A comparative analysis of “building well-being” factors for prime office workers in London and Hong Kong

Abstract

Purpose

In order to determine whether the factors affecting office worker well-being are location dependent, this exploratory study analyses the relative importance of different “building well-being” factors for prime office workers in two leading but environmentally contrastive real estate markets: London and Hong Kong.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper adopts a mixed methods sequential explanatory design (follow-up explanations model), consisting of three phases: an exploratory phase to refine the building well-being factors, a quantitative phase utilising a questionnaire to assess the relative importance of these building well-being factors (N = 281: London = 171; Hong Kong = 110), followed by a final phase of follow-up interviews with respondents to explore the reasons behind the significant differences observed in the quantitative phase (N = 13: London = 7; Hong Kong = 6).

Findings

While London and Hong Kong share some highly-ranking factors in common, significant differences in importance are observed for 17 of the 31 identified factors as a result of contrasting physical, economic, and cultural environments.

Originality/value

Despite growing recognition of the importance of the built environment on well-being, to the authors’ knowledge there has been no previous research investigating how building well-being demands may vary systematically across geographies. Understanding these differences has important implications for interpreting building well-being research, effective business operations, real estate investment, building certification scheme design, and governance of the built environment.

Citation

Perry, H. and Dericks, G. (2024), "A comparative analysis of “building well-being” factors for prime office workers in London and Hong Kong", Property Management, Vol. 42 No. 5, pp. 732-755. https://doi.org/10.1108/PM-10-2023-0104