Determinants of satisfaction amongst tenants of UK Offices

Purpose – Corporate Occupiers require offices and services which meet their business needs, whilst landlords must attract and retain occupiers in order to maximise occupancy and rental income. The purpose of this research is to help landlords and corporate occupiers understand each other better, in order to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship. Design/methodology/approach - This paper analyses interviews with 1334 office tenants in the UK, conducted over an 11-year period, to investigate determinants of occupier satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Structural equation modelling and regressions are performed using respondents’ ratings of satisfaction with many aspects of occupancy as explanatory variables. The dependent variables include satisfaction with property management, value for money, overall occupier satisfaction, lease renewal intentions and occupiers’ willingness to recommend their landlord. Findings - The aspects with most impact on occupiers’ satisfaction are the office building itself, its location and amenities, and also communication with their property manager, a belief that their business needs are understood and the property manager’s responsiveness to occupiers’ requests. Occupiers’ loyalty depends mainly upon feeling that their rent and service charges provide value for money, an amicable leasing process, the professionalism of their property manager and the Corporate Social Responsibility of the Landlord. ‘Empathy’ is crucial to occupiers’ willingness to recommend their landlord, and clear documentation and efficient legal process improve occupiers’ perception of receiving ‘Value for Money’. Research Limitations - The sample is skewed towards occupiers of prime office buildings in the UK, owned by landlords who care sufficiently about their tenants to commission studies into occupier satisfaction. Practical implications - This research should help to improve the landlord – tenant relationship, benefitting the businesses that rent property and helping building managers understand where to focus their efforts to achieve maximum effect on occupier satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Originality/value - There has been little academic research into the determinants of satisfaction of occupiers of UK commercial property. This large-scale study enables the most influential factors to be identified and prioritised.

Rethinking the literature on the performance of Chinese multinational enterprises

We synthesize the literature on Chinese multinational enterprises (MNEs) and find that much of the prior research is based on as few as a dozen case studies of Chinese firms. They are so case-specific that it has led to a misplaced call for new theories to explain Chinese firms’ internationalization. In an attempt to better relate theory with empirical evidence, we examine the largest 500 Chinese manufacturing firms. We aim to find out the number of Chinese manufacturing firms to be true MNEs by definition, and to examine their financial performance relative to global peers using the financial benchmarking method. We develop our theoretical perspectives from new internalization theory. We find that there are only 49 Chinese manufacturing firms to be true MNEs, whereas the rest is purely domestic firms. Their performance is poor relative to global peers. Chinese MNEs have home country bound firm-specific advantages (FSAs), which are built upon home country-specific advantages (home CSAs). They have not yet developed advanced management capabilities through recombination with host CSAs. Essentially, they acquire foreign firms to increase their sales in domestic market, but they fail to be competitive internationally and to achieve superior performance in overseas operations. Our findings have important strategic implications for managers, public policy makers, and academic research.

A Character Formula for the Category (O)over-tilde of Modules for Affine sl(2)

One may construct, for any function on the integers, an irreducible module of level zero for affine sl(2) using the values of the function as structure constants. The modules constructed using exponential-polynomial functions realize the irreducible modules with finite-dimensional weight spaces in the category (O) over tilde of Chari. In this work, an expression for the formal character of such a module is derived using the highest weight theory of truncations of the loop algebra.

Harold Pinter: A Night Out : A Study in the Political ConnotationsAnd the Abuse of Power

Harold Pinter’s A Night Out is a significant but rarely produced piece of drama. Therefore, there is very little criticism to support or contradict my argument. The reason why I chose to do my essay on this particular play is to open doors for academic research and to try and make it an equal to its sister plays. I will raise questions and topics to prove the play is worth the readers’ time and effort and that A Night Out is a sharp piece of political theatre. Although at first glance it is a simple enough story, a straightforward tale of the nasty consequences of motherly love when it is pushed to the limit, on deeper inspection, a more far reaching and complex analysis of the abuse of power can be observed. The play offers a variety of themes, including: interpersonal power struggles, failed attempts at communication, antagonistic relationships, the threat of impending or past violence, the struggle for survival or identity, domination and submission, politics, lies and verbal, physical, psychological and sexual abuse. The prevailing theme in the play is the abuse of power: powerful parties oppressing weaker ones, and the results of the oppressed party looking for a vent in someone even weaker than themselves.

Managing Seasonality in Tourism : Challenges and Opportunities for the Tourism Industry in Húsavík, Iceland

Seasonality is a common phenomenon in the tourism industry around the world. Húsavík, a town on the northern coast of Iceland, has experienced tremendous growth in tourism in recent years and is sometimes recognised as the „Whale Watching Capital of Europe‟. However, Húsavík faces extreme seasonality with high demand mainly during the summer months and limited or no demand at other times of the year. As is emphasised in the tourism literature and widely in practice, seasonality is frequently seen as a problem for the tourism industry which has to be tackled. Academic research has never before been done on seasonality in Húsavík and the aim of this thesis is to understand the nature of seasonality within the tourism industry in Húsavík and discover potential ways to reduce seasonality in Húsavík tourism. In order to fulfil the aim, qualitative semi-structured interviews were undertaken with six tourism managers in Húsavík to investigate their perceptions of seasonality and if and how it could be managed. The results confirmed that the peripheral location of the destination stimulates seasonality and it poses major economic challenges for tourism businesses in Húsavík. Managers would prefer a longer tourism season. Several recommendations were provided for how to reduce seasonality such as develop other attractions than whale watching, improve accessibility, focus marketing on seasons outside the summer, and offer winter packages for foreign and domestic tourists.

Humorforskning i svenska organisationer och arbetslivssammanhang : en litteraturöversikt

Research on humor in Swedish organizational and working life contexts: a literature review The objective of this study was to provide a more coherent picture of research on humor in Swedish organizational and working life contexts, where even non-strictly organizational studies were included due to their high relevance in the research area. A systematic review of the literature published during the last 15 years was used to summarize an obviously undeveloped research area in Sweden. Published peer-reviewed articles that primarily examine humor were analyzed. Seventeen representative articles have been found and systematically reviewed and compared focusing on four questions: purposes and contexts of the studies, theoretical approaches, methods and main results. The analysis identifies four focal points that describe current state of humor research in Sweden: 1) positive function of humor appears to be a predominant research issue while humor’s subversive function, power relations and negative functions are less represented, 2) limited comparative studies of different contexts 3) biased theoretical approaches and limited studies of theory developing approach 4) overrepresented qualitative research approach. The above issues were discussed in relation to relevant international humor research.

Professora ou Tia? A polêmica formação do professor do primeiro segmento do Ensino Fundamental

Investigar a percepção que os professores das séries iniciais do Ensino Fundamental dacidade do Rio de Janeiro têm sobre a importância de sua formação para o desenvolvimentodas futuras gerações foi o objetivo desta pesquisa acadêmica. Muito se tem falado nosúltimos tempos sobre a necessidade de mudança na formação de professores. Na segundametade do século XX, a sociedade brasileira assistiu a transformações constantes ocorridasem seus diferentes setores, alguns dos quais historicamente co-responsáveis, junto com aescola, pelo desenvolvimento educacional a família e a Igreja. A sociedade foi tambémtestemunha do avanço das novas tecnologias, principalmente as da comunicação e dainformação que fizeram da mídia outro setor de fundamental importância para a educaçãode crianças e jovens. São mudanças que obrigam a um novo paradigma de professor,detentor de competências diferenciadas para o eficaz desenvolvimento do fazer docente. Natentativa de atingir o objetivo proposto desenvolvemos três capítulos. O primeiro focouprincipalmente a base teórica, que teve como maior sustentação as idéias de PierreBourdieu sobre o capital cultural. No segundo capítulo foi empreendida uma revisão datrajetória da representação social do professor, por meio de um levantamento da história eda legislação voltada para a formação desse profissional, procurando chamar atenção paraas exigências atuais percebidas por Edgar Morin, Jacques Delors e Philippe Perrenoud. Noúltimo capítulo foi apresentada a pesquisa feita com professores da rede oficial da cidadedo Rio de Janeiro, não perdendo de foco as teorias estudadas.

Proteção do consumidor: um estudo comparativo internacional

Here are presented the results of an international comparative research on consumer protection. Analysis focusses on the emergence of the consumer in the public space, both as a social character and as a issue, the stage through which consumer protection evolved and its present perspectives. The international analysis aimed at illuminating the case of consumer protection in Brazil, being the USA the mais evidence for First world countries and some European contries the secondary one. The sources are both primary and secondary.

Produção acadêmica em recursos humanos na década de 90: uma análise metateórica da pesquisa brasileira em periódicos e nos anais do ENANPAD

Nos últimos anos, a academia brasileira de administração tem se voltado para si própria em uma análise crítica retrospectiva que busca indagar se, além do evidente crescimento quantitativo, a produção acadêmica na área cresceu também em qualidade, rigor, relevância e originalidade. Nas áreas pesquisadas até o momento, o campo parece não estar satisfeito com a imagem que o espelho lhe mostra. A área de Recursos Humanos foi uma das poucas que ainda não conduziram um balanço abrangente de sua produção. Este trabalho procura justamente preencher essa lacuna, a partir do estudo dos artigos aceitos na área nos Enanpads da década de 1990 (1991-2000), e tem por objeto de análise a temática, a base epistemológica, a metodologia, o padrão de referência bibliográfica e demografia de autoria, dos 290 artigos publicados nos anais do Encontro, no período referido.