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The UAE is among the fastest-growing facilities management (FM) markets globally. Nevertheless, conclusive evidence on this market is scarce in the literature. Therefore, this paper aims to provide an in-depth insight into the FM market in the UAE.

Fourteen interviewees were purposively selected to provide insight into FM status through their field experiences. A SWOT analysis of their answers held place.

Interviewees revealed that the main trends of FM in the UAE include interests in sustainability, integration of technology, health and safety, outsourcing FM, switching to total facilities management (TFM), and performance management systems use. Besides, the quality of the service in the FM market is driven by the real-estate boom, services sophistication, the increasing awareness of FM and focus on the quality of services. Furthermore, the interviews found that the recruitment of poorly skilled labors can threaten the FM market to meet the allocated budget, misperception of FM, the value of money, the lack of continuous follow-up with recent advancements in technologies and the lack of performance measurement models.

This paper highlights the major trends, drivers and threats of the FM market in the UAE, and the implications of its findings can direct FM organizations and researchers in their practices.

This study aims to improve the use of digitalization in facilities management (FM) for shopping complex facilities in the post-COVID-19 era. The resumption of economic activities, especially in shopping complexes, poses challenges for FM with throngs of shoppers. To tackle these challenges, enhanced and innovative FM practices are necessary.

The study used a qualitative research approach, incorporating case studies, interviews, observations and documentation. It focused on super-regional shopping complexes in the Klang Valley, Malaysia, selecting two complexes for qualitative data collection. Supplementary data were gathered from various sources, including government policy publications, websites, books, journal papers and archival records.

The research provides valuable insights into FM innovations and the application of FM digitalization in shopping complexes after the COVID-19 pandemic. It also addresses challenges faced by FM teams during this period. Recommendations for implementing FM digitalization in super-regional shopping complexes post-COVID-19 include developing skilled personnel, defining appropriate work scopes, strategies and policies, using cost-effective software, and increasing occupant awareness. The involvement of outsourced service providers is advised, emphasizing their understanding of the organization’s business model and innovative approaches.

The findings offer new perspectives on the characteristics of FM digitalization in the commercial sector during business disruptions caused by the pandemic. The proposed strategies are grounded in real industry implementations, aiming to enhance the FM digitalization approach for improved business performance.

The facility management (FM) sector, which is developing rapidly, is making slower progress in Turkey compared to Europe and the USA. This paper aims to research the underlying issues leading to FM practices and offer insights into the implications of FM-related policies, especially for large urban transformation projects.

The study used a mixed-methods research design and collected qualitative data through semi-structured interviews with building/site managers and quantitative data through structured surveys with residents. Forty-nine building/site managers and 660 residents participated in the interview and survey from Turkey’s North Ankara and Dikmen Valley urban transformation projects.

The FM by residents, performed by the managers selected among homeowners, was preferred to the professional FM in Turkey. Education level, age, homeownership and duration of living in the region were associated with selecting FM practices. Cost also had an important place among the selection criteria, and the standard view from the residents was that professional FM would cause a cost increase. However, interviews with building/site managers in North Ankara and Dikmen Valley Urban Transformation areas revealed that a significant part of the problem resulted from insufficient knowledge and experience in FM.

Within the scope of the research, two urban transformation projects in Ankara Province were selected, and the survey was limited to the North Ankara Entrance Urban Transformation Project and Dikmen Valley Urban Transformation Project areas. Although there is a need to improve the understanding of FM in all facilities, built environments and collective buildings, collective buildings in urban transformation areas due to several constraints, those other identified areas are postponed for future study. In addition, collective buildings located in transformation areas differ from others in discussing the social dimension and the impact of management.

Within the scope of the research, two urban transformation projects in Ankara Province were selected, and the survey was limited to the North Ankara Entrance Urban Transformation Project and Dikmen Valley Urban Transformation Project areas. Although there is a need to improve the understanding of FM in all facilities, due to several constraints built environments and collective buildings in urban transformation areas, are postponed for future study. In addition, collective buildings located in transformation areas differ from others in discussing the social dimension and the impact of management.

This study evaluates two different FM approaches: FM by residents and professional FM, implemented in Turkey and identifies the criteria for choosing the FM practice. In addition, both building/site managers and residents evaluate different perspectives on FM. This study is unique because it compares different FM practices in Turkey and the criteria for residents to prefer different FM practices.

The retail sector has the largest energy consumption among commercial buildings in the U.S. Although previous studies explored benefits, barriers and solutions for implementing sustainability in various building sectors, research focused on retail facilities has been very scarce. This study aims to explore U.S. facilities managers’ perceptions of barriers that prevented the implementation of energy-efficiency practices in the retail sector. Their perceptions were compared by facility size and facilities management company’s business revenue.

An online survey was distributed to the members of the International Facility Management Association and the author's LinkedIn network. The survey responses were analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis and ANOVA.

Managers from large facilities, as opposed to those from small ones, significantly more agreed that the unavailability of building automation systems, a lack of professional writing skills and a lack of awareness of life cycle cost (LCC) were the barriers. Business revenue did not cause significantly different perceptions of the barriers except for a lack of awareness of LCC and a lack of support from upper management.

This study fills the research gap on energy efficiency in the retail sector by revealing U.S. facilities managers’ perceptions of the barriers to the implementation of energy-efficiency practices in retail stores. This novel study compares perceptions of the facilities managers by facility size and business revenue; this comparison has not been performed before. The study also identified several new barriers to the implementation of energy efficiency in the retail sector.

Facilities management (FM) activities affect citizens’ health and safety, long-term urban environmental sustainability and the relationships between the built and natural environments of cities. This study aims to comprehend the status of smart FM tools application, how they are used to improve the delivery of FM services and the barriers to their implementation.

To investigate the current smart solutions that leverage the quality of FM service, a case study based on the FM practice in Hong Kong was carried out. The case study was conducted in two phases of data acquisition based on a qualitative research methodology. After conducting in-depth interviews to determine the application of smart FM tools in different types of properties and to identify the initiatives and barriers to smart FM tool application, three workshops were conducted to validate the findings and further investigate the influence of FM professionals on smart FM tools application in Hong Kong.

The findings of the case study revealed, firstly, that four types of smart FM tools – user-centric, safety and hygiene, maintenance and sustainability-oriented – are used to assist the delivery of FM services. Secondly, smart FM tools are shown to be useful in assisting FM activities. Thirdly, the existing barriers to smart FM tool application manifest differently in shopping malls, office buildings and residential buildings. Fourthly, smart FM tools are used to address the four attributes of user needs: comfort, health and wellbeing, convenience and information to occupants.

The value of this study lies in its focus on the industry level (FM industry) and the application process of smart FM tools in different types of property, revealing the benefits, initiatives and barriers to their future application. This study provides a comprehensive picture of the current status and elaborates the barriers to smart FM tool application, which will help FM practitioners to make strategic decisions on selecting and developing smart FM tools. Also, this study will facilitate smart FM tool application policy development.

Effective facility management (FM) can reduce environmental effects on buildings throughout their life cycle. This study aims to investigate the challenges in implementing building information modelling (BIM) for FM in government buildings in Thailand.

Eight government-building facility experts were interviewed using an in-depth interview method to identify FM challenges. The collected qualitative data were analysed via thematic analysis to ensure data saturation. The final questionnaire was designed with 45 FM problems, classified into management, technical and human resource problems, to collect quantitative data from 54 government FM officers. The data were used to prioritise the severity and frequency of the FM problems using the severity index (SI) and relative importance index (RII).

Management problems have the highest impact, with an average SI of 0.285, followed by human resource (average SI = 0.266) and technical (average SI = 0.264) problems.

This study identifies the government-building FM problems in Thailand that are critical to the development of a BIM execution plan (BEP) guideline. The findings can facilitate strategy development for government-building operations and management in line with the public procurement and supply administration of Thailand. These findings can serve as a guideline to inform the development of a BIM Roadmap for integration into the national digital roadmap and the Thailand 4.0 policy to mitigate construction-related environmental and climate issues.

The aim of this paper was to study current practices in FM work order processing to support and improve decision-making. Processing and prioritizing work orders constitute a critical part of facilities and maintenance management practices given the large amount of work orders submitted daily. User-driven approaches (UDAs) are currently more prevalent for processing and prioritizing work orders but have challenges including inconsistency and subjectivity. Data-driven approaches can provide an advantage over user-driven ones in work-order processing; however, specific data requirements need to be identified to collect and process the functional data needed while achieving more consistent and accurate results.

This paper presents the findings of an online survey conducted with facility management (FM) experts who are directly or indirectly involved in processing work orders in building maintenance.

The findings reflect the current practices of 71 survey participants on data requirements, criteria selection, rankings, with current shortcomings and challenges in prioritizing work orders. In addition, differences between criteria and their ranking within participants’ experience, facility types and facility sizes are investigated. The findings of the study provide a snapshot of the current practices in FM work order processing, which aids in developing a comprehensive framework to support data-driven decision-making and address the challenges with UDAs.

Although previous studies have explored the use of selected criteria for processing and prioritizing work orders, this paper investigated a comprehensive list of criteria used by various facilities for processing work orders. Furthermore, previous studies are focused on the processing and prioritization stage, whereas this paper explored the data collected following the completion of the maintenance tasks and the benefits it can provide for processing future work orders. In addition, previous studies have focused on one specific stage of work order processing, whereas this paper investigated the common data between different stages of work order processing for enhanced FM.

This study aims to review the status quo, current state of research, research hot themes and research gaps in sustainable facilities management (SFM) in the built environment (BE) through an extant literature review.

To map and analyze knowledge paths in the context of SFM research, a sequential explanatory mixed-method review involving bibliometric and content analysis was used to help identify current research trends, research hot themes and knowledge gaps. The Scopus search engine was used to find 169 relevant articles. For a better understanding of the literature accumulated, a bibliometric analysis was carried out by using VOSviewer to reveal current research themes, the status quo and current state of research as well as research gaps.

Through the literature review and content analysis, the current research themes on SFM revealed from the study include green building technologies, assessment methods of SFM, smart buildings and building information modeling. The research hot themes in SFM include smart buildings and green building technologies, green buildings (GB), architectural and building designs in the university sector, assessment methods in buildings and decision-making and the adoption of asset and facility management in the university sector. Indoor air pollution, intelligent buildings, climate change, maintenance, environmental management, facilities, historic preservation, environmental performance, energy management, etc. are the research gaps identified from the study, and these serve as potential areas for future research studies under SFM. It was recognized that facilities managers are increasingly involved with sustainability policies within their organizations and are developing sustainability agendas to keep up with the changing nature of the facilities management (FM) profession.

The findings of this study hold relevance to the FM practice, as the integration of SFM by facilities managers can lead to waste reduction, decreased operating expenses and reduced energy consumption. In addition, occupants of sustainable buildings experience improved conditions that contribute to better health and productivity, thus boosting their overall well-being. Consistent with the themes of smart buildings and green technologies, revealed to be the hot themes in the SFM research scope, properties with sustainable features can command higher rental rates and property values, appealing to a broader range of stakeholders. SFM practices in universities can aid in saving money from reduced facility operational costs and improve the image of institutions while creating better indoor environments for students and staff. The analyses of countries involved in research can open doors for the establishment of research groups and the development of collaboration between universities in different countries researching similar topics of interest.

The geographical scope of this study is not limited and, therefore, encourages broad applicability of the findings to the global sustainable BE.

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.

Technological change drives transformation in most sectors of the economy. Industry 4.0 technologies have been applied at different stages of a building’s lifecycle. However, limited studies exist on their application in real estate facilities management (REFM). This study aims to assess the existing knowledge on the topic to suggest further research directions.

Scopus-indexed literature from 2013 to 2023 was examined and visualised using VOSviewer software to output quantitative (descriptive) results. Content analysis was used to complement the quantitative findings.

Findings indicated a concentration of research in China, Norway and Italy. The knowledge areas included three clusters: lifecycle integration and management, data curation and management and organisational and management capabilities. The benefits, challenges and support strategies were highlighted.

More collaboration is needed across countries and territories on technology integration in REFM. Future research using alternative methodologies is recommended, with a focus on adopting and non-adopting REFM organisations. Further, implications for facility managers, employees, technology suppliers or vendors, training, organisations and management exist.

Further, implications for facility managers, employees, technology suppliers or vendors, training, organisations and management exist.

The study reveals the knowledge base on technology use in REFM. It adds to the evidence base on innovation and technology adoption in REFM.