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The objective of this paper is to provide insights about the potential of real option thinking for corporate real estate management (CREM) from the owner-user perspective. A promising approach to classifying and evaluating flexibility in real estate is the real options approach. Most literature on real options look from an investor perspective.

First, a review on real option thinking in the real estate and large engineering projects literature is provided using Flyvbjerg’s (2001) typology of knowledge systems. Next, the effects of exercising real options for various stakeholders in CREM is analysed in two case studies.

The literature review shows that little research has been done on conditions and values needed to make real options applicable in the CREM practice of the owner-user of real estate. The case studies show that real options are more valuable to one stakeholder than to another.

Based on the knowledge on conditions for and the consequences of exercising real options for various stakeholders, insight can be gained into the applicability of real options to the owner-user of real estate and how real options reasoning fits within this practice. A phronetic type of knowledge is needed that incorporates stakeholders’ interests.

Creating phronetic knowledge would allow understanding why and how real options are used, or could be used in the future, and heuristics could be developed. In this way, real estate management should become more resilient to changes.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain whether energy retrofits need to be directed by public policy intervention or can be encouraged through tax relief that harnesses profit incentives. Existing office space potentially has an economic life of 25 to 40 years. It may be operating inefficiently compared to newer buildings for many years. Designing a market-based incentive system that encourages periodic remodeling which lowers energy usage and carbon emissions would have social benefits.

An owner/user case study is developed to test financial feasibility. The empirical study uses publicly available information to examine whether the variables modeled react as anticipated. The regression model incorporates variables of importance to an owner/user. Tax credits and energy deductions, interest rates associated with borrowing and likely electricity and natural gas rate changes are independent variables used to predict the dependent variable new non-residential private construction spending.

Investment tax credits (ITCs) coupled with lending has a positive impact on new non-residential commercial construction spending. The value of these benefits is not sufficient to encourage total building energy retrofits, but would encourage low-cost system upgrades. The interest rates associated with borrowing and the debt-service coverage ratio need to be kept low for existing building energy retrofits to be stimulated.

The case study provides a template that a business can use to determine the financial feasibility of a proposed energy upgrade. It enables the comparison of the marginal cost associated with an update to the present value of the financial benefits likely to be generated. Local real estate tax reductions linked to specific energy upgrades offered by many municipalities can be added to the expected energy savings generated by doing the retrofit.

Tax systems designed to solve environmental pollution problems do not require regulators, inspections or court case decisions and are inherently less intrusive to businesses. Coupling private financial incentives with public policy goals cause energy-saving technologies to be adopted more quickly and with less public outcry.

The paper specifically considers the factors that influence an owner/user of the property. Rental rates and vacancy losses do not influence a property owner/user. Prior studies looked at revenue enhancements and lower-vacancy rates possibly associated with a green compared to a non-green office building. These studies did not focus on the owner/user paradigm. They reported financial benefits accruing to property owners who lease the office building. Many retrofit studies tended to use CoStar Group’s data, which are collected by a for-profit company and sold to users. The data used in this study come from survey data collected by the Federal Government of the United States of America (USA). It is publicly available to all researchers.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how the concepts of business models and project governance can enhance value creation in building projects.

Based on theory derived from management literature, the authors outline a framework combining a project’s business case and governance functions with the business model of the design team. This was tested in two major projects and evaluated in three expert workshops.

The research reveals that the business model of the design team focus on efficiency rather than on the client’s strategic objectives. This entails a need for project governance functions. The framework presented shows promising capability of aligning the project with client strategy. The authors believe there is significant value in transferring these ideas and knowledge across national boundaries.

The research identifies a gap between business objectives and outcome. The value creation approach in the client organisation diminishes into the way project governance is implemented in some projects. The conceptual framework provides the industry with a new tool for improving its knowledge and practice.

First governance model derived from strategy theory that combines strategy and governance in one holistic model.

Despite existing life cycle costing (LCC) method descriptions and practicable suggestions for conducting LCC analyses, no systematic analyses on actual implementations of LCC methods exist. This paper aims to review reports on LCC applications to provide an overview of LCC uses and implementation feasibility.

A review of LCC cases reported in academic and practitioner literature. Case reports were compared against one another and against the defining articles in the field.

Most of the reported LCC applications were far from ideal. Compared to the methods suggested in the literature many of the case study applications: covered fewer parts of the whole life cycle, estimated the costs on a lower level of detail, used cost estimation methods based on expert opinion rather than statistical methods, and were content with deterministic estimates of life cycle costs instead of using sensitivity analyses.

This review is limited to reported LCC applications only. Further research is encouraged in the form of a field‐based multiple‐case study to reveal context‐specific dimensions of LCC analysis and implementation challenges in more detail.

This review highlights the difficulty of conducting a reliable LCC analysis, and points out typical problems that should be carefully considered before drawing conclusions from the LCC analysis.

First systematic analysis of LCC applications that gives directions for further research on the LCC concept.

The successive Malaysian government aims to provide housing to households earning the median income and below. However, there has been continuous criticism and complaints from the media and literature on the magnitude of the defects in affordable housing. Therefore, this research has investigated the defects in affordable housing for the users’/occupants' perspectives.

With a response rate of 69%, the research developed a questionnaire instrument that included twenty-one defects in buildings based on literature and observation. These were scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from very common to least common. Twelve causes of defects measured on a five-point scale were included in the survey. Thirteen additional items that had to do with remedial actions to reduce defects were included. These were scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to least agree. The survey forms were administered to all the 152 home occupants in a Program Perumahan Rakyat (PPR) housing estate through hand delivery in a northern state in Malaysia.

The data revealed that broken doors, damaged roofs, damp walls and broken tiles in rooms were the most common defects in the housing development. It was found that defects in the buildings were caused by poor workmanship, defective materials, poor designs and bad weather. Additionally, to rectify the defects, adequate supervision is required during maintenance, the repairs must be conducted on time and there is a need to have competent maintenance organisations. Through factor analysis, the 21 defects were structured into six factors, the 12 causes were grouped into 5 factors and the 13 remedial actions were grouped into 6 factors.

The information on the nature, degree and kinds of defects from the users' perspectives will dictate when repair work is to be undertaken and allow future work to be programmed and financed as part of a maintenance rolling programme.

This research focused specifically on “Program Perumahan Rakyat” housing development. Furthermore, none of the previous research on defects conducted attempted to categorise the defects in the buildings. The categorisation is very important for systemic decision-making because there are continuous interactions amongst the defects, causes and remedial actions.

The purpose of this paper is to present defects reported by cooperative owners, and to determine the relationship between building characteristics, developer’s/contractor’s company size and defect type.

The analysis is based on defects reported by board members of cooperatives in Sweden through a survey questionnaire. The 1,563 questionnaires were posted by regular mail to the boards of cooperatives for buildings. The current research presents results from analysis of responses from 394 regular residential projects constructed between 2006 and 2013. The responses represent owners’ experience from a total 1,107 buildings.

Findings presented in this study indicate that building quality might be one of the factors contributing to the energy gap. The analysis indicates that the most severe problems reported by cooperatives are issues related to building envelope, particularly shortcomings in the function of windows, issues related to the function of the balcony and cracks in the facade and leakage caused by rain water. The results show that the building quality differs depending on developers’ size, measured by number of employees. The authors have also found a significant relationship between reported defects and location expressed by size of the city/municipality.

The discussion on newly constructed residential buildings has been dominated by the perspective of professionals (inspectors) and contractors (or developers) rather than of the owners/users themselves. This study presents findings from the owners’ perspective, thus contributing the owners’ viewpoint to the debate on building quality.

Existing approaches to the financial lease versus purchase decision assume, at least implicitly at the moment of the decision, that purchase entails ownership of the leasable asset over its entire remaining economic life. At any subsequent moment in time, however, if a firm already owns the leasable asset, it can retain long-term use of the asset by deciding to either retain ownership or enter into a sale and leaseback agreement. The purpose of this chapter is to detail the derivation of an innovative, yet intuitive, theoretical approach to analyze a firm's financial lease versus purchase decision in asset markets conducive to future sales and leaseback of owned assets.

This paper aims to study how brand owners and users enhance brand bond with three objectives. First, brand owners’ effort (BOE) to exercise care, innovate frequently and differentiate their brands enhances users’ bond with the brand. Second, brand users’ competence (BUC) in their knowledge and experience with the brand’s reputation, value and service quality improves brand bond. Third, BOE significantly enhances BUC.

This study proposed an integrative model with new concepts and tested it with 2,135 young Chinese consumers using global smartphone brands. Results are drawn from structural equation modeling and comparisons between stakeholders and among smartphone brands.

The results show that BOE and BUC are significant and equally effective at enhancing brand bond. BOE also shows a significantly stronger effect on BUC than on brand bond. The temporal comparison between 2015 and 2018 confirms the changing reality of the smartphone world. As for brand comparison, young consumers perceive that iPhone differentiates itself from Huawei and Samsung rivals in terms of BOE and BUC on brand bond. However, none of these brands show significant differences in terms of BOE effect on BUC.

Please see detail in the Conclusion and Discussions.

Please see detail in the Conclusion and Discussions.

Please see detail in the Conclusion and Discussions.

This study introduced a validated model with new concepts based on the global smartphone industry, perceived by young Chinese consumers. The results prove that it takes both the owners and users together to contribute to the brand bond, but brand owners’ role on BUC is more significant.

This chapter explores the intersections between narrative criminology and material culture studies using a single object – my wife's old Nazi rifle – as an example. It describes the various connections between the stories we tell and the things that surround us, including the stories objects represent, the stories they may prompt us to tell, the stories we tell using objects as props and the stories our material objects tell us about their owners or users. An object will always tell stories about past, present and future use. This is true of all objects, not just old Nazi rifles, but some things will carry more narrative potential than others. Finally, I ask whether some narratively loaded objects may anticipate or perhaps even precipitate certain actions. Is it true that some objects sometimes ask us to put them to use?

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the common perspective of value for lean construction (LC) researchers and practitioners. Thus, this paper aims to generate a future discussion in the construction sector about the huge impact of construction projects over the entire society and, consequently, to underline the need of an expansion of current value perspectives moving from a local context (project level) to a global context (society).

The paper critically reviews the concept of value from LC perspective. As such, literature review has been conducted as a main task.

LC value perspectives lack in a common idea to be applied in the construction industry as a whole. Customer‐focused construction practices, where satisfaction of customer requirements predominates over societal welfare.

The work described forms part of a larger study intended to expand common value perspective to the wide society. Therefore, a future global model of value should be proposed and validated through an interactive workshop with participation of relevant actors in construction industry.

Construction industry should reformulate current practices and governments, as representative of the society, should promote construction regulation policies based on delivery of value including environmental and social issues.

The concept of value is placed in a global context, changing common LC perspective. Thus, this paper gives the opportunity to continue discussing the contribution of construction industry to the cure of environmental and social issues.