their goals and being ready to change tack, driven by the uncertainties of life.

As I say, technology brings people together across the world, across our nation, and across social divides. It can be, is being and should be a force for good in our society. Information is power, and technology is an enabler of people power in the hands of the people. And that's got to be good for Britain and Europe, and for the USA, and for Canada, and for the world, if together we who do research can help our clients in the corporate sector, in the civic sector, and in the NGOs to understand, to anticipate, to proactively respond and ... to stay loose.

Thank you.