Editorial

Citation

Cooke, H. (2015), "Editorial", Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Vol. 17 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-02-2015-0005

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Volume 17, Issue 1

I would like to thank Dr Clare Eriksson for all her work on the Journal as she steps back from being Co-Editor to take on the role of Consulting Editor. Clare became an Editor in 2007 and took the journal forward from that point and it has been a pleasure working with her as Co-Editor for the past few years.

In her place steps Dr Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, Assistant Professor in Real Estate at the Department of Architecture, Building and Planning (Eindhoven University of Technology). She is a board member of the European Real Estate Society (ERES) and the Dutch Society for real estate researchers (VOGON). Her research has focussed on how Corporate Real Estate should be managed and how its location, building and workplace design choices add value to corporate driving forces (e.g. productivity of employees, innovativeness of organisations, knowledge sharing and flexibility). She has been the Guest Editor for the journal for the special edition of the ERES Conference over the past few years, and again this year.

There have been several changes to the Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) over the past 12 months or so, and I would like to thank those who have served on the Board and also welcome the new members to the EAB. The journal is dependent upon the EAB and reviewers for their time and input, without them we could not function as a Peer Review Journal.

Rianne and I welcome papers for the journal whether they are research papers requiring peer review or practice papers that have lower criteria for acceptance. We are more than happy to provide feedback or commentary on any proposals for articles that authors might have.

The papers in this edition reflect the diverse nature of the world of corporate real estate.

Malvern Tipping and Roger Newton consider the yields achieved on the prices achieved at auction of bank premises, specifically banking halls. This identifies a north-south divide in the UK and provides a predictive model for occupiers and investors on likely prices that will be achieved. Whilst some might regard this as the preserve of investment journals that ignores the on-going requirement by occupiers to sell premises and take leasebacks on space as a means of raising capital.

The second paper considers the tensions between occupiers and landlords on sustainable buildings in Northern Europe by Mia Andelin and her co-authors. By considering the drivers around corporate social responsibility and sustainability for investors and occupiers, they aim to understand why sustainability remains on the periphery of real estate. The “circle of blame” needs to be broken to move sustainability out of the slow lane and to move the issue to a much more central stage.

Barry Haynes and Luke Longford have also considered the financial sector, but in their case, they have looked at how value can be added to the business through alignment and performance measurement. Continual analysis of space, cost, etc. can provide that added value and increase shareholder value. To do so one needs to change the focus to the behavioural environment away from the physical environment as productivity improvement will have the biggest impact on shareholder value.

In looking at the open plan office and the impact on leadership, Donatella De Paoli and Arja Ropo raise one of the challenges around the working environment that applies to an increasing number of workers – the hybrid worker. Those that are mobile, work remotely and work in the office, whatever is suitable for the task at hand. This group is nomadic in how and where they work and bring with them a number of challenges to their leaders and to the design of office space. As someone who has been a nomadic worker for a number of years, this is a piece that resonates and an area of research that has a number of strands that could be developed further.

Howard Cooke