Modelling how to reach alignment with corporate strategy
Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Corporate Real Estate, Volume 16, Issue 2
Welcome to the fourth special issue of the Journal of Corporate Real Estate with papers from the European Real Estate Society (ERES) Conference. Last summer in Vienna, it was the 20th time that ERES organized their conference. Recent years the amount of CRE related paper sessions has shown a steady research input. Last year, even a special full paper track on CREM was organized, which will be continued coming years. This special issue contains a selection of four papers, providing you insight in the newest (ongoing) academic CREM research.
Past special issues showed two main streams of research topics:
1. user preferences with regard to office building design; and
2. the CREM function and how to achieve alignment (amongst which decision making).
This year all four papers belong to the second stream, matching the need in times of crisis for contemplation on how to go forward. As academics, we like to construct frameworks/models to capture the world. All authors in this issue have questioned CRE managers on how they approach certain issues and/or what they find most important, to create/calibrate such models for CREM strategic thinking. This provides practitioners with a nice benchmark for their own practices. The main goal seems to be helping CREM in practice increase strategic thinking and improve alignment with corporate strategy.
The first paper “Attributes of alignment of real estate and facilities management to business needs – an international comparative analysis compared views form CRE managers in different countries on which criteria are most relevant to seek alignment with. Although all the suggested criteria from literature were confirmed to be important, different context (regions) showed different priorities.
The second paper “Best practice, best model, best fit – strategic configurations for the institutionalization of corporate real estate management in Europe confirms this influence of context. The authors searched for a best fit alignment model when institutionalizing CREM practices. They created a holistic map of parameters and specifications for four spheres of activity (strategy, targets, organization and controlling) and tested this with several large corporations.
In the third paper “Modelling sustainability maturity in corporate real estate management one specific CRE strategy was chosen, that in recent years has gained attention. The authors show how different CREM departments try to increase their added value with regard to sustainability goals of the organization. It is clear, that the more strategic CREM departments have the most options and potential to provide value and alignment.
The last paper “Priorities in accommodating office user preferences: impact on office users decision to stay or go does not model CREM activities. Instead, it tries to translate CREM decision making to consequences for the existing vacant office stock. The real estate market needs to reckon with the increasingly strategic behavior of CRE managers, and anticipate on the possible consequences this may have. The user is in control these days, and designing without them should be a thing from the past.
The CRE sessions at ERES seem to rely on a steady input from only a few Western European universities, whose academics (with some exceptions) usually fill the special issue (Darmstadt in Germany, Delft and Eindhoven in The Netherlands, Aalto in Finland and Sheffield in the UK). This year, the 21st European Real Estate Society Annual Conference will be held on the 25-28 June 2014 in Bucharest, Romania. Perhaps, this will lead to a rise in contributions from Eastern Europe. I hope, we will also see this reflected in next years special issue. The conference aims to bring together academics and practitioners from all over Europe and around the world. So, a very warm invitation for all of you to come and present your CRE research at our conference. We are already preparing our papers again and will be there to discuss with you how to bring the CREM function forward.
Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek
Guest Editor and ERES Board Member
About the Guest Editor
Rianne Appel-Meulenbroek, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of CRE Management at Eindhoven University of Technology. Her education and research activities focus on the way CREM can provide added value for an organization. She is a board member of ERES, and track chair for the sessions on CRE(M).
