The term Facilities Management has become global but fraught with confusion as to what the term signifies. For some, notably in the USA, Facilities Management remains a discipline of human ecology. Elsewhere the term has become conflated with an alternative meaning: providing or outsourcing the provision of various services essential to the operation of particular buildings. This volume redresses that imbalance to remind Facilities Management of its roots, presenting evidence of Facilities Management success stories that engage the wider objectives of the organizations they serve, and engaging students, scholars and critical practitioners of general management with an appreciation of the power and influence of physical space and its place in the theory and practice of organizations.

This book includes management perspectives from outside the field to ensure that the issues raised are seen in an organizational and management context, informing debate within the Facilities Management fraternity. It draws on human ecology and the perspective of the firm as, itself, an intra-organizational ecology of social constructs. The ecology of a firm is not restricted to the firm’s boundaries. It extends to wider relationships between the firm and its stakeholders including, in an age of outsourced building services, the Facilities Management supply chain. This volume offers arguments and evidence that managing such constructs is a key role for Facilities Management and an important participant in the provision of truly usable spaces.

Reviews

"This is an important book which contributes greatly to our understandings of how space and the built environment are constructed and managed in policy and practice in the UK and elsewhere. This often overlooked subject is of great importance to managers and the building and construction professionals who work with them." – Huw Morris, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Contents

Introduction: Space, Management and Organizati Alexander and Ilfryn Price Part 1: Organizational Ecologies 1. Organizational Ecologies and Declared Realities Ilfryn Price 2. Workplace Redesign to Support the 'Front End' of Innovation Jeremy Myerson 3. Managing Facilities for Human Capital Value Jacqueline Vischer 4. Facilities in Popular Culture John Hudson 5. Facilitating Creative Environment Birgitte Hoffmann, Peter Munthe-Kaas and Morten Elle 6. Spatial Ecology: Learning and Working Environments that Change People and Organizations Colin Beard Part 2: Social Constructs and Contradictions 7. The Social Construction of FM Communities Ilfryn Price 8. Philosophical Contradictions in FM George Cairns 9. The Usability of Facilities: Experiences And Effects Goran Lindahl, Geir Hansen and Keith Alexander 10. Service-centric Logic of FM Christian Coenen and Daniel von Felten 11. Value Rhetoric and Cost Reality Colin Stuart 12. Ecologies in Existence: Boundaries, Relationships and Dominant Narratives Ian Ellison and John Flowers ...