Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to identify different strategic pathways for structoring the real estate management organization. Different strategic pathways regarding commercial real estate organizations, and the alignment of their business models with the environment are studied and outlined. Design/methodology/approach -This research is based on an analysis of 15 interviews with top-level managers in the Swedish commercial real estate sector. Findings -When making strategic plans for a company, the commercial real estate industry has two strategic pathways to consider regarding real estate management. The first is to choose whether to have its own frontline personnel or to outsource this function. The second is to decide how the leasing task should be treated: Should it be treated as a real estate manager's task or should it be a function of its own in the organization? The conclusion of the study is that the organizations studied can be structured using both pathways, and the firm can still be successful. Furthermore, the argument by the top-level managers are the same regardless of how their organization is structured. They all base their strategic plans on the view that their structure of the organization is the best way to take care of the customer. In other words, they have the same arguments but haves chosen different strategic pathways to achieve strategic fit. Research limitations/implications -The research in this paper is limited to the Swedish commercial real estate industry. Originality/value -This paper outlines the strategic pathways for real estate management from a top-level management view.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse two questions. First, is there, and if so, how large is the price premium paid for a building exhibiting a cultural value? Second, are there any spillover effects of buildings with cultural values on sales prices of neighbouring houses? Design/methodology/approach Using a unique database of all buildings in the region of Halland, Sweden, combined with transaction data, hedonic models can be estimated, with spatially lagged variables describing proximity to three classes of culturally classified building – A, B and C – corresponding to building of national interest, building of regional interest and building of local interest. In addition, the authors also estimate models with a spatial specification on the error term, in an attempt to control for omitted variables. Findings The results indicate that cultural classification plays a role in determining the price of a property, with large effects (ranging between 36 and 60% price premiums) for the highest classification. In addition, the authors find evidence of a cultural externality, houses in the vicinity of building with high cultural value sell at a small, but statistically significant premium of 1%. Originality/value The cultural externality may be overlooked when it comes to valuation of cultural values in society, and therefore, it is likely that warranted protection acts to preserve cultural values in buildings become less than the social optimum. This paper suggests a new measure to cultural values contrasting previous research that rely on cultural preservation. This approach should limit problems with measurement errors that may lead to biased results.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how the students perceive the cleaning of the university, from an in-house and outsourced perspective. Design/methodology/approach This research is based on a survey conducted in the different university buildings with a total of 240 students. The survey was then analysed through an ordinal regression. Findings The ordinal regression indicates a statistically significant result were student are more satisfied with the cleaning performed by the outsourced service provider. Research limitations/implications The research in this paper is limited to one Swedish university. But, the overall strategies for how to organise the cleaning service at the university do address all universities. However, the research is limited and more research has to be performed. Practical implications The insight the paper provides regarding how the students perceive the cleaning service at the university gives direct implications to university in relation to how to consider the cleaning service as an important factor. Originality/value It provides the first study from a student perspective on the question of cleaning of the university, when previous studies have indicated cleaning as an important function not least to student’s performance and academic results.

This dissertation consists of five papers with specific objectives. The overall objective is, however, to seek a deeper understanding of the challenges of real estate management in the commercial real estate sector. The purpose of the first two papers is to provide a mapping of the industry and a better knowledge of the main organizational strategies of the companies and their view of customer relations. The third paper looks at the possibility that the online office market is a so-called lemons market, where primarily "bad" objects are marketed. The last two papers compares companies that outsource property management and companies that has property management in house. The first of the two (paper IV) address the question of incentives for effort and the second (paper V) address information for decision-making, both however consider how the real estate owner has created incentives and regulations to ensure that they are informed.

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