Reputation and public awareness of facilities management – a quantitative survey

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop an empirically tested framework for public awareness and reputation of facilities management (FM) as a business sector.

Design/methodology/approach

A national survey of representative sections of the population was designed and carried out to determine the level of public awareness and the reputation of FM. This survey was based on image/reputation categories from the international European Performance Satisfaction Index studies.

Findings

The findings provide a highly differentiated picture and give an interesting insight into the varied understanding of FM. Only a small fraction of the population has a realistic understanding of what the term FM means. The additional information collected about selected features of the respondents (age, gender, occupation, education, household income, etc.) facilitates interesting cross‐references to the level of public awareness and reputation of FM thus allowing an illuminating analysis of the findings.

Practical implications

A framework for measuring public awareness and reputation of FM is presented and tested. It can be used in the development of a cross‐national survey. In this study, the measurement of public FM awareness and reputation is applied only to one pilot country and further international research is needed to validate this tool within other geographical settings.

Originality/value

This survey represents the first quantification of public awareness and reputation of FM and is planned to be repeated on an international level at a two‐year interval, thus enabling comparisons between countries and corporations.

Citation

Coenen, C., von Felten, D. and Schmid, M. (2010), "Reputation and public awareness of facilities management – a quantitative survey", Journal of Facilities Management, Vol. 8 No. 4, pp. 256-268. https://doi.org/10.1108/14725961011078972