From Authority to Trusted Advisor: The Utility's Changing Role
Utilities will need more and more capable customers who take greater ownership of their energy and make good decisions with regards to the product, service, and program innovations that enable energy ownership. Trusted advisors, whether live or automated, who are credible, reliable, intimate, and customer oriented, can help customers with these choices in a way that establishes a stronger relationship between customer and utility.
Innovation in the Brazilian Electricity Sector: current scenarios and trends
— There are three main trends in the electricity sector in upcoming years: digitalization, decentralization and decarbonization, changes that are an opportunity for utilities to become more profitable through innovation development. In this scenario, the establishment of cooperation networks between large companies of the electricity sector and start-ups may be a solution to foster innovation, and the purpose of this article is to analyse whether this solution may also be suitable for the Brazilian context. In order to discuss and characterize the innovation process in the Brazilian electricity sector companies, a review of the service innovation literature and regarding the role ofstart-ups to innovation generation in the electricity sector was carried out. Furthermore, data from the latest edition of the Brazilian National Technological Innovation Survey (PINTEC) was selected in order to analyse the main characteristics of innovation in the Brazilian Electricity Sector. The results from this article confirms findings from specialized literature that states that service companies have a larger outward degree of innovation development in comparison to inward innovation, which, in turn, confirms the importance of network relationships for companies to gain access to a broad and versatile set of resources for innovation.
Drug Testing in Public Agencies: Are Personnel Directors Doing Things Right?
The results of a survey of 300 public agencies personnel directors are reported. The report describes the drug and alcohol testing policies and procedures now used by these respondents. The implications of the survey results are evaluated in terms of critical issues of personnel management practice and public policy: (1) the protection of employees' constitutional rights, (2) the public's right to an effective public service, and (3) management's need to reduce liability risks and to increase program effectiveness.