Responsibility for and performance of corporate real estate functions

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify different organizational models concerning both the functions and responsibilities assigned to corporate real estate (CRE) professionals in European and North American companies, as well as to determine the factors that influence the occurrence of these different management models. Design/methodology/approach – An empirical survey between 74 major European and 38 North American companies from the banking, energy, telecommunication, and transportation and logistics industries is conducted. Findings – Five typical models describing the allocation of responsibility of real estate functions within a company and the performance of those responsibilities are identified. Only weak statistical associations are found between these models and certain contextual factors that may influence the choice for a specific model, as well as between the models and certain achievements in CRE. From this, the paper infers that there does not exist one “best practice” CRE management model in a specific situation as often is stated, but instead, various promising organizational models seem to exist. Originality/value – This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the organizational variables “responsibility” and “performance” of real estate functions and presents a differentiated view compared to existing research. Specifically, this is the first paper that analyzes and attempts to categorize the various existing approaches to the allocation of responsibility for CRE functions, as well as accountability of the corresponding performance. As such, this paper can therefore serve as an initial point for further research on this topic.