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Ronald Beckers, Dorotheus van der Voordt and Geert Dewulf
This paper aims to explore the management strategies of facility managers and corporate real estate managers to align corporate real estate (CRE) with the needs of their…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the management strategies of facility managers and corporate real estate managers to align corporate real estate (CRE) with the needs of their organization and the end users in a changing context.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper first outlines the theoretical issues of CRE alignment processes and the management of accommodation needs. It then presents the findings from a multiple case study in 14 Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) from the perspective of the CRE/facility management (FM) manager. The empirical study is based on interviews and a questionnaire.
Findings
The theory shows three key process activities in managing the alignment of CRE with the needs of end users and the organization as a whole: coordination, communication and decision-making. The way organizations manage these process activities can be represented by eight opposite perspectives. These eight perspectives refer to two management strategies for CREM departments: an involvement-oriented strategy and a control-oriented strategy.
Practical implications
The distinguished eight management perspectives and two management strategies can be used by CRE/FM managers to reconsider their current approach for aligning CRE with the needs and requirements of the client, customers and end users. This is to improve the match between demand and supply to find future-proof accommodation solutions.
Originality/value
CREM issues and the effect of CRE on students and staff and vice versa is an underexposed topic in research in the field of higher education. There is still limited understanding of how to optimally align school buildings with education. The current study combines insights from other disciplines such as management and organization and information technology-alignment with insights from CREM theory.
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Ronald Beckers, Theo van der Voordt and Geert Dewulf
The purpose of this paper is to explore how corporate real estate (CRE) managers of higher education institutions formulate their CRE strategies and CRE operating decisions to…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore how corporate real estate (CRE) managers of higher education institutions formulate their CRE strategies and CRE operating decisions to align CRE with the corporate strategies of these institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
An analytical alignment framework has been developed, which was used to study the possible and actual connections between CRE management and corporate management at 13 large Dutch Universities of Applied Sciences. The data collection included a content analysis of the strategic plans of these universities and interviews with the CRE managers.
Findings
The research findings show several layers of how CRE managers aim to align CRE with corporate goals to add value to the organization. It appears that the CRE strategies in-use are more clearly aligned with the corporate strategies than with the espoused CRE strategies.
Practical implications
The paper emphasizes the relevance of involving CRE management in corporate decision-making to contribute to the attainment of the organizational objectives with an efficient and effective accommodation.
Originality/value
Substantial changes in learning and teaching practices in higher education lead to evolving corporate strategies, which result in the need for aligned CRE strategies and CRE operating decisions. This paper makes practitioners and researchers aware of the differences between alignment-based espoused CRE strategies and alignment that results from CRE strategies in-use in the field of higher education. The findings and insights might be applicable in other sectors as well.
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Ronald Beckers, Theo van der Voordt and Geert Dewulf
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the spatial implications of new learning theories and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in higher education.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the spatial implications of new learning theories and the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in higher education.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a review of the literature, a theoretical framework has been developed that visualises the spatial implications of developments in higher education. To further explore spatial configurations that support changes in education, a comparative floor plan analysis was carried out at four Dutch institutes of higher education.
Findings
The findings show that the traditional classroom space is progressively being replaced by a variety of learning settings to support contemporary learning activities.
Practical implications
The research findings contribute to a better understanding of the alignment of learning space to the evolving needs that come from new ways of learning, supported by advanced ICT, and can be used to support space planning in higher education.
Originality/value
This paper builds upon findings from different disciplines: Facilities Management and Corporate Real Estate Management (suitability of floor plans) and Theory of Education (the pedagogical approaches and pedagogical assumptions those floor plans convey).
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Since the late 1970s, research in accounting has been colonized by positive accounting theory (PAT) despite strong claims that it is fundamentally flawed in terms of epistemology…
Abstract
Purpose
Since the late 1970s, research in accounting has been colonized by positive accounting theory (PAT) despite strong claims that it is fundamentally flawed in terms of epistemology and methodology. This paper aims to offer new insights to PAT by critically examining its basic tenets.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper subjects the language of the Rochester School to a deconstruction that is a transformational reading. This uncovers rhetorical operations and unveils hidden associations with other texts and ideas.
Findings
A new interpretation of the Rochester School discourse is provided. To afford scientific credibility to deregulation within the accounting field, Watts and Zimmerman used supplements and missing links to enhance the authority of PAT. They placed supplements inside their texts to provide a misleading image of PAT. These supplements rest on von Hayek's long‐term shaping blueprint to defeat apostles of the welfare state. Yet, to set PAT apart from normative theories that Watts and Zimmerman claimed were contaminated by value judgments, they made no reference in their text to the tight links between the Rochester School and the libertarian project initiated by von Hayek.
Research limitations/implications
Any reading of PAT cannot present the infinite play of meaning that is possible within a text. Deconstruction involves a commitment to on‐going, eternal questioning.
Originality/value
The paper provides evidence of the relation between PAT and the neoliberal (libertarian) project of von Hayek. PAT is viewed as part of the institutional infrastructure and ideological apparatus that legitimates the hegemony of markets.
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The question of whether, and to what extent, Chicago price theory is Marshallian is a large one, with many aspects. The theory of individual behavior is one of these, and the…
Abstract
The question of whether, and to what extent, Chicago price theory is Marshallian is a large one, with many aspects. The theory of individual behavior is one of these, and the treatment of altruism, or, more generally, other-regarding behavior, falls within this domain. This chapter explores the analysis of other-regarding behavior in the work of Alfred Marshall and Gary Becker with a view to drawing out the similarities and differences in their respective approaches. What emerges is sense that we find in Becker’s work important commonalities with Marshall but also significant points of departure and that the line from Marshall to modern Chicago is neither as direct as it is sometimes portrayed, nor as faint as it is sometimes claimed by Chicago critics.
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The first issue that requires examination is the question of how we got to this point to begin with. The answer to this question, of course, is a function of who “we” happens to…
Abstract
The first issue that requires examination is the question of how we got to this point to begin with. The answer to this question, of course, is a function of who “we” happens to be. The lawyers can blame Oliver Wendell Holmes (1897, p. 469), who made “the man of the future … the man of statistics and the master of economics.” The future, it would seem, is now. Legal Realist/Institutionalist lawyer-economists such as Walton Hamilton and Robert Lee Hale, who were economists on law school faculties before that tradition got started at Chicago, had something to do with this too, although neither they nor law-minded economists such as John R. Commons can be given credit or blame for the economic analysis of law – at least not directly.3 The birth of the economic analysis of law is very much a Chicago story – Coase, Becker, and Posner – although we must allow that Guido Calabresi also had more than a bit to do with these things.4
Colin Harris, Andrew Myers, Christienne Briol and Sam Carlen
A discipline is bound by some combination of a shared subject matter, shared theory, and shared technique. Yet modern economics is seemingly without limit to its domain. As a…
Abstract
A discipline is bound by some combination of a shared subject matter, shared theory, and shared technique. Yet modern economics is seemingly without limit to its domain. As a discipline without a shared subject matter, what is the binding force of economics today? The authors combine topic modeling and text analysis to analyze different approaches to inquiry within the discipline of economics. The authors find that the importance of theory has declined as economics has increasingly become defined by its empirical techniques. The authors question whether this trajectory is stable in the long run as the binding force of the discipline.
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Iain McPhee, Chris Holligan, Robert McLean and Ross Deuchar
The purpose of this paper is to explore the hidden social worlds of competent clandestine users of drugs controlled within the confines of the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the hidden social worlds of competent clandestine users of drugs controlled within the confines of the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which now includes NPS substances. The authors explore how and in what way socially competent drug users differ from others who are visible to the authorities as criminals by criminal justice bureaucracies and known to treatment agencies as defined problem drug users.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative research utilises a bricoleur ethnographic methodology considered as a critical, multi-perspectival, multi-theoretical and multi-methodological approach to inquiry.
Findings
This paper challenges addiction discourses and, drawing upon empirical evidence, argues the user of controlled drugs should not be homogenised. Using several key strategies of identity management, drug takers employ a range of risk awareness and risk neutralisation techniques to protect self-esteem, avoid social affronts and in maintaining untainted identities. The authors present illicit drug use as one activity amongst other social activities that (some) people, conventionally, pursue. The findings from this study suggest that punitive drug policy, which links drug use with addiction, crime and antisocial behaviour, is inconsistent with the experience of the participants.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the small sample size (n=24) employed, the possibility that findings can be generalised is rendered difficult. However, generalisation was never an objective of the research; the experiences of this hidden population are deeply subjective and generalising findings and applying them to other populations would be an unproductive endeavour. While the research attempted to recruit an equal number of males and females to this research, gendered analysis was not a primary objective of this research. However, it is acknowledged that future research would greatly benefit from such a gendered focus.
Practical implications
The insights from the study may be useful in helping to inform future policy discourse on issues of drug use. In particular, the insights suggest that a more nuanced perspective should be adopted. This perspective should recognise the non-deviant identities of many drug users in the contemporary era, and challenge the use of a universally stigmatising discourse and dominance of prohibition narratives.
Social implications
It is envisaged that this paper will contribute to knowledge on how socially competent users of controlled drugs identify and manage the risks of moral, medical and legal censure.
Originality/value
The evidence in this paper indicates that drug use is an activity often associated with non-deviant, productive members of the population. However, the continuing dominance of stigmatising policy discourses often leads to drug users engaging in identity concealment within the context of a deeply capitalist Western landscape.
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PHILIP B. SCHARY and BORIS W. BECKER
This monograph progresses from a consideration of definitional issues to the development of a conceptual model for marketing‐logistics interaction and finally to a discussion of…
Abstract
This monograph progresses from a consideration of definitional issues to the development of a conceptual model for marketing‐logistics interaction and finally to a discussion of the issues of implementation of the model within the context of marketing strategy. Thus, following an introduction, Part II begins with definition of the field and examines the position of physical distribution in relation to marketing. Part III discusses the relationship of physical distribution and macro‐marketing, and is thus concerned about the social, aggregative goals of logistics systems, including the costs of distribution. Part IV continues this argument, examining specifically the influence of physical distribution on channel structure. Part V then focuses on the assumptions underlying the customer service function, asking how physical distribution can influence final demand in the market place. Part VI presents a conceptual model of marketing‐logistics demand stimulation. The operational issues concerned with its implementation are shown in Part VII; and a summary of the relevant points is presented in Part VIII. The concern has been not with presenting either new computational models nor empirical data but with presenting a new perspective on the marketing‐logistics interface. There is a need to reduce the barriers between these fields and to present more useful ways for co‐operation.