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The paper aims to explore the relationship between office occupier work activity and workplace provision. It tests the proposition that location-fixed office workers are not well-supported in the working environment as location-flexible office workers. The research also explores the perceptions of the workplace provision based upon the types of tasks completed at the desk-location, whether this was collaborative or focussed.

The research adopts a cross-sectional approach using an online questionnaire to collect data from several offices in the Middles East. The dataset consists of 405 responses. One-way analysis of variance was conducted to understand the relationship between location flexibility and perception of productivity. In addition, a series of t test were used to evaluate the relationship between work activities and office environment.

The results show that those workers who were location-fixed perceived the workplace provision to have a more negative impact on their productivity than those who had a greater level of location-flexibility, particularly with regards to noise levels and interruptions. In terms of types of activities, those that undertook more collaborative tasks valued the facilitation of creativity and interaction from the workplace provision.

The research has limitations as data collection was at one-point in time and therefore lacks the opportunity to undertake longitudinal analysis. However, the research gives greater insights into the alignment of office environments based on flexibility and work activity.

The paper identifies implications for the design and development of office environments by identifying the need for office occupier activity profiles. These profiles can underpin data-led design which should promote a tailored choice appropriate work setting that can maximise productivity.

This paper contributes to the research area of workplace alignment. It establishes that optimal workplace alignment requires a better understanding of office occupier needs based on location-flexibility and work activity.

Open-plan office environments are considered to offer workplace productivity benefits because of the opportunities that they create for interaction and knowledge exchange, but more recent research has highlighted noise, distraction and loss of privacy as significant productivity penalties with this office layout. This study aims to investigate if the purported productivity benefits of open plan outweigh the potential productivity penalties.

Previous research suggests that office environments are experienced differently according to the gender and age of the occupier across both open-plan and enclosed configurations. Empirical research undertaken with office occupiers in the Middle East (N = 220) led to evaluations to establish the impact different offices had on perceived productivity. Factor analysis was used to establish five underlying components of office productivity. The five factors are subsequently used as the basis for comparison between office occupiers based on age, gender and office type.

This research shows that benefits and penalties to workplace productivity are experienced equally across open-plan and enclosed office environments. The greatest impact on perceived workplace productivity however was availability of a variety of physical layouts, control over interaction and the “downtime” offered by social interaction points. Male occupiers and those from younger generations were also found to consider the office environment to have more of a negative impact on their perceived workplace productivity compared to female and older occupiers.

The originality of this paper is that it develops the concept of profiling office occupiers with the aim of better matching office provision. This paper aims to establish different occupier profiles based on age, gender and office type. Data analysis techniques such as factor analysis and t-test analysis identify the need for different spaces so that occupiers can choose the most appropriate space to best undertake a particular work task. In addition, it emphasises the value that occupiers place on “downtime” leading to the need for appropriate social space.

The aim of this paper is to consider the complex decision‐making process involved in corporate relocation and the validity of a tool designed to improve the objectivity and strategic management of this process and to change the focus of the decision upon the strategic management objectives rather than the real estate deal.

The authors identify the progression of the decision‐making process; disaggregate components of that process; and evaluate a tool designed to improve the decision‐making process.

The size of the organisation can have a significant impact on the building evaluation and decision‐making process, smaller firms with less resources are more likely to make the relocation decision based on “gut feeling” rather than detailed evaluation. However, with increased transparency, accountability and corporate social responsibility, decisions based on more rigorous and objective approaches are being demanded. The evaluated tool facilitates a more objective approach and shifts the focus from a real estate to a business decision.

Corporate real estate managers can use the information to evaluate their own decision‐making processes against the framework of the tool and decide if it may be applicable to their context.

The paper fills a void by examining the decision‐making process from a fresh perspective, updates the thinking by providing a contemporary tool which has been beta tested with students and is about to be piloted with corporate clients.

Provides a brief overview of the methods that used in real estate valuation with a particular emphasis on the valuation of specialised property. Proposes that the underlying requirement is to estimate market value and that the role of the valuer is to choose the method that is the best model to achieve this objective. Concludes that a valuer must work with the recognised techniques and, in the case of specialised property, these are methods that go back to analysing value from first principles by identifying the value of the property to the business.

Valuation is often said to be “an art not a science” but this relates to the techniques employed to calculate value not to the underlying concept itself. Valuation is the process of estimating price in the market place. Yet, such an estimation will be affected by uncertainties. These input uncertainties will translate into an uncertainty with the output figure, the valuation. The degree of the uncertainties will vary according to the level of market activity; the more active a market, the more credence will be given to the input information. In the UK at the moment the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is considering ways in which the uncertainty of the valuation can be conveyed to the use of the valuation, but as yet no definitive view has been taken apart from a single Guidance Note (GN5). One of the major problems is that valuation models (in the UK) are based on comparable information and rely on single inputs. They are not probability‐based, yet uncertainty is probability driven. This paper discusses the issues underlying uncertainty in valuations and suggests a probability‐based model (using Crystal Ball) to address the shortcomings of the current model.