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De structuur en inhoud van vastgoedstrategieen: een verkennend onderzoek onder Nederlandse organisaties
Recent research shows that a majority of Dutch organisations now own accommodation plans or real estate strategies (Ernst and Young, 2005, p9). This legitimizes the research question What do real estate strategies look like in practice? This question, along with Vande Puttes (2007, p11) observation that the structure and physical appearance of strategies has been mostly overlooked, is the reason for conducting this research. The goal of the research is to gain insight into the characteristics of structure and content of real estate strategies by Dutch organisations. The description of the characteristics is made by comparing the documents to literature on real estate strategy. The focus of this research is on explicit strategies. Explicit meaning: strategies that have been written down on paper.
As a result of the analysis of the documents, four potential structural archetypes have been identified. The four types of strategy structure for the documents have the following characteristics:
(1) A compilation of information document does not have a clear structure. Most of the information is about past, current and upcoming affairs in the real estate portfolio. This type of document is characterised by little or medium resemblance with any of the views on the strategy development and a low or medium content level of the strategy design process.
(2) An aligning and/or match based document has a structure that comes from the tool or the design method that was used during the design process. It is characterised by a high focus on the strategy design process and a high resemblance with rational planning.
(3) The boundary-defining structure determines the rules for the coming years. It does not result in concrete actions, but determines the boundaries in which future actions will take place. This type of document is characterised by high resemblance with guided learning and little focus on the strategy design process.
(4) The toolkit is a document in which most of the information is presented using strategy design tools. Conclusions and information coming from one tool form input for the use of the next tool. It features many figures and drawings and does not contain long paragraphs of text.
The application of an analytical framework shows a resemblance between literature and practice. Design methods such as aligning or linking and tools such matching or scenario planning are used. More often than not they are not used as prescribed. The research shows phenomena such as single-step aligning, quantity-only matching, the extrapolation of trends and the ability to influence scenarios.
Another conclusion on the use of design methods and tools is drawn: they make up a lot of the content in the analyzed documents. The use of tools and design methods has a high resemblance with strategy development views like rational planning and guided learning. But Idenburg (1993) uses the words flexible and developments to define emergent strategy . These two keywords are used frequently throughout six of the analyzed documents. This contrast between rational planning/guided learning and emergent strategy is ground for the following conclusion:
There is a mismatch between the structure and content of the analyzed documents. Six of the organisations aim to formulate a strategy based on rational planning or guided learning, but are in practice adopting an emergent strategy for their real estate.
The abundant use of the word development(s), in different meanings, shows that the writers of the documents have little grip on both internal and external changes. They are unsure about the meaning of, the consequences of, and how to deal with, changes. Flexibility often seems to be a euphemism for saying that no decision has been made yet.
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