Search results

The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of real estate firms’ capabilities to innovate and, consequently, their capacity to absorb new innovations and benefit from digital technologies in an ecosystem context.

The results are based on 32 interviews with representatives of Swedish real estate owners, real estate owner industry associations and suppliers of digital technology to real estate owners. The data are interpreted using theories on absorptive capacity (i.e. the capacity to absorb new innovations), innovation capabilities and innovation ecosystems.

The real estate owners, technology suppliers and real estate owner industry associations have expanded their innovation capabilities and reshaped their innovation ecosystem by initiating a number of different digitalization activities; for example, the development of new IT systems, digital platforms, services and business models. The absorptive capacity has been improved as the organizations have changed routines and structures related to innovation, and they have taken on new roles related to digitalization and innovation, making them better able to absorb new innovations. Also, this paper identifies several drivers and obstacles to digitalization in the real estate sector.

The increased capabilities related to digitalization can lead to better absorptive capacity on an individual firm level, which can contribute to the overall development of these firms in a longer-term. Also, new capabilities may lead to better absorptive capacity in the real estate sector at large, as firms may benefit from each other’s capabilities through collaboration. The limitations are that this study does not interview tenants or facility management firms and that the findings represent the context of the Swedish real estate market.

This paper investigates innovation capabilities, absorptive capacity and innovation ecosystems of real estate owners, their technology suppliers and real estate owner industry associations on the organizational level and on the sector level, into which there is little previous research. Also, this paper highlights the novelty of digitalization as a phenomenon in the sector.

The aim of this paper is to introduce a framework that helps to identify strategic themes on which real estate investors form their strategies. A holistic approach to strategic management in real estate management has enjoyed popularity in corporate real estate research, while similar research has been lacking from the investor-based real estate management.

The research design consists of two main parts: 1) formulating propositions based on existing literature and 2) attempting to validate the propositions through a qualitative interview study with major real estate owners in Finland.

The main finding is that the current real estate investors reflect the transient nature of competitive advantages and assess their strategies accordingly. The companies consider the traditional profitability and revenue growth aspects of their business but also a more long-term future growth dimension. As an outcome, the investors base their strategies on eight strategic themes which are “Innovation”, “ESG”, “Marketing and sales”, “Financial management”, “Leasing management and tenant satisfaction”, “Competitive environment and portfolio management”, “Outsourcing and strategic partnerships” and “Cost and operation optimization”.

This paper opens opportunities for future research concerning different strategies in real estate investment business and their impacts.

The presented framework provides support for real estate investors to create real estate management strategy or to evaluate their current strategy and to recognize operational actions and decisions that are relevant for their strategy.

This paper provides an extension to corporate real estate (CRE) literature by showing that the CRE theories are adaptable to real estate investment and provide value for their strategic management. This paper also contributes to real estate investment literature by providing a well-founded and empirically contested strategic management framework, the IREM framework, for identifying strategic themes on which real estate investors form their strategies.

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the occupational life cycle of Swedish real estate brokers.

Voluntary turnover among real estate brokers could lead to occupational turnover and/or employee turnover and has been described as problematic by both practitioners and researchers alike. Most previous studies focusing on this issue have explored connections between real estate brokers' personality, economic and market conditions and turnover. Employee turnover involves shifting jobs within the profession (real estate brokerage), whereas occupational turnover concerns movement to a job not related to the real estate brokerage profession. Both perspectives on turnover are however lacking data about the average time spent as a broker. This study fills this gap by exploring real estate brokers' life cycle through data analysis using a cohort study consisting of a sample of 5,304 real estate brokers registered and/or deregistered over a ten-year period from 2010 to 2019.

The analysis show that the decline is almost linear, resulting in 50% of the newly registered real estate brokers remain in the occupation eight years after registration. These findings are not in line with previous assumptions as the real estate brokers' life cycle is substantially longer. The results also reveal that there are differences in life cycles due to gender and year of registration.

The analysis of longitudinal, aggregated data on the life cycle of real estate brokers is highly relevant as it serves as a point of reference for future longitudinal studies analyzing the motives for leaving the occupation.

Due to the young age of proptech, little is known about the dynamics of its expansion. In particular, there is limited agreement about a definition of “proptech,” while different categorizations are popping up. A severe lack of information emerges for the proptech scenario in Italy. The goal of this paper is to systematize multiple proptech maps in the attempt to create a framework for comparison of country-specific trends and an overarching definition of proptech. The research examines the evolutionary stage of the Italian digital real estate sector and compares it to the international context.

An in-depth analysis of 12 proptech maps at both national and international level was conducted based on online research. A list of Italian proptech companies was composed through multiple methods. A map was built for a cross-country comparison.

Each country or organization tends to develop its own categorization. This creates a multifaceted context where comparison and analysis are challenging. The Italian proptech sector seems underdeveloped compared to neighboring countries. Big room for improving the proptech business in this country still exists.

The results are valuable for proptech start-ups, business investors and well-established real estate actors to build on new entrepreneurial initiatives. The opportunity to advance proptech mapping and categorization emerges as a prospect for future research.

This research adds an overview of cross-country proptech categories and proposes the first analysis of Italian proptech. This will contribute to support entrepreneurial opportunities.

Real estate is a capital-intensive industry for which the asset values tend to be highly volatile and uncertain. Transaction costs in the industry are therefore high, and transparency for investors may be low. The need to signal reliable estimates of property assets, in the communication to external stakeholders, can therefore be expected to be of extra importance in this sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how real estate firms use big four auditors to signal quality.

The authors use Swedish firm level data containing all limited liability real estate companies in the country to determine the determinants of big four auditors. The data set consists of 34,306 observations and is analyzed through logit regressions.

The results show that big four companies are primarily contracted by large and mature companies, rather than new firms or firms with volatile financial records, although the latter could be expected to have a large need to signal quality. The authors also find that firms listed on the stock market and firms targeting public use real estate are more inclined to use big four companies.

Real estate is a capital-intensive industry for which the asset values tend to be highly volatile and uncertain. Transaction costs in the industry are therefore high, and transparency for investors may be low. The need to signal reliable estimates of property assets, in the communication to external stakeholders, can therefore be expected to be of extra importance in this sector. No prior study of this area has been detected.

Previous research on automation and job disruption is only marginally related to the real estate industry and its characteristics. This study investigates the effects of digitization on jobs in German real estate sector, in order to assess the proportion of jobs threatened to be replaced by automation. Since Germany is the largest EU economy insights for the German real estate market allow a first approximation for Europe.

An extensive database of the German Federal Employment Agency containing job definitions and occupation titles is matched with real estate criteria to create a subset with the relevant real estate occupations. This data is combined with a database of the German Institute of Employment Research reflecting to what extent tasks within jobs can be automated by current technical capabilities.

For the 286 identified occupations within the real estate sector a weighted average of 47 percent substitution probability through current technological capabilities is derived for tasks within the examined occupations.

This contribution indicates the extent of the structural change the real estate sector has to face due to digitization: One out of two real estate jobs will have to be re-created.

This research quantifies the magnitude of the job killer aspect of digitization in the real estate sector.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the functionality and effectiveness of the Carbon Risk Real Estate Monitor (CRREM tool). The aim of the project, supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, was to develop a broadly accepted tool that provides investors and other stakeholders with a sound basis for the assessment of stranding risks.

The tool calculates the annual carbon emissions (baseline emissions) of a given asset or portfolio and assesses the stranding risks, by making use of science-based decarbonisation pathways. To account for ongoing climate change, the tool considers the effects of grid decarbonisation, as well as the development of heating and cooling-degree days.

The paper provides property-specific carbon emission pathways, as well as valuable insight into state-of-the-art carbon risk assessment and management measures and thereby paves the way towards a low-carbon building stock. Further selected risk indicators at the asset (e.g. costs of greenhouse gas emissions) and aggregated levels (e.g. Carbon Value at Risk) are considered.

The approach described in this paper can serve as a model for the realisation of an enhanced tool with respect to other countries, leading to a globally applicable instrument for assessing stranding risks in the commercial real estate sector.

The real estate industry is endangered by the downside risks of climate change, leading to potential monetary losses and write-downs. Accordingly, this approach enables stakeholders to assess the exposure of their assets to stranding risks, based on energy and emission data.

The CRREM tool reduces investor uncertainty and offers a viable basis for investment decision-making with regard to stranding risks and retrofit planning.

The approach pioneers a way to provide investors with a profound stranding risk assessment based on science-based decarbonisation pathways.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the variables that influence corporate real estate (CRE) decision-making and gauge their relative importance to each other, thereby understanding the consequent challenges/implications for CRE managers (CREM’s).

Interviews were undertaken with experienced CREM’s using the causal network elicitation technique to create decision networks for the variables they considered for the specifically defined scenario: dealing with surplus property from a change of business strategy. These networks illustrate the complexity of the mental representations required for the realignment of the CRE portfolio. The key variables are more extensive than alignment theory suggests, namely, financial stakeholders. Additional variables identified include risk, lease accounting, costs, financial analysis, business metrics and motivational drivers. The latter indicates the importance of self-esteem and peer recognition for CREM’s and financial benefits for the C-suite. Accordingly strategy alignment needs to incorporate CRE both in terms of strategy creation and implementation.

These networks illustrate the complexity of the mental representations required for the realignment of the CRE portfolio. The key variables are more extensive than alignment theory suggests, namely, financial stakeholders. Additional variables identified include risk, lease accounting, costs, financial analysis, business metrics and motivational drivers. The latter indicates the importance of self-esteem and peer recognition for CREM’s and financial benefits for the C-suite. Accordingly, strategy alignment needs to incorporate CRE both in terms of strategy creation and implementation.

This research appears to be the first that looks in detail at the mental representations used by decision-makers while making CRE decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of leadership in management accounting change processes and outcomes.

The paper draws on an ethnographic study in a Southern European company and mobilizes leader–follower relations as a method theory to analyse the observations.

The findings show how a leadership dispute between two top managers can be amplified during the management accounting change process and percolate throughout an organization. The authors identify five contested areas where the role of accounting amplifies the leadership dispute by unfolding its reach to other organizational actors. The leadership dispute can shape and reinforce a fragmented organization, with some organizational members creating convergent leader–follower relations while others divert and fragment with an increased turnover. This amplification can lead to unexpected outcomes of the change process in terms of how and by whom accounting is performed.

The authors propose the study of leadership and followership as an important but, to date, largely neglected theme in management accounting research.

In contrast to the prior management accounting literature, the paper departs from a leadership-centric and role-based approach and employs a co-constructionist and relational approach to leadership and followership to analyse management accounting change. In addition, it applies and extends Alvesson's (2019a) theory on “divergent relationalities” between the presumed leaders and followers. In doing so, the paper also adds to the leadership field by theorizing and integrating the situation of a leadership dispute in this novel theoretical framework.

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.