University buildings require maintenance to create a suitable environment that supports and stimulates learning, teaching and innovation. This article is concerned with identifying, evaluating and categorizing the criteria of the university building users' value systems. The criteria of the user value system or VALUCRITE are those that are taken into account while making decisions on maintenance management to enhance user satisfaction. For this purpose, this article reviews the related literature and presents the outcome of a questionnaire survey. Questionnaires were administered to 550 university building users in Malaysia. Twelve criteria were addressed to the respondents measured on a five-point continuum scale. With 87 per cent response rate and a cumulative mean score of 4.0516, six of the criteria have an individual mean score more than the cumulative mean score. The data were both satisfactorily reliable and valid. A multiple regression analysis performed revealed that collectively the 12 criteria can significantly explain user satisfaction (F (12 439)=33.576; 0.05) Therefore, the criteria can actually be used as screened criteria to ensure users' optimum performance with the maintenance service of university buildings.
The latest trend of cooperation between bodies to deliver airport facilities management (AFM) can be interpreted as a networking activity. This article explores Facilities Management (FM) uses of strategic alliances through showing how alliances are formed, operated and also improve the strategic strength of the contract. Strategic alliances are diverse and complex in nature. The case of AF) is used to develop the theoretical understanding of the benefit of strategic alliances used to deliver strategic change within FM. The increase in strategic strength for FM and AFM is evidenced through improved strategic positioning, improved efficiency, greater environmental benefits and improved utilisation of the benefits of privatisation. This article will examine why airports form strategic alliances to deliver AFM and whether interfirm rivalry and managerial complexity can cause problems within these strategic alliances.
The aim of valuation is to achieve the best estimate of the transaction price of property. The market of specialised properties is very diverse as property does not transact sufficiently often to allow the establishment of price by comparison with previously sold assets. This article describes a multiple criteria decision analysis method that can be used for specialised property valuation. This method is based on a market decision-making principle and is in line with the traditional comparative methods. To estimate the property price, information on as little as two comparable properties is required. The method takes into account a number of different criteria, such as qualitative, quantitative aspects and market conditions. In this article, I describe a theoretical model of the method and provide an example of the estimation of price for a specialised property.
The concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) has been recognized as a key factor in the marketing literature. Boosted by advancements in information and communication technology (ICT), IMC has received considerable attention during the past decade. The purpose of this research is to study in greater detail the IMC and ICT concepts in the tourism sector, specifically in hotels. The empirical study was conducted in 17 high-class hotels in Dalmatia, the largest region on the coast of Croatia. Descriptive statistics analysis showed a high degree of IMC and ICT implementation in Dalmatian first-class and luxury hotels. Moreover, the ICT application increased with the hotel category, whereas the IMC implementation decreased. The findings are expected to provide useful information to hotel managers regarding the degree of IMC and ICT adoption, in order to provide new management possibilities and gain competitive advantages.
The study of retail location strategy was carried out on a limited scale considering the area covering Bandra–Borivali (western suburb) and choosing specific formats and brands of organised retail outlets. The objective was to understand the inherent problems associated with the choice of location of an organised retail outlet and to frame hypotheses on the basis of specific postulates based on the arguments and discussions with the retail public. This article discusses issues through which some postulates and hypotheses were developed. These hypotheses would be tested using specific statistical tools during future research.
Mall development, which was restricted to the bigger cities in India, is now making inroads to the mini-metros and smaller cities of the country. Change from traditional retailing formats to an organized multi-assortment format is expected to transform Indian consumers’ shopping behaviour. This research article examines the influence of hedonic and utilitarian shopping values on consumers’ attitudes towards malls in the smaller cities of India. Emotional and rational shopping motives are supposed to govern the consumer's attitude towards malls. The research was conducted in five mini-metropolitan cities in Northern India ( n =325). ANOVA and multiple regression tests were administered to analyze the data. The results show that the hedonic and utilitarian values of small city consumers influenced their attitude towards malls. Results also showed the influence of age in consumers’ attitudes towards mall attributes.
Airport facilities management (AFM) is being delivered through collaboration with airports, through forming networks and strategic alliances. Facilities management (FM) is a function that is adapting because of a changing external environment; strategic alliances is one method used by FM to deliver this change in strategy. This article explores and examines the structure and characteristics of AFM alliances including the problems faced by competition and managerial complexity. This article explores the AFM function, its importance to airports and its strategic and competitive direction. The article concludes that although there are inherent problems in AFM arrangements, these can be effectively managed through well-written contractual documentation.
The onset of the global financial crisis is spurring customers to spend cautiously, thus decreasing the average amount of money spent per shopping trip. A dip in the customer conversion ratio has marred the profitability of retailers, and therefore making customer conversion an imperative issue. Today, retailers are increasingly making use of various in-store influencers for converting browsers to spenders. However, success depends on how the customers perceive these influencers. This article empirically evaluates the perception of the customers towards various in-store stimuli that is, price, merchandise, promotion, displays and ambience, across stores located in a cross section of the retail market of Chattisgarh. The findings of this article help in developing a strategy for improving conversions, therefore the profitability of a retail outlet.
There are current issues and trends in the music festival market, which may affect the success of an event, and market saturation is at the forefront of these issues. Previous literature, maintaining the need for a marketing approach to festivals, identifies the need for maintaining strong stakeholder relationships in order to succeed in a business environment; attention has been focused to the theory of relationship marketing (RM) because of the recognition that this practice is complementary to the marketing of festivals. The very nature of the music festival as an annual, usually, 4-day event means that effective marketing is needed to keep connections with the consumer throughout the year. This article focuses on the RM techniques utilised within the music festival industry from the viewpoint of the festival organiser in an attempt to establish how festival organisations value and monitor organisational relationships. This article explores the extent to which these relationships are valued and managed; furthermore, the variations between these intricate relationships are considered by focusing on those held with the organisation's consumers and sponsors, the results of which have provided the ability to establish the importance and relevance of RM to the industry and further identify the marketing communication methods employed to establish and maintain such relationships. In-depth, convergent interviews have been conducted with a segment of music festival organisers from a range of events. The results have been integrated with the study of current literature to best exemplify these issues. It has been established that RM has a strong role in today's commercial and independent music festival industry; technological advances are enabling the organiser to support online relationships further and increase consumer loyalty. There is a need to expand the research further because of the complexity of organisational relationships and the varying categories of festivals.
Owing to the existence of risks in real estate development projects, there is a need for risk assessment techniques that can be used to evaluate their impact. Using Thailand as a case study, this article examines the expectations of real estate practitioners regarding risk assessment techniques. It also examines their perception of risks caused by social, technological, environmental, economic and political factors. The article is based on an exploratory survey, and data were collected through questionnaires and interviews with representatives of Thai real estate development companies. Bivariate or correlatives tests were carried out. The study revealed that Thai practitioners are concerned with the impact of economic and political risks, and that there are no systematic risk assessment techniques to deal with their consequences. Therefore, risk assessment techniques need to be developed. This article proposes an analytical network process model that can be used to assess the impact of risks in the Thai real estate industry.
This study sought information from key executives involved in shaping the timeshare and vacation ownership industry in conducting a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis for the industry. The vacation ownership and timeshare industry has emerged as a sector of the travel industry with significant opportunities for growth and development. The findings of this study indicate that there are opportunities in many markets, segments and product offerings. The vacation ownership industry must overcome weaknesses in marketing processes, taxation concerns and amenities. It faces threats in the availability of human and capital resources, natural disasters and legal and taxation concerns.
This article seeks to provide a better understanding of green lodging and its components. The article provides a framework that illustrates how lodging properties interact with the physical environment, the negative environmental externalities created by the interactions and the solutions necessary to eliminate and ameliorate the negative externalities. An inductive approach is utilized, which combines interview data with content analysis. Findings suggest that green lodging is deliberate, and concerted efforts undertaken by lodging operations to mitigate or ameliorate the negative environmental externalities associated with lodging operations. These externalities generally manifest themselves in energy usage, water usage, air quality and waste management. Components of green lodging include the fixtures, facilities, amenities, supplies, equipment, services, consumables, and practices that are adopted, implemented and maintained to reduce or eliminate externalities. Collectively, these components can be described as technical and behavioral components. Technical components are the physical or tangible elements that should be adopted, installed or maintained to eliminate or reduce externalities, whereas the behavioral components relate to behaviors and practices that should be adopted. Future studies are encouraged to explore barriers to implementation of green practices in hotels, lodging managers’ and consumers’ attitudes toward green practices in the lodging industry, and how hoteliers are managing the ‘green’ supply chain.
A restaurant's style, including that of its kitchen space can not only provide much needed comfort, but can also serve as a positive ‘complement’ in dining experiences. For example, the opportunity to see kitchen staff working may contribute to a feeling of reassurance by seeing how the foods are being prepared, especially in terms of hygiene practices. Even the ‘entertainment’ factor of seeing chefs displaying their skills could serve to enhance the experience at a restaurant. Although the potential or actual relevance of kitchen style is acknowledged in many studies, relatively little research has been conducted concerning these aspects from restaurateurs’ or consumers’ perspective. In this study, consumers’ perceptions of open restaurant kitchen styles were investigated. Questionnaire distribution in a college town in the Southern United States allowed for the collection of 277 usable responses. The findings indicate that consumers were more in agreement that in an open kitchen staff's appearance will be neater, that food will be prepared more carefully and that the kitchen will also be cleaner. In contrast, participants’ level of agreement was lowest regarding their feeling of safety with food prepared in an open kitchen, and regarding the value of the entertainment factor when they eat at restaurants featuring an open kitchen. While, in general, the levels of agreement (means) are modest, clear differences between men and women were identified in all items studied pertaining to open versus closed kitchens as they refer to the dining experience; differences were also noticed among several age groups. Overall, the findings could be beneficial for the restaurant sector in understanding consumers’ behaviour and potentially identifying segments that pay more attention to open restaurant kitchen style.
There is growing pressure on retailing businesses to act responsibly and comprehensively to manage their waste in a sustainable way. In addition, the practical importance of meeting waste directives and environmental credentials has made most businesses value facilities management services to business. Despite Fuller's and Pitt's observations concerning shopping centre waste management trends, little attempt has been made to investigate the existing solid waste recycling from the UK shopping centre sector. Most previous research on waste minimisation through recycling relates to municipal buildings, commercial office buildings, medical facilities, hotels, educational buildings and industrial buildings. Few studies from other sectors have developed critical success factors (CSFs) for waste management and recycling initiatives. Therefore, this article sets out to identify those primary factors that are considered to be of critical importance to the successful implementation of recycling initiatives in UK retail shopping centres. The article establishes how these factors can be determined and validated in accordance with current perspectives. This article reviews the relative importance of CSFs associated with shopping centres solid waste recycling initiatives in the United Kingdom. By doing so, factoring analysis is used to classify a relatively small number of factor groupings that can be used to represent the relationship among a set of many interrelated variables. This technique is significant to explore the groupings that might exist among the CSFs with regard to UK retail shopping centre solid waste recycling initiatives.
Facilities management is taking centre stage in the discourse of academic institutions because of its relevance to facilitating learning, teaching and conducting research. University buildings are an important part of these facilities and considerable resources are committed to their design, construction and maintenance. This article is based on the premise that if there is information on the criteria that influence the maintenance of university buildings, the characteristics of defects in university buildings and the criteria within the users’ value system, the maintenance and management of the university buildings will be initiated and implemented more effectively and efficiently compared with how it is currently executed. The main aim of the present research, however, is to determine the kind and nature of defects in university buildings in Malaysia. The article reviews the related literature and presents the outcome of a questionnaire survey. The questionnaires were administered to 50 university maintenance organisations. With a 66 per cent response rate, the findings suggest that some defects require maintenance more urgently than others. On this basis it is concluded that resources should be directed to the more urgent areas whereas less urgent ones can be included in the next planned maintenance programme. The research found that lift failure, faulty electrical systems and roof damage were defects that respondents considered highly critical and that required urgent maintenance intervention.
The purpose of this article is to examine the salesforce behavioural performance in commercial firms using a phenomenological approach. A sample of 75 accounts relationship managers (ARMS) from 15 commercial banks was selected. Results reveal that background factors provided vicarious reinforcement behaviours while vicarious punishment reinforced social skills that were necessary for selling bank services. Social network ties were particularly necessary in increasing salesforce behavioural performance while poor family background coupled with lack of career planning, limited professional sales presentation impacted negatively on the performance of the sales career. Serendipity, development networks, social dyadic interactions with customers and key stakeholders were found necessary in generating, building and retaining customers. This is because customers' lives depend on how they are tied into the larger web of social connections. We therefore recommend banks to hire ARMS based on vicarious learning, family background, social networking skills and development networks if they want to improve performance.
The phenomenal growth of retail in India is reflected in the rapid increase in number of supermarkets, departmental stores and hypermarkets in the country. However, this unprecented growth trend has been challenged by the shadow of the current economic slowdown, which has raised a fear of dip in consumption and slowdown of growth for Indian organized retailers. At a time when consumer spending is on decline, success will lie with those retailers that can drive customer loyalty by responding to the demands of the discerning consumer. This study is an attempt to address issues related to store attributes and their relevance in the store selection process. Eleven variables (store attributes) have been identified in this article based on theory and judgment. Factor analysis has yielded three factors: Convenience & Merchandise Mix, Store Atmospherics and Services. The factors identified and recommendations made in the article would be of use to retailers in designing their outlets with store attributes that would meet the expectations of shoppers and thus motivate them towards store patronage decisions.
