FM as a scientific field of inquiry: theory, research and practice

FM as a scientific field of inquiry: theory, research and practice

When the editors began planning this special issue they asked themselves questions like: Does facility management exist as a separate field of scientific inquiry and if so what is its object of study? Are we not dealing with a topic within management or building science? With these questions in mind the editors of this special issue set out to select and edit a number of articles of the European Facility Management Conference held in Rotterdam in 2003.

It is clear from the selected articles that the field emerged only recently. The facility management references of the selected articles go no further back than 1995. So, the field has little history yet.

We stipulated that facility management should be about the management of the “workplace” and not just about the design and maintenance of a building or about work-processes. We saw the workplace in its broadest sense;within a building, at home, or whilst travelling. This broad scope is the object of study. The inquiry should be about the workplace; its use, its production as well as its maintenance and operation. Workplace is an interactive concept incorporating both the physical/environmental aspects, as well as, the user aspects by workers. It only arises when both elements coexist. The workplace is one of several inputs into work-processes affecting employees. In order to function, a workplace needs a number of facility services. It is also more of a service than a product. Was this notion of the workplace present in the presentations at the EuroFM research symposium in Rotterdam?

From the presentations and from our own observations we know that there is still discussion about the object of facility management research,its theoretical body of knowledge and key empirical studies. Some researchers and practitioners still make a distinction between the hard- and soft-services,or premises and business support services. We think that this is something of an aside. Facility is a term for a class of concepts related to the workplace. It does incorporate hard- and soft-services into a meaningful entity for those that use it (e.g. workers) as well as those that have to take decisions (e.g. management). A group of researchers and practitioners seem to agree with our position if one looks at the selected articles. The research in general is skewed to the office workplace. We conclude that the workplace as we described it can be seen as the object of scientific inquiry in facility management. Another question we asked ourselves was: “Is there sound scientific research relating to the workplace?” We have brought together quality scientific articles that discuss recent studies that investigate important concepts related to the workplace. These concepts include adaptability, spatial configuration in relation to human interaction, effects of sounds and noise on performance of workers, cost monitoring and potential savings, benchmarking of processes and innovation in facility management.

Nearly all discuss findings of original empirical research. We see this as a healthy sign of development of the field and the answer to the question is positive. However, most studies described here are comparative in nature. This is a sign that the field still lacks the kind of financial funding that allows for quantitative research methods. Larger samples could be analysed with more sophisticated statistical tools. We encourage the field to go into this direction to strengthen the quality of the research output.

A theory of facility or facility management is not yet clearly articulated in the selected papers. Some authors start from the point of view that a facility does affect the behaviour, health and well-being of workers in one way or another. Examples can be found in the articles of Jesper Steen and Pierre Chigot. Others start with the assumption that the workplace and its operation have an influence on the success of organisations. A theoretical framework for facility management should incorporate both. We consider the lack of a comprehensive theoretical framework in the selected articles a weakness of the field.

Progress in the formulation of theory will strengthen the scientific value of the field. The process of alignment of the research and practice is stimulated by the interaction that occurs among authors when they have the opportunity to physically meet and listen to one another who present their work for critique. A great opportunity for such an interaction are the international conferences and research symposia, organized by the FM associations around the globe. The European Facility Management Conference held in Rotterdam in 2003 was one such event, where the FM practitioners and researchers discussed the current managerial and research issues in the field. Such conferences are of eminent importance to foster discussion about the questions we asked ourselves. We feel that researchers and practitioners should meet and that the researchers by their research should discover and shape the fundamental nature of facility management.

In the general conference in Rotterdam and in the benchmarking seminar, several authors presented their work and ideas on the following topics:

• 1.

  FM developments in health care;

• 2.

  real estate management and FM;

• 3.

  benchmarking in FM;

• 4.

  new developments in FM;

• 5.

  added value of FM; and

• 6.

  new organizational concepts in FM.

In the research symposium, presentations were made on:

• 1.

  FM adding value: the impact of quality workplace on business success; and

• 2.

  FM organizational issues: modelling relationships in the FM production chain.

In total, there were 41 papers, presented at the general conference, benchmarking seminar and research symposium. We have selected 7 papers, which were revised for this special issue.

We hope that you agree that this selection is a good start for the further development of scientific inquiry of facility management as a service to organisations and the community at large. We welcome your remarks and critiques.

Tomas Mudrak, Andreas van Wagenberg and Emiel WubbenWageningen, 19 October 2004