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There are multitudes of sites and buildings offering various services to their occupiers. Studies highlight that companies choose sites and buildings that enable business’ growth and competition. The purpose of this paper is to explore occupiers’ perspectives on headquarters (HQs) site selection preferences with reference to the public listed firms in South Africa’s eight metropolitan municipalities.

A literature review was conducted to understand site selection preferences in other countries to inform the current study. Empirical data were collected using a sequential mixed-method approach using interviews and a survey. Semi-structured interviews were conducted first with the executives/management and also personnel who are involved in site selection decisions. Purposive sampling technique was used to select one company per industry to be interviewed. The information gathered from interviews informed the survey that was distributed online using Qualtrics software to all public listed firms located within the eight metropolitan municipalities in South Africa. Thematic analysis was used for analysing the interviews, whereas self-explicated conjoint model was used for the survey.

The results reveal that HQs as occupants of space prefer facilities that have good security and security systems, backup generators, air conditioning, parking facilities, energy management, access to the internet, efficient water supply, quality meeting places, cleaning services, the condition of the premises and disabled-friendly facilities. In addition to these preferences, HQs also prefer sites that are accessible. From this study, aspects that are unique to South Africa’s case are around security and security systems. The higher the crime levels, the higher is the demand on HQs to provide security and security systems for not only for their premises but also their employees. The current water and energy outages are also affecting HQs resulting in companies preferring facilities with an efficient water supply and having backup generators.

The research only focussed on public listed firms located within the eight metropolitan municipalities. The findings may/may not apply to the HQs of non-listed firms and also to those situated outside the metropolitan municipalities. Owing to this, the results cannot be generalised. Further studies are needed to explore preference by industry with larger sample size.

This study provides insights on HQs site selection preference levels from the context of South Africa as a developing country. The insights would be useful to companies within the South African context to better understand their contextual dynamics and for companies seeking to do business in developing countries. Apart from companies, this study would also be beneficial to policymakers in creating enabling policies for companies, property developers to build facilities that embrace aspects preferred by occupants and investors to understand the preferences of HQs in the selection of sites for their operation.

In a developing country such as South Africa, there are limited studies on HQs site selection preferences; therefore, this study is one of the few studies bridging the knowledge gap. This study adopts a marketing approach to understand corporate real estate phenomenon.

This paper aims to discuss whether alignment between corporate real estate strategy and corporate strategy exists for non-property companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange and what effects alignment has on the firms’ financial performance.

The study was both qualitative and quantitative in nature, with a specific focus on non-property firms listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange. The qualitative part of the study involved the analysis of the firms’ annual reports to determine the presence and use of corporate real estate strategies and their alignment to corporate strategy and the extraction of financial indicator data. The quantitative portion of the study involved the use of multivariate analysis, to distinguish and quantify the relationship, if any, between corporate real estate strategy and the identified financial performance indicators. The independent variables were the CRE strategies employed and the dependent variable was the share price. The methods used in this study have been applied before in European and Asian studies; this assisted in ensuring that validity and reliability was achieved.

The study finds that the most used strategy by firms (47%) is that which facilitates production, operation and service delivery. The Consumer Goods, Healthcare and Telecommunications sectors appear to demonstrate the highest level of alignment. Return on Shareholder Funds has a strong significant positive correlation with share price. Flexibility as a corporate real estate strategy also has a significant positive coefficient, which indicates a positive relationship with share price.

Although consistent with results of studies conducted in Europe and Asia, the results of this research may not be applicable to privately held non-listed firms, state-owned enterprises, non-profits and educational institutions. This study also ignores the dynamic external environment in which firms operate and the necessity of firms adjusting their corporate real estate strategy to their changing business strategy.

These results suggest that the incorporation of corporate real estate strategy in the firms’ corporate strategy formulation has the potential to enhance shareholder value for South African firms. Real estate developers, landlords and owner occupiers would benefit from better understanding the strategic requirements of corporations to ensure that the solutions they provide increase the likelihood of maximizing shareholder return.

The role of corporate real estate strategy in the firms’ corporate strategy formulation has the ability to enhance shareholder value. This research adds to the scant literature on corporate real estate management in South Africa.

This paper aims to investigate the effects of school quality (SQ) on residential property prices in Johannesburg, South Africa. Previous studies have empirically examined the quality of private and public schools without a standard proxy that is accepted in the literature. As a result, this paper extends the literature to the global south by the effect that SQ has on residential property price changes in the local markets of the City of Johannesburg.

The research adopts the hedonic pricing model to evaluate and quantify the impact that the structural attributes such as erf size; number of bedrooms and bathrooms; and SQ measured by pass rates, sport rankings and quality of facilities have on house prices. A total of 2,763 property transactions covering the Kensington and Observatory areas of the City of Johannesburg over the period 2010 and 2020 were obtained from the deeds registry and used for the empirical analysis.

The study finds that SQ has a positive impact on house prices. When the average pass rate of the model school increases by 1%, all other things being equal, house prices also increase by 1.8%. This suggests that people who live closer to the model school are willing to pay more when the school performance improves. The 1.8% premium this study attributes to a 1% increase in school performance is however generally low when compared to some findings in the literature suggesting that there may be some other important factors that households consider when purchasing their home.

The main contribution is uncovering the relationship between the SQ and residential property prices in the local markets, using Kensington and Observatory in Johannesburg as sampled areas. Due to the presence of reliable and quality of data sets, such studies are not many in the global south and a study of this nature in South Africa is notably not existing in the literature.

This paper seeks to investigate the significance of ownership and firm size as predictors of the prevalence of incentive plans in Swedish real estate firms.

Using survey data for two periods (2003 and 2007), a two‐predictor logistic model was fitted to the data to test the relationship between ownership and firm size and the likelihood that a Swedish real estate firm has an incentive plan.

Private sector firms are more likely than government sector firms to use incentive plans. The number of employees was not a significant predictor of which firms were likely to have incentive pay.

There are other determinants of incentive pay that were not covered.

The absence of incentive pay does not necessarily hamper a firm's ability to attract high‐quality workers if they take a broader view of the concept of reward. In addition, public sector workers may be motivated by factors other than monetary reward.

This is the first study of the determinants of incentive plans for real estate firms in Sweden.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain and explain the prevalence of financial and non‐financial rewards in Swedish real estate firms.

The paper draws upon insights provided by agency theory, social exchange theory and resource dependence theory to explain the results of a questionnaire survey of reward practices of Swedish real estate firms.

Differences in the types of financial rewards are exacerbated by differences in the benefits used at various levels of the firm. The adverse impact of that is limited by government provided social welfare protections. Learning and development programs, coupled with flexible work hours are social exchanges that could drive reciprocal discretionary effort by employees.

This paper provides the first comprehensive description of reward management in the Swedish real estate sector.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the use of assessment to manage some of the challenges diversity brings into the teaching and learning in international real estate degree programs.

The paper is a multi‐year case study of a course in real estate valuation in a Swedish University. The impact of assessment on student experience and performance was analyzed.

Changes in the timing and rules of assessment have an appreciable impact on differences in student performance. However, some diversity problems must be addressed also at the program level.

Real estate departments must exercise pedagogical leadership if they are to continue to effectively provide globally relevant education.

This paper analyses one of the consequences of the expansion of international real estate education into a non‐traditional destination for foreign students.