Architecture, Building and Planning - Theses
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ItemThe role of affect in local government corporate real estate management( 2007)This dissertation reveals affect’s contribution to strategic local government corporate real estate management (CREM). Affect is found in subjective assessments of the effects of the CRE and its management that contribute to the, often, fractious and vigorous debates around proposals to provide or change Council facilities. These subjective assessments, which may be colloquially known as ‘perceptions’, are thought by CREM to contradict the, seemingly, ‘objective’ measures they rely upon in framing facility proposals and decisions. The local government and general CREM literature is not extensive and quite deficient in its treatment of subjective assessments – affective or not. Other literature that does consider subjective assessments of environments rarely considers the political and governance issues implicit in the research problem. In practice, local government CREM already navigates across the problem field of affect and other subjective assessments of CREM’s effects. This dissertation presents analysis of cases demonstrating this navigation. A multiple case study research methodology was employed using four cases of facility proposals from a middle suburban Melbourne metropolitan council. The four cases were selected to illustrate the issues that exist in local government CRE and its management. Analysis occurred within a psychologically-orientated qualitative enquiry using an ‘Affective Lexicon’ to access affective dimensions contained in word-based data, both text and verbal. Using a psychologically-based mapping model the presence of affect in local government CREM was mapped across the management processes in providing the studied facilities as a means of furthering understanding of the effects of local government CREM. Possible further research in the field of local government CREM is also identified. This research makes several contributions to knowledge. Primarily, there is the contribution from demonstrating that affective, being psychological and subjective, practices apply to and are used by effective local government CREM. This contribution is supported by demonstrating that there is an ‘Affective domain’ to and for local government CREM and the form of that domain with regard to the psychological functions present. This provides an understanding of the subjective responses to facility proposals, more commonly called ‘perceptions’, and their affective assessments’ basis; both ‘ante’ and ‘post’ CRE project processes. Furthermore, rather than being merely recipients of affective, subjective responses, this research demonstrates an affect-based approach to local government CREM through an identification of affective management processes used by local government in providing community facilities. In addition, because the field of (local government) CREM is undertheorised at this point, this research also contributes knowledge to several gaps indentified in the property literature, particularly with regard to defining the basis of CREM practice and its effects.