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The purpose of this study is to explore user satisfaction with in-house facility management (FM) services in multi-tenanted office buildings in Accra, Ghana using a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) approach.

The study assessed user satisfaction with FM service quality by using a POE of their perceptions about the attitude and courtesy of the FM personnel, the reliability of the FM services they provide, the responsiveness and the competence of the service providers. The study used walk-throughs and questionnaire surveys as the POE methods. One hundred and twenty-one users from 22 multi-tenanted office buildings, who have actively used the FM services for at least a year, were purposively sampled. The data was collected via a survey using a structured questionnaire. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics and principal component analysis in version 25 of statistical package for the social sciences.

The study revealed that users were dissatisfied with the quality of in-house FM services across all 15 services The results also showed that users’ satisfaction with the services is not affected by the differences in their age, gender, educational level, job role and number of years in the buildings. The results further demonstrated that the most critical factors that resulted in users’ dissatisfaction were electric facilities, building fabric maintenance, emergency coordination, waste management and the decoration of the buildings during festive seasons.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the present study based on POE to assess user satisfaction with FM services for multi-tenant office buildings has, presumably, not been tackled before in Ghana. The results of the study are very essential to the owners of the buildings and facility managers in decision-making concerning the delivery of FM services. Building industry-wise, the results demonstrate the need for in-house FM managers in multi-tenanted office buildings in Ghana to adopt FM service delivery methods that increase user satisfaction. The results also call for further research into user satisfaction with outsourced FM services in multi-tenanted office buildings and further research on the use of the in-house strategy on other types of buildings to ascertain whether the dissatisfaction with FM is due to other factors such as the choice of FM strategy, the property type etc.

This study aims to assess the facilities management (FM) strategies used in multi-tenanted purpose-built office buildings (Mt-POBs) in Ghana and the drivers that influence the decision to use such strategies.

This study was conducted via a survey and key informant interviews. The survey was conducted using a questionnaire targeted at 65 multi-tenanted office building owners in the Greater Accra region. The data from the survey revealed the views of building owners on FM strategy and the extent to which 20 facility management decision drivers influenced their decisions to use a particular strategy and the responses were descriptively analysed. The key informant interviews were conducted among six leaders of the property owners’ association who use in-house FM to further understand their perspectives and decisions on using such strategy. The interviews were conducted over telephone using an interview guide and analysed using thematic analysis.

The results showed that 88% of Mt-POBs in Ghana are managed in-house. The results also showed that the decision to use the in-house strategy was driven by the innovative, strategic and cost-saving advantages associated with the in-house strategy.

This study shows the factors that drive the decision of multi-tenanted office building owners in Ghana to use the in-house strategy. The findings of this study will be useful for prospective owners of office buildings in Ghana.

This study aims to assess the satisfaction of users with outsourced facility management (FM) services in multi-tenant shopping malls (SMs) in Accra, Ghana.

This study measured user satisfaction (US) with 15 FM services using the perception of internal users about the attitude and courtesy of the personnel who provide the services, the reliability of the services, their responsiveness and their competence. This study used survey data from 117 users who have actively used these services for at least 12 months using structured questionnaires. The data was descriptively analysed to assess the perceived satisfaction of the users in five SMs.

The results showed that users were satisfied with the delivery of all 15 services (each had a mean above 3.0 which is the benchmark satisfaction point). The findings also showed high levels of service quality with the four dimensions of satisfaction investigated.

This study demonstrates US with outsourced FM services for multi-tenant SMs in Ghana. Practically, property owners, potential investors and other stakeholders can rely on the findings for effective FM strategy decision-making. Facility managers can rely on these findings to review their service delivery for the better.

5G systems will enable an improved transmission performance and the delivery of advanced communication services. To meet the expected requirements, operators will need to invest in network modernisation, with the radio access network being the most expensive network component. One possible way for operators to reduce this investment would be via sharing of resources by means of a multi-tenancy concept. This implies that a mobile service provider may use the common infrastructure of one or various infrastructure providers, whereby it provides services to multiple tenants. This paper aims to study the expected cost savings in terms of capital expenditures (CAPEX) and operational expenditures (OPEX) that can be achieved when using a cloudified 5G multi-tenant network.

A cost model was used. The study period is 2020-2030 and the study area consists of three local districts in central London, UK.

This paper describes that the total cost reduction achieved when using multi-tenancy for a 5G broadband network in comparison with the case where operators make the investment independently ranges from 5.2% to 15.5%.

Further research is needed to assess the cost implications of network sharing for 5G on a regional or nationwide basis.

Very little quantitative research about the cost implications of network sharing under 5G networks has been published so far. This paper sheds light on the economic benefits of multi-tenancy in a 5G broadband network.

The purpose of this paper is to add to behavioural property literature and improve the landlord‐tenant relationship, through exploring the effect of office (location and building) “keep”, push and pull factors on satisfaction and loyalty of tenants.

Structured face‐to‐face interviews with 38 office tenants are used to identify the important push, pull and “keep” factors and their effects. The results are placed within marketing theories on competition and customer intimacy, and translated into management implications.

The analyses indicate that retaining a tenant requires more relationship efforts than competing through offering a good price/quality ratio. A lot of subjectivity is involved in the tenant's valuation process of “keep” factors, which are mostly functional. Push and pull factors are mostly technical, but can only raise satisfaction up to a certain level.

The sample was confined to two multi‐tenant buildings with small tenants in one region. In the future, the approach should be extended to other regions and tenant types and repeated in time to get longitudinal results.

The empirical results can assist landlords in managing their office buildings better. Landlords can also use the structured interviews as a customer‐relationship management instrument.

This paper gives more insight in “keep” factors and how they can help benefit the relationship between landlord and tenant(s). Also it places studies on tenants' choices and building factors within existing marketing theories on competition.

This study aims to evaluate the practice of dispute resolution in Lagos International Trade Fair Complex, Lagos State.

Questionnaires were distributed to two study groups of 400 users/occupiers and officials of the managing agents. A total of 100 were returned and found useable for the study. The study adopted the descriptive method of percentages, mean and proportion method for analysis.

The study found that there often existed disputes and when it occurs, the common reaction is for them to alert other users of the building. Other findings are that the methods of dispute resolution adopted are arbitration, mediation, conciliation and litigation and that the most commonly adopted method is arbitration.

Limiting the scope of the study to the perception of the respondents could reflect an element of bias and might pose a great challenge to the representativeness of the findings. Also, the use of closed question questionnaire may limit the validity of the results.

The study has major implications on real estate investment and practice in Nigeria. There is the need to incorporate behavioural knowledge in the curriculum of estate management and valuation to prepare graduates for efficient practice and the continuous re-training of practitioners to prevent future declining real estate profession.

The paper documents the requisite information needed for developing contemporary policy on real estate education in the country. It also serves as a guide for real estate practitioners and regulatory bodies for developing contemporary real estate practice to meet emerging trends in CREM practice and for relevance in the practice of CREM as an evolving sub-discipline of estate management.

Owners of multi‐tenant office buildings pursue various strategies for providing bundles of services to building users. In order to study what determines patterns of bundling, 12 Swedish owners were interviewed in 2002. Strategies were found to depend on the size of their property holdings, where those who held less than 100,000m² differed from large property owners. There is also a difference between owners that have a tradition of providing construction and property‐related services and owners with their main activities in the financial sector. These patterns can be explained by considering transaction costs arising from services coordination and by referring to the dynamics of learning and competence in owner organizations. It is suggested that service‐offering owners should increase their competence for monitoring service delivery. Some property owners may benefit more from developing the competence needed for a sole provider coordinated strategy.

The management of an intelligent building is examined from the point of view of its profitability; the building can be considered both a cost centre and a benefit centre; the functions and responsibilities of the person(s) in charge of its management depend upon three factors: building technological complexity, organisation chart of the company that owns it, and existence of shared tenant services. Two different situations are distinguished: single‐tenant and multi‐tenant buildings. In the former case, only one figure is found to be needed: the facilities manager. In the latter case, the need for two posts is determined: the facilities (FM) and the building director (BD).

The aim of this study is to examine the agency problems that arise between retail property owners and outsourced facility management (FM) service vendors in Ghana.

This study was carried out using telephone and face-to-face interviews. Nine facility managers (n =9) and six retail property owners (n = 6) purposively selected participated in the interviews. The responses from the interviews were analysed using content analysis. To begin with the analysis, the recorded audio for each respondent during the interviews was transcribed to augment what was written during the interviews. The next step was the development of a coding framework where each of the agency problems was assigned unique codes and grouped under themes. Each response was assigned a predefined code based on the agency problems identified in the literature. The research team discussed the consistency of the thematic codes assigned to each of the responses to ensure that each response was captured under the appropriate agency problem theme it best represents.

The results showed that agency problems in FM outsourcing in the Ghanaian retail sector are related to disagreement on expenditure associated with maintenance and repairs and improper tenant information sharing and use by FM service providers. Based on the findings, it is recommended that property owners explore the mixed approach to FM to mitigate the risks of complete outsourcing of FM services. It is also recommended that a clear path on how tenant information can be shared be pre-agreed in FM contracts.

This study provides new literature relating to agency problems in outsourcing and may be the first of its kind for FM in the Ghanaian retail industry. The findings could serve as a starting point for service providers and their principals to find common grounds to understand each other and mitigate the agency problems that could arise and their overall impact on performance.

Every day, landlords and tenants are confronted with the dilemma of financing tenant improvements. Both parties see financing tenant improvements as a necessity. The landlord sees his tenant improvement investment as a necessity to consummate leasing transactions, while the tenant sees its tenant improvement investment as a necessity to build out vacant space. But at the end of the day, the investment dilutes the balance sheet for both parties since tenant improvements are non‐earning depreciating assets with no residual value. This paper introduces a new financing methodology for tenant improvements that take both the landlord and tenant out of the business of financing these non‐earning assets.