Editorial: 25 Years of research in Journal of Corporate Real Estate

Citation

Heywood, C. and Appel-Meulenbroek, R. (2023), "Editorial: 25 Years of research in Journal of Corporate Real Estate", Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRE-04-2023-077

In 2023, Emerald publishes volume 25 of the Journal of Corporate Real Estate (JCRE). This “anniversary” seemed like a good moment to look back at how the journal has developed and the challenges experienced by those involved along the way. Therefore, we have contacted all the editors, from its initiation at Henry Stewart in 1998 and its transfer to Emerald since 2005. We asked them to write about the challenges that they experienced, some highlights and how the journal developed under their editorship. “Coincidentally”, we also received a submission with a bibliographic analysis over the journal’s existence, which passed our review process in time and is also published in this first issue of volume 25. Both the editors’ comments and this analysis show that the journal grew along with similar challenges and topics as the Corporate Real Estate (CRE) research field itself. Having started as a mainly practitioner focused topic at first, it took quite some time before it developed into the full-fledged academic field which it is now. Researchers from many different disciplinary backgrounds contribute to our journal. But let us start at the beginning.

Simon Beckett

The journal was launched by Henry Stewart Publications in 1998, and I took over publishing duties in 2000 towards the end of Volume 2 from a colleague, Daryn Moody, who launched and published it in partnership with NACORE (International Association of Corporate Real Estate Executives – a leading trade association in the CRE profession at that time). NACORE was looking for a high-quality professional journal which bridged the gap between trade magazines and purely academic journals to support their executive/continuing professional development program, the Master of Corporate Real Estate. Education was a core area of focus for NACORE at that time, so the journal’s double-blind peer-review process was integral to that and instrumental in giving the journal a genuine rigor uncommon in more purely practice-focused publications. JCRE very quickly became one of our most successful titles with a healthy balance of practice and academic content, although the focus was firmly on the former. Throughout our stewardship of the journal that growth and relationship continued, ultimately evolving further through the merger of NACORE with the International Development Research Council (IDRC) into CoreNet Global, which became the preeminent trade association in the field. Real estate journals are not always the easiest to launch or manage, but JCRE benefited from a hugely diligent editorial board (rather than an editor in this case), who were highly committed to their profession and the sharing of experience and expertise within it. Needless to say, that made my job as publisher an easy one. Recruiting authors from real estate occupiers, who do not have the same commercial imperative to write as service providers and consultants, was a challenge and one always wanted more. But tapping into that desire to “give back” to the profession and those finding their way in it worked well. It was sad to see the journal move to a new publisher, but it was rewarding to know that we were handing over a strong journal, whose rigor was respected throughout the industry and research community. I am still working with some of those authors and editorial board members 23 years on, which is surely a measure of the proud sense of community in this field.

Karen Gibler

Emerald Group Publishing contacted me in 2005 to take on the role of editor after they purchased the journal. I agreed to a transitional role to help move the journal forward as they looked for a more permanent editor. We sometimes referred to our publishing team in the early days as “The Claires” – Claire Jones, Claire E. Jones and Claire Jackson worked with us before turning over the reins to Valerie Robillard as publisher. For some reason, there seemed to be a rash of pregnancies among Emerald staff working on the journal as well.

We faced three major challenges taking on the journal. The first was that the previous publishers positioned the journal as a collection of readings for CRE executives. There was an emphasis on case studies and consultant/client experiences along with opinion/advice articles. Emerald wanted to take the journal in a different direction to improve its reputation and ranking among academic as well as industry researchers. Emerald’s vision was for a peer-reviewed global journal encompassing a broad definition of CRE management and consisting of articles using quantitative and qualitative research methods that would attract submissions and readers from both academia and industry – a difficult goal to achieve. We asked the editorial board members to help us determine the topics on which we should encourage submissions.

We stated our aims in the journal:

The Journal of CRE is the world’s only peer-reviewed, professional journal dedicated to CRE. It is the leading forum for authoritative, practical guidance not only on current best practice but also on the key issues of tomorrow, of which the CRE executive needs to be aware. Published in affiliation with CoreNet Global Learning and guided by an expert Editorial Board, Journal of CRE features high quality, detailed articles by some of the industry's foremost thought leaders, executives, consultants and researchers. Each quarterly issue features forward-looking articles and comprehensive reference guides on the latest thinking, best practice, new developments, applied research and case studies on key strategic issues.

The journal would be pleased to receive submissions on:

[…] financial strategies; portfolio management; construction delivery; workplace productivity; negotiation and dispute resolution; leasing; the cost of capital; strategic planning; cost control; outsourcing; corporate tenancy; IT for CRE; relocation; rationalization; and insurance and lease issues.

Papers should normally be between 2,500 and 5,000 words in length and will undergo a double-blind peer review.

The change in focus created a challenge related to the Executive Board and the Editorial Advisory Board with 76 members almost exclusively in industry in the USA and UK inherited from the previous publisher. Emerald wanted to consolidate the boards and reduce the size, so we moved to 40 active reviewers from the old board along with a few new members, mainly from academia. We contacted every member of the editorial board to explain how the journal would be transitioning to a more academic-focused review process with members expected to critically review a steady number of submissions each year and asked for their advice on the content and trajectory for the journal.

A third challenge was to solicit sufficient articles of the style needed to fit this new model. We were supportive to the authors who had entered the process under one vision of the journal then found themselves faced with new expectations. Those first articles required a lot of discussion and multiple revisions. Meanwhile, we started actively soliciting submissions from new authors, explaining the change in vision and audience. We travelled to the IRES (International Real Estate Society) sister society conferences with an Emerald Publishing booth. We sent direct messages to researchers who had published on CRE related topics in other journals or presented at conferences. We attended CoreNet Global Summits. In the meantime, we reduced the number of articles per issue to ensure quality and explored ideas for special issues. I knew the journal would be in good hands when others took the helm.

Clare Eriksson

Clare Eriksson was appointed as the “permanent” editor in January 2007. When Howard Cooke and later also Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek took over she moved to a Consulting Editor role. Clare was asked to contribute her thoughts and experiences from her time as editor but was unable to provide those by the deadline for submitting this editorial.

Howard Cooke

Being an editor of JCRE brings to mind the analogy of “herding cats”, a state of affairs that I am sure applies to editors of academic journals everywhere. There is the need to deal with the “systems” side of production and tracking what is happening on the production side. My tenure was still dominated by hard copies; and therefore, the production element was more finite than what we have now of online availability. However, it was working with authors and reviewers that brought the greatest pleasure and pain! Firstly, how to get a sufficient number of authors to produce sufficient articles of the right calibre on the “right” subjects within the right timescales is the first challenge. The second was cajoling sufficient people to act as reviewers, accept specific papers and provide feedback within prescribed timelines. There is a compounding effect which is that the overlap between authors and reviewers is very high and that requires a certain awareness in chasing people to return scripts, etc. All of that said the JCRE community were all very keen to help and the interaction was positive academically and socially.

The change of ownership of JCRE had occurred a few years before my tenure, but there remained a legacy. That was the evolution to a more robust academic journal was still taking place and with it the move away from articles that were more practice focused to those with more academic rigor. That had consequences on the pool of authors and reviewers and a number of changes there, as the focus of the coverage was more clearly defined through discussions with a number of members of the editorial board. With that went the need to try and differentiate from other journals that published CRE articles, even though their “core” subject might be property management or FM.

My tenure as editor was shorter than I had anticipated because of the editorial experience itself. It made me want to study more about CRE and hence gain a doctorate but doing both was not compatible with having a job and home life. That next stage involved people from the JCRE community, including Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, who by then started to share the editorship with me and became my PhD supervisor.

Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek

I became a reviewer for the journal in 2008, after being in academia only four years and in the process of obtaining my PhD besides my teaching obligations as assistant professor. But six years later, having received my doctorate in the meantime, I was asked to join Howard as editor of the journal. At that point, most submissions were from academics and only sporadically a practitioner would submit a piece. So, this had changed a lot from the early period of the journal. Although this change was what Emerald and its editors had been aiming for, it is also a fact that the number of academic CRE researchers is not that high. The main challenge had therefore become to get sufficient submissions to fill our issues. When I started as editor, we were lagging behind now and then on the Emerald deadlines to provide four accepted papers for an issue that was due. As we were still spreading printed versions at that time, this was urgent and not very convenient for the publisher. So, we spend much of our time on brainstorming who we could invite to submit a paper and then chasing these people to get them to do so. We also actively solicited papers at conferences such as ERES, EuroFM and CIB where some papers also have a user focus.

Over the years, working with Howard and later with Chris Heywood as my co-editors, we encouraged a broader view on what CRE research beholds beyond managing CRE portfolios. There has been a clear interest and also rise in academics studying the workplace from an employee point of view this past decade or so. So, we started approaching researchers with other foci than management, such as those looking from a psychology, ergonomics, sociology, digitalization and other angles on the alignment between people and their physical environment. We updated and extended the aims of the journal, to the following:

Journal of Corporate Real Estate is a unique double-blind peer reviewed journal dedicated to Corporate Real Estate (CRE) and its management. CRE is the real estate owned and occupied by organizations in the public and private sectors that own and use real estate in meeting their core purpose. As such, it takes an end user perspective on real estate and has interests in both real estate and business management.

Journal of Corporate Real Estate is the leading forum for authoritative research on the wide scope of CRE, which comprises the real property used by organizations in the public and private sector to house their operations and employees to create and distribute products and services. CRE management activities include strategic planning and implementation through the acquisition, design, operation, occupation and disposal of real property by its users. Corporate real estate in the private sector may include all classes of commercial property, including offices, manufacturing facilities, distribution and fulfillment facilities, and retail stores. Corporate real estate in the public sector may include health, educational, office, and municipal real estate. The journal seeks to publish high-quality, authoritative, and rigorous examinations of the latest developments and ideas in CRE, and the implications they have for public and private organizations.

The journal welcomes submissions from academics, professionals, and government researchers world-wide concerned with properties’ end-users. These can be theoretical or practical articles, case studies, new approaches and techniques, empirical research or conceptual thinking, or other material relevant to CRE academics and professionals. Multidisciplinary approaches to problems and solutions are welcome.

Each issue features forward-looking articles and comprehensive reference guides on the latest thinking, best practice, new developments, research and case studies on CRE key issues including:

• CRE strategies and how they can contribute to the organization’s success

• CRE management structures, activities and skills

• Outsourcing to service providers

• Landlord–tenant issues

• Leasing, development, acquisitions, and dispositions

• Location and site selection

• Risk management

• Valuation of owner-occupied commercial properties

• End users’ portfolio management and flexibility

• Workplace design, productivity, and employee satisfaction

• The inter-relationship between CREM and FM

• IT issues

• Performance measurement and benchmarking

• Sustainability and corporate social responsibility

• Changing real estate needs, businesses and dynamic business environments

We also extended the article length to 5,000–8,000 as we noticed that very few academics were able to report fully on their work within 5,000 words. Currently, we are almost a full volume ahead of our deadlines with Emerald, which has taken of some of the stress of being an editor. And luckily, through Emerald EarlyCite, our authors still do not have to wait for their papers to be available online for the whole community.

Chris Heywood

I joined Rianne as Co-editor at the end of 2016, having been a content user since the journal’s inception, an author since 2005 and a reviewer, I recall, since approximately 2007. As a nascent CRE researcher in 1998–1999, I was grateful for its existence as a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to my field. In existing it supported emerging CRE specialist academics like myself and other emerging CRE specialist academics. It did this as a citable source reliable through its peer review and as a specialized publication outlet for our work.

Informed by my own experience as a developing CRE academic and with knowledge that CRE is, even after 25 years, still a niche field, I approach my editorship with a sense of custodianship and responsibility to develop and nurture this emerging field, while protecting and advancing its intellectual integrity.

As a niche field’s journal, there are opportunities as editor to, over time, feel like you get to know your authors and reviewers well as a community of scholars. The flip side of that is the challenge of small pools of regular authors and reviewers. Much as we might like our regular authors to always submit articles to us, we recognize that they need to seek multiple outlets for their work, and you also need to be mindful not to wear out your welcome with our volunteer reviewers. Fortunately, while CRE is a niche field, it does have “fuzzy” boundaries touching or intersecting with the investigating, using and managing our working, built environments. This provides a more expansive source of authors and peer reviewers.

Conclusion

The journal’s evolution mirrors both the evolution of the field, as well as being a catalyst in the field’s own evolution. Manning and Roulac’s 1999 article, “Corporate real estate research within the academy”, Journal of Real Estate Research, 17, 3, 265–279, noted that between 1995 and 1998 the field’s literature had moved from being academic to more practitioner focused through increasing research activity and interest in this area since 1995 by both consultants and trade associations (NACORE, IDRC and their merger into CoreNet Global). It is fair to say in this earlier period that these academics were, what might be called, “general” property academics rather than being CRE specialists, which were far and few between. This then was the point where JCRE originated in supporting professional development and practice, a fact reflected in its content and editorial organization with many industry people on the editorial board and with the professional association relationship. However, in existing it also supported emerging CRE specialist academics like the current editors and other emerging CRE specialist academics. In this, the journal acted as a catalyst to the field’s scientific development, a fact mirrored by its move to a more academic stance under Emerald’s ownership, albeit always with an eye to research’s relevance to practice. This is not to disparage the earlier practitioner contributions (and practitioners, of course, are still always welcome to submit articles) but recognizes that having a formal, distinct “scientific” body of knowledge that sits alongside and supports a professional field is an important defining element of being a “professional” field.

Twenty-five years of existence is a significant milestone of achievement. It is a sign of solid establishment, and yet CRE remains an emerging field, so 25 years also feels like just the beginning. There is more for us and our successor editors to do in the future. Many identified research gaps that still need to be filled.

Having said that, it is now clear that CRE represents a distinct perspective on real estate and the built environment more generally. Its emphasis on users and occupiers distinguishes “corporate” real estate from general “commercial” real estate – the “other” CRE with which it can be confused. By emphasizing real estate’s and the built environment’s use for business purposes, it touches on and represents one of the fundamental rationales for real estate – shelter and accommodation – for all organizations regardless of how they conceive their purpose or business in the world. It also connects with the wider real estate world which often construes this user and occupier world as the “space market”. Twenty-five years of JCRE content shows that there is much more to CRE than just being a player in a market.

The journal has, over its 25 years thus far, played an important role in consolidating and defining the use and occupier perspective. While it can be considered a niche or specialist field, the journal’s history shows that it has an expansive inclusiveness to the things that matter to users and occupiers. No longer is it just bricks and mortar, financial or space market aspects that define it as real estate. Including concerns like workplace design and management (amongst others we have noted above) connects with design, human resource management and psychology emblematic of the fuzzy boundaries mentioned above.

And so, in reaching 25 volumes of the journal, we reflect on the journey thus far and those that have played significant roles in getting it to where it is today – editors, editorial board members, publishers, publishing staff, authors and reviewers (we hope that this has not missed anyone). We also look forward to the future and the journal’s contribution to recording and shaping developments in CRE.