Special Edition ERES Conference 2012

Citation

Haynes, B.P. (2012), "Special Edition ERES Conference 2012", Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Vol. 14 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/jcre.2012.31214daa.001

Special Edition ERES Conference 2012

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Volume 14, Issue 4

Welcome to this third special issue of the Journal of Corporate Real Estate with papers from the 19th Annual European Real Estate Society (ERES) Conference. The conference took place last summer in Edinburgh, Scotland. The ERES Conference was jointly organized by the Institute of Housing, Urban and Real Estate Research at Heriot Watt University and the School of Architecture, Design and Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University.

The first paper “New firms … old assets: using Delphi technique to identify accommodation priorities for knowledge-intensive firms” presents primary research evidence relating to commercial property provision for knowledge-intensive firms. This paper adopts the Delphi technique for data collection. This technique is not generally used in the real estate literature but can be a very effective forecasting technique. The paper aims to obtain a consensus of expert opinion through a number of data collection iterations. The research findings establish the need for the commercial building to be seen as a dynamic asset that can be used to facilitate change within an organisation. This paper was awarded the Federation of Corporate Real Estate Prize for the 2012 ERES Conference as the best Corporate Real Estate Paper. More about the Federation is available on: www.fedcre.com

The second paper “Factors affecting the location of real estate” presents a literature review of the factors that can impact on the decision-making process during the location of real estate. The paper aims to identify and classify the demand and supply factors for various real estate types such as: industrial, housing, retail and office. The paper offers a systematic approach to evaluating location determinants and argues the need to include new non-monetary factors such as freedom from pollution and the quality of life for employees. The paper also provides a basis for further research relating to the optimisation of real estate location decision-making.

The third paper “Impacts of organizational relocation: a conceptual framework” reviews the literature which relates to impacts of relocation on office occupiers. This is largely drawn from the corporate real estate, property, and facilities management literature. The literature review is structured around the triple bottom line (TBL) perspective, which consists of the economic, social and environmental impacts on relocation. The conceptual framework developed from the literature review is subsequently tested in an expert workshop consisting of ten real estate professionals. The paper identifies a number of attributes that can be used as a way of evaluating the relocation decision-making process. In addition, the paper acknowledges the need for change management to be an integral part of the relocation process.

The final paper “Corporate real estate asset management: aligned vision” presents a conceptual model that aims to demonstrate the linkages between corporate strategy and corporate real estate strategy. Changing business environments mean that organisations need to be agile and adaptive. Likewise, corporate real estate needs to be equally agile and adaptive to maintain optimal corporate real estate provision for the organisation. This paper presents a conceptual model which can be used as an evaluative tool to establish the alignment or misalignment of corporate real estate provision with the organisation’s strategy.

This year, the 20th European Real Estate Society Annual Conference will be held on the 3-6 July 2013 in Vienna, Austria. The conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners from Europe and around the world to discuss a range of global real estate issues. One of the conference themes is Corporate Real Estate.

Barry P. HaynesGuest Editor