The importance of real estate’s sustainability rating has increased significantly. Studies undertaken in 2007 and 2016 show that, at acquisition, the rating rose from 7th to 3rd…
Abstract
Purpose
The importance of real estate’s sustainability rating has increased significantly. Studies undertaken in 2007 and 2016 show that, at acquisition, the rating rose from 7th to 3rd most important attribute. This shift in priorities parallels the RICS embracing the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact (RICS, 2015). However, while sustainability value premia appear common in some international markets, the picture is mixed and drivers and mechanisms lack empirical investigation. The literature reveals potential barriers to investors fulfilling both sustainability and financial objectives. The purpose of this study is explore these potential barriers.
Design/methodology/approach
Focus groups with real estate fund managers, sustainability managers and acquisitions surveyors are undertaken to explore the adoption and implementation of environmental sustainability policies. This reveals a series of barriers to implementation and these are then explored in greater depth through a series of interviews with fund managers. This layered, qualitative approach is designed to provide detailed knowledge of practical and conceptual sustainability issues within the UK real estate market.
Findings
Key drivers underpinning the adoption of sustainability policies are revealed and barriers to implementation are found to relate to data on investment performance, valuation methodologies and prohibitive capex. Further, the heterogeneous, opaque and slow-moving nature of the market is prohibitive and intervention is encouraged to overcome the lack of financial viability that hinders improvements.
Originality/value
Research is dominated by highly aggregated quantitative data on sustainability within commercial real estate markets. The qualitative approach used here adds new insights and value to the understanding of the embeddedness of sustainability in real estate investment decision-making.
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Alan Gardner, Allison M. Orr, Cath Jackson and James T. White
The retail investment landscape in the UK has drastically changed. Understanding owners’ responses to this structural change is critical to gain insight into protecting investment…
Abstract
Purpose
The retail investment landscape in the UK has drastically changed. Understanding owners’ responses to this structural change is critical to gain insight into protecting investment performance. This paper identifies and evaluates the tactics and strategies being adopted.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper employs a mixed methods research approach, using data collected from semi-structured interviews with professionals involved in the retail investment process. This is supplemented by secondary market data analysis.
Findings
The paper assesses the practical responses made by retail property owners/managers, structured around emerging sub-themes. Actions include mitigating short-term risks through greater use of temporary tenants/licensees and independent retailers, preparing generic “white box” retail space to capture remaining tenant demand, exploiting the tenant mix to provide “the retail experience,” and applying new technologies and processes in a sector where systematic risk remains high. A new framework for retail asset management has been developed.
Research limitations/implications
This study contributes to the retail asset management literature and understanding of the way the contemporary retail landscape is shaping investment management behaviour.
Practical implications
The developed framework provides guidance to real estate managers developing a retail real estate management strategy and will help them recognise tactics to better support the evolving retailing market.
Originality/value
The new framework adds new insights to understanding the process for managing retail assets and the actions necessary for asset managers to address economic/functional obsolescence and sustain asset investment values.
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Neil Dunse, Colin Jones, Allison Orr and Heather Tarbet
Property analysts and researchers have a fundamental requirement for reliable property market data. Historically, data on the commercial and industrial property market are weak…
Abstract
Property analysts and researchers have a fundamental requirement for reliable property market data. Historically, data on the commercial and industrial property market are weak, although a number of property indices have now been published for 20 years. Considerable debate has arisen as to the appropriateness of these data for meaningful and reliable econometric analysis. A particular problem is the existence of serial correlation. This paper considers the form and the nature of spatial data and examines the implications for their interpretation and analysis. The primary concern is with rent and yield data with a particular focus on those derived from valuations. It is concluded that the use of valuation data does not appear to be a constraint or the source of serial correlation. In addition, its existence parallels that found in other economic time series data of longer standing. A possible solution is the disaggregation of the data to the local level, which may reduce the smoothing induced by aggregation.
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Richard J. MacCowan and Allison M. Orr
The main aim of this paper is to investigate the specific factors that influence fund managers' decisions to dispose of property.
Abstract
Purpose
The main aim of this paper is to investigate the specific factors that influence fund managers' decisions to dispose of property.
Design/methodology/approach
This study explores the reasons behind the decision‐making processes associated with the disposal of real estate within a portfolio, and the information sources utilised by fund managers. A behavioural finance approach is adopted with the field research carried out as a survey‐based analysis of the disposal decisions made by fund managers in the UK property fund market.
Findings
The main reason for disposal of an investment is due, in part, to re‐structuring the portfolio. This is also linked to under‐performance of the asset involved, and current market expectations. The implications for the study are that it identifies that there are links between rational and irrational behaviour in the selection of assets, not only for disposal, but also in terms of investment as a whole. This can be based on the inefficiency of the property market, and the lack of accurately available information.
Originality/value
The study is unique as it provides a comprehensive commentary on the disposal behaviour of fund managers at the individual property and portfolio‐wide levels.
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Allison M. Orr, Neil Dunse and David Martin
Property markets are considered efficient when the market price of a transacted property equates with its market worth. If this condition holds then identical properties should…
Abstract
Property markets are considered efficient when the market price of a transacted property equates with its market worth. If this condition holds then identical properties should sell or let for the same price. However, properties are heterogeneous, and information and operational constraints exist. Consequently, events in the transaction process and factors like time on the market, buyer and seller psychology and agent behaviour influence property prices, whereas in a perfectly efficient market they would have no impact. This gives rise to similar units selling for different prices. This paper examines the relationships between commercial property prices and time on the market for property. Tests fail to find evidence of a direct relationship between time on the market and transacted rents, time on the market and asking rents, and asking rents with transacted rents. The reason for the insignificant results could be because landlords would rather offer potential tenants non‐price incentives such as rent‐free periods, rent break clauses, shorter leases or fitting‐out costs to achieve a faster let than discount the agreed contractual rent. A more detailed examination of the physical, location and market conditions that determine the expected time on the market for a property to let is undertaken. Results suggest that the state of the property market is an important influence on the time it takes to let a property, and concurs with the evidence found in housing studies. With the support of our empirical findings and evidence from the housing market, we conclude that including measures of non‐price incentives, landlords’ motivation, tenants’ characteristics, and search costs in our model may explain the relationship more fully.
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The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate heroism as an embodied system of leadership and well-being. Heroic leadership is presented as a baseline for sustainable futures and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate heroism as an embodied system of leadership and well-being. Heroic leadership is presented as a baseline for sustainable futures and global health.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper presents an embodied reading of heroic leadership and its sustainable development across five stages. It outlines its core functions, its grounding in self-leadership through physical and mental trauma and its holistic benefits, resulting in the development of the Heroic Leadership Embodiment and Sustainable Development (HLESD) model. The efficacy of HLESD is demonstrated in an empirical case study of heroism promotion and education: the Hero Construction Company and the Heroic Imagination Project.
Findings
Heroic leadership is revealed as an emergent, dynamic and distributed form of sustainable development.
Research limitations/implications
This paper demonstrates the critical connections between heroism, sustainability, embodied leadership and well-being and how they stand to benefit from each other, individuals and communities at large.
Social implications
The implementation of HLESD in educational, counselling and broader contexts in consultation with a wide range of professionals stands to offer significant benefits to pedagogies, clinical practice, holistic therapies and twenty-first-century societies, at both the community and policy level.
Originality/value
The emerging field of heroism science and the use of heroic leadership as an interdisciplinary tool is a novel approach to well-being, which holds immense potential for the imagining and fostering of sustainable personal and collective futures.
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Purpose – Disability-related politics and discourse in developed countries seldom includes the voices of disabled people from immigrant ethnic communities. Attending to the…
Abstract
Purpose – Disability-related politics and discourse in developed countries seldom includes the voices of disabled people from immigrant ethnic communities. Attending to the experiences of people with disabilities among immigrant communities is particularly salient when considering questions about community participation and citizenship in the context of immigrant-receiving societies such as the USA. This chapter aims to shed light on this topic by examining the narratives of refugees with disabilities resettled in the USA.
Methodology – A global ethnography framework was used to collect narrative data from eight Cambodian and seven Somali refugees with disabilities through observations, in-depth interviews, focus groups, and social network surveys. Additionally semistructured interviews were conducted with 10 service providers/key experts. Data were analyzed using grounded theory techniques.
Findings – Data from the study revealed that the Cambodian and Somali participants were distinct in terms of their access to sources of support and community and in their experiences of community participation barriers. Depending on their respective circumstances, they engaged in various tactics and strategies to negotiate these barriers and to create new networks of support and advocacy.
Limitations – The study sample was purposively selected and therefore findings represent only the views and experiences of the participants precluding any claims about generalizability. Furthermore, owing to the cross-cultural nature of this research there is a possibility that certain linguistic and cultural nuances were missed during data collection and analysis.
Implications – Findings suggest a need to recognize and support heterogeneous disability experiences and diverse expressions of “disability activism” enacted in individually, contextually, and culturally preferred ways in order to draw disabled people from diverse groups into the broader disability community in the USA.
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Tae-Ung Choi, Grace Augustine and Brayden G King
Organizational theorists and strategy scholars are both interested in how organizations deal with ambiguity, especially in relation to implementation. This chapter examines one…
Abstract
Organizational theorists and strategy scholars are both interested in how organizations deal with ambiguity, especially in relation to implementation. This chapter examines one source of ambiguity that organizations face, which is based on their efforts to implement moral mandates. These mandates, which are related to areas such as environmental sustainability and diversity, are inherently ambiguous, as they lack a shared understanding regarding their scope and associated practices. They are also often broad and systemic and may be unclearly aligned with an organization's strategy. Due to these challenges, in this chapter, we theorize that collective action at the field level is necessary for organizations to advance and concretize moral mandates. We examine this theorizing through the case of the implementation of sustainability in higher education. We hypothesize and find support for the idea that when an organization's members engage in collective action at the field level, those organizations have an increased likelihood of achieving sustainability implementation. To gain insight into this field-to-organization relationship, we qualitatively examine 18 years of conversations from an online forum to develop a process model of moral mandate implementation. We theorize that collective action functions as a field-configuring space, in which actors from a variety of organizations come together to (1) refine the scope of the mandate and (2) create an implementation repertoire that actors can draw on when seeking to bring sustainability to their own organizations. Overall, our study provides a model of how ambiguous moral mandates can be implemented by highlighting the important role of collective action across organizations in concretizing those mandates and providing actors with the tools for their implementation.