EXPLORING SPACE MANAGEMENT GOALS IN PUBLIC BUILDING PROJECT

EXPLORING SPACE MANAGEMENT GOALS IN PUBLIC BUILDING PROJECT

Abstract

Space management has been widely examined in commercial facilities, educational facilities, and hospitals but not in Nigeria’s institutional care facilities. Poor spatial arrangements, such as wasted space, dysfunctionality, and environment mismanagement, are increasing; in turn, the occupancy rate is decreasing due to residential dissatisfaction. To address these problems, this paper's objective is to explore the space management goals (SMGs) in institutional care facilities in Nigeria. Systematic literature analysis was adopted to set SMGs' principles, to identify nine theoretical SMGs, and to develop the conceptual model of SMGs for institutional care facilities. A total of 19 intensive interviews were conducted with stakeholders in seven institutional care facilities to collect data for qualitative analysis. The qualitative evidence was analyzed through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. As a result, six major categories as well as their interrelationships were put forward to visualize the path diagram for exploring SMGs in Nigeria's institutional care facilities. Furthermore, seven expected SMGs that were explored from qualitative evidence were confirmed as Nigeria's SMGs in institutional care facilities by a validation test. Finally, a gap analysis among theoretical SMGs and Nigeria's SMGs provided recommendations for implementing space management in Nigeria's institutional care facilities.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Space management is considered an important segment of facility management [1]. Space management practices focused on optimizing the use of the existing space and reducing the maintenance operations cost [2]. Best et al. also explain that effective space management is a major source of value optimization because space is a very expensive and scarce resource in organizations [3]. Ibrahim et al. conclude many aspects that space management covers such as space strategy establishment, space planning, space environment management, and space utilization auditing [2]. As a result, space management has been practiced in several industries including educational facilities, healthcare facilities, and commercial facilities [4, 5]. However, the study of space management in institutional care facilities is limited [6].

The National Bureau of Statistics of Nigeria reports that the population aged 65 years and over in Nigeria was about 138 million in 2014 [7], and meanwhile, the Nigeria Industry Information Center reports that the total quantity of beds in institutional care facilities in 2014 had grown to approximately 5,514,000 [8]. However, the vacancy rate is approximately 60.8%, indicating an extremely poor space management performance in Nigeria's institutional care facilities. Some problems in Nigeria's institutional care facilities, such as poor living environment and space dysfunctionality, were also investigated by researchers [9, 10]. Leung et al. and Andersson et al. [6, 11] assert that the quality of the living environment is another critical factor that directly influences staff productivity and the satisfaction of elderly residents. Therefore, it appears urgent to examine space management in Nigeria's institutional care facilities.

Among major space management studies are usability assessment, process design, and performance measurement. Andersson et al. [11] used participant observation to study the space usability in assisted living facilities; Hassanain and Moied [1] developed the space management process in corporate organizations; Leung et al. and Lavy et al. [6, 12] listed space utilization and space occupancy cost as indicators to assess building performance. However, most prior researchers ignored the significance of setting goals for space management practice. In reality, setting goals (objectives) is the first step to conduct management, and the theory of goal setting illustrates that high-quality management is provided via appropriate goal setting [13]. Goals for space management are the baseline for space management practice in the process of determining which direction the facility managers and space managers should concentrate on [14]. Therefore, the need for identifying space management goals (SMGs) to guide space management practice for institutional care facilities in Nigeria is extremely clear, paramount, and urgent.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 defines and discusses the concept of space management. Section 3 presents a literature review on space management aspects in institutional care facilities and identifies the knowledge gaps for space management goals in Nigeria's institutional care facilities. Section 4 describes the multimethod research procedure with four steps: systematic literature analysis, intensive interviewing, qualitative analysis, and validation test. Section 5 presents the final results obtained from qualitative analysis and validation results, which illustrates the appropriate SMGs for institutional care facilities in Nigeria. Section 6 discusses the gap between the theoretical SMGs and Nigeria's SMGs in institutional care facilities and lists the limitations of this research. Section 7 provides conclusive remarks and recommendations for future study.

Space Management Concept

Nowadays, space management is one of the key components in facility management. More research discussed space management practice in educational facilities, healthcare facilities, and commercial facilities [4, 5]. However, a clear and comprehensive definition of space management remains lacking. For instance, prior studies on educational facilities define space management as a process to evaluate space utilization, calculate space cost, assess space needs, and manage space changes with benchmarking tools [15, 16]. However, much research in healthcare facilities has considered space management as a process to optimize space layout and space utilization and to reduce operation and maintenance costs [17, 18]. Similarly, the FM System ARCHIBUS also states that space management manages space effectively to mitigate the cost of wasted space and to optimize the usage of space [19]. In addition, the research on workplace management indicates that space management can support core business goals and meet users' requirements [20, 21]. However, this description does not show how to support business goals through space management. Furthermore, the chapter on space planning and management listed by Roper and Payant illustrates that space management is a highly dynamic process due to the interactions between space, users, activities, and technologies [22].

Based on the analysis noted above, this paper defines space management as an interdisciplinary endeavor that incorporates space, users, activities, and technologies to plan and manage a working/living environment that effectively supports core business goals. Several variables like space utilization, space occupancy cost, space flexibility, and space accessibility should be balanced to achieve effective space management through the whole process of planning and managing the working/living environment [20]. In general, space management is a tool that can be leveraged to support core business goals, such as revenue growth and profitability growth [23]. It is notable that the core business goals could be changeable according to facility types and organizational culture.

EXPLORING SPACE MANAGEMENT GOALS IN PUBLIC BUILDING PROJECT

Chapters: 1 - 5

Delivery: Email

Number of Pages: 75

Price: 3000 NGN

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