Competitive advantages created by market strategies and the economic cycle in commercial real estate investment

Economic cycles have a strong impact on the profitability and operations of modern markets. Even commercial real estate investments which have been traditionally considered to produce steady returns with a relatively low volatility have encountered large difficulties especially during the last decade to generate returns which succeed their return expectations. Simultaneously the rapid development of the Finnish commercial real estate investment market has woken up the interest of even increasing amount of investors which has further increased the competition between different investors actively participating in the market notably. A proportion of the investors have managed to perform better than their competitors during different phases of the economic cycle by creating and utilizing so called competitive advantages in relation to their competitors. This master’s thesis focuses on studying the competitive advantages in relation to fluctuations of the economic cycle of different domestic and foreign investors which have been active in the Finnish commercial real estate market between the years 2006 and 2012. This thesis includes a literature review of competitive advantages in general and furthermore applies these theories to commercial real estate investment. Competitive advantages of different investors are observed in relation to the organizations’ internal characteristics and cost efficiencies considering the discounted cash flow analysis which is typically used for valuating various real estate investments. The research’s empirical part studies the transactions data of the years 2006, 2009 and 2012 resembling different phases of the economic cycle. Furthermore it recognizes and analyses the investment strategies of different investors in relation to the transactions data in order to determine the actual competiveness of investors with different organization types during the observation years. The assumption behind this research is that in order to successfully purchase assets the investor is required to have relative competitive advantages compared to other investors participating in the purchase process in order to be able to place the asset's highest purchase bid. According to research results the competiveness of investors with different organization types indeed varies depending on the current dominant phase of the economic cycle. Despite this the results show that domestic publicly listed commercial real estate investors are extremely competitive during all the observation years with a significant difference to other organization types. Furthermore the theory discussed in this thesis supports the fact that publicly listed commercial real estate investment companies possess good conditions to perform very competitively in the markets

Optimising self-managed funding for people with a long-term disability: dialogue summary

A day-long stakeholder dialogue was held on 5 March, 2015 to consider the factors which influence the uptake of self-managed funding by people with a long-term disability, and identify barriers and facilitators to the implementation and uptake of self-managed funding. Sixteen people participated. Discussions noted the following key considerations: The term ‘self-managed’ funding is more appropriate for people with long-term disability, particularly those who experience cognitive impairment. It should be assumed that all people with a long-term disability have the right to take up self-managed funding. Every person with a long-term disability has some capacity to self-manage their funding, and efforts should focus on building this capacity through education and training. Although people with a long-term disability may not want to take up self-managed funding the first time it is offered to them, every effort should be made to allow them ample time to consider it and opportunities provided to enable consumers and carers to ask for more information about what is required to participate. The approach to self-managed funding needs to be different for people with catastrophic injury compared with other conditions. Self-managed funding should be offered early for maximal uptake. To date, in the early implementation stages of current models, more people with spinal cord injury (SCI) than people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) have taken up self-managed funding; this is assumed to be a reflection of the additional complexities in the needs of people with TBI. To have greater success in the uptake of self-managed funding for people with a traumatic brain injury (TBI), there needs to be considerable thought about making the processes involved appropriate, particularly for those with cognitive and behavioural impairments. The capacity of people with a TBI to undertake the tasks associated with self-managed funding needs to be assessed by staff who have trained skills and also reasonable expectations of what can be accomplished. The relationship of the Carers and Family members with a person with a TBI needs to be supported through a range of offerings for self-managed funding. Funding agencies and service providers need to build trust and be willing to work collaboratively with people with long-term disabilities to ensure that they can consider self-managed funding as a means of empowerment and control. Encouraging and actively supporting people in peer support networks to talk to others about what the experience of self-managed funding is like and/or having consumer organisations conduct forums that present real-life experiences were considered next steps to increasing the uptake of self-managed funding

Optimising support for informal carers of the long-term disabled to enhance resilience and sustainability

Optimising carer resilience has direct benefits to carers, and additional benefits to the overall care support system by reducing dependence on paid care. Executive summary People with severe and chronic disabilities represent a significant proportion of the population who require assistance to live in their own home and be a part of the community. In addition to assistance from the paid carer workforce, this assistance is provided by family, relatives or friends who are not paid or formally trained in the provision of care and support. These informal carers assist with a variety of tasks including activities of daily living, emotional care and support and accessing medical care and ongoing therapy to optimise independence. There are 2.7 million people in Australia who provide informal (unpaid) care to a person with a disability or long-term health condition, of which 770,000 provide the majority of care and support to people with a severe disability. Given their substantial contribution to care provision and the physical, emotional and other impacts of providing care, it is important to understand the experience of informal carers and address their support needs. In recent years, studies have elucidated the substantial effects of providing care on the psychological, physical, social and other impacts of providing care to a person with a long-term disability. There are a range of interventions to mitigate these impacts, which are provided in Australia through a variety of national and local government and nongovernment entities with varying efficacy. Optimising carer resilience has direct benefits to carers, and additional benefits to the overall care support system by reducing dependence on paid care. This NTRI Forum aims to investigate effective strategies for providing support (excluding skills-related education and training, i.e. manual handling and transfers) to informal carers that can help to optimise their resilience, and the sustainability of the long-term disabled. An evidence review of literature identified 25 relevant reviews and primary studies and a further 16 ongoing primary studies. The overall results of reviews of carer support interventions were inconclusive, therefore firm conclusions regarding what works and doesn’t work cannot be made. However, evidence was reported as ‘good’ for educational and psycho-educational interventions, counselling and psychosocial interventions and multicomponent interventions; Evidence for care co-ordination and family support interventions was described as ‘promising’; Evidence for technology-based interventions was conflicting in the setting of Dementia, but more positive in the area of catastrophic injury; Evidence for respite care was described as ‘not strong’, and although benefits were reported, the importance of additional support strategies in conjunction with respite care was emphasised. Similarly, emerging positive evidence in favour of support groups was reported, however additional concurrent support strategies were recommended. Passive information dissemination alone was found to be ineffective. The review also outlined a range of factors to consider in interpreting this evidence and identified implications for practice and research

Optimising self-directed funding for the long-term disabled: briefing document

People with long-term disabilities have become increasingly frustrated with the inadequate support services provided by the disability sector. In particular, people with long-term disabilities want to have support services which met their needs as well as greater choice and control in the decisions around them. Over the last five years the popularity of self-directed funding has increased significantly. In 2011/12 the Australian Government made a commitment to implement a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) as advised through an inquiry by the Productivity Commission to have full rollout country wide by 2018. Self-directed funding is used as a mechanism to promote self-determination and empowerment in people with long-term disabilities and to facilitate their living in the community independently. Self-directed funding can be provided by an individual package held by a provider, by an individual budget held by the person to spend through providers or by direct payments to spend on the open market. The implementation of self-directed funding models has been implemented in various forms over the past couple of decades, including the piloting of small scale programs and the introduction of larger scale programs by government bodies or departments in specific disability groups.  Self-directed funding models are strongly established in the UK, USA and Western Australia. The inclusion of infrastructure supports such as independent brokers, financial intermediaries and ongoing support for clients are beneficial features of established models, particularly for people with complex needs. Despite their popularity, there is a lack of evidence about the effectiveness of self-directed funding models in practice, and no evidence comparing different models.  No single model has been demonstrated to be superior to another, likely in part because the cultural and political context in which a scheme is introduced has a strong influence on its design, implementation and outcomes. Despite this, there are consistent indications that offering flexible and creative options within models is the best approach for ensuring people with more complex and potentially unmet needs, have an opportunity to take up self-directed funding successfully. There are limited studies of the feasibility and impact of self-directed funding for people in the compensable sector with catastrophic injuries. Qualitative studies using interviews or questionnaires reveal that, generally, people with long-term disabilities recognise that self-directed funding should be one option among the range of options for receiving necessary support services; however, there is variability in the stated willingness to take on self-directed funding themselves. A lack of awareness of what is involved in self-directed funding and how it can be managed has been reported. In addition, it has been suggested that not all people have the skills, education or experience to manage self-directed funding, hence training and information sessions that are understandable and comprehensive are likely to be necessary in order to encourage uptake.  This NTRI Forum aims to consider the factors which influence the uptake of self-directed funding by the long-term disabled. Two questions were identified for deliberation in a Stakeholder Dialogue: 1. What are the barriers and facilitators to optimal implementation and uptake of self- directed funding in Australia and New Zealand? 2. How can knowledge of barriers and facilitators be used to address these challenges

PROCESS SUPPORT FOR THE OPTION GENERATION PHASE IN WIN-WIN NEGOTIATIONS: COMPARISON OF THREE COMMUNICATION MODES

Analytically oriented Negotiation Support Systems have been studied and developed for decades, but they have not become widely adopted by negotiation practitioners. Along with the phenomenal growth of e-commerce, a need has arisen for information systems that support the parties’ “soft” negotiation processes and communications in addition to the “hard” quest for a mathematically optimal solution. In this study, we report an experiment about applying three different communication modes in integrative win-win negotiations following the principled negotiation tactics. We focus on integrative negotiation’s dialoguing phase where the parties share information, brainstorm options together, and establish an appropriate atmosphere. We compare computer-supported same-time same-place negotiations aided by group support systems (GSS) - either anonymously or non-anonymously - with the control treatment group that uses verbal communication backed up with flipcharts and Post-it notes. Due to the recent social media revolution, the role of anonymity might have changed from the GSS research results obtained decades ago. Our goal is to find out possible differences in the negotiation outcomes: meeting satisfaction and productivity. We discovered that all three modes worked well when used together with a carefully structured and facilitated process, although the number of unique ideas generated was significantly higher in the computer-supported groups

Analyzing the Internet-based Changes in the Finnish Residental Real Estate Market. Case: Igglo

This paper is about real estate industry in Finland, and the Internet-based changes that have turned a collection of static pictures and text into a more interactive search and decision making tool for home hunters. The novel e-services and marketing model of Igglo, a newcomer to the Finnish real estate industry, are described in detail. In addition, several US exemplars of innovative ways of offering real estate services are presented. Finally, different ways of providing real estate services are compared in order to judge whether the Internet is now ready to fulfill its promise of more efficient and nearly friction-free markets

Optimising return to work practices following catastrophic injury

This paper aims to enhance understanding of the features of optimal return to work practices following traumatic brain and spinal cord injury and identify barriers and facilitators to their implementation. Executive summary People with catastrophic injuries face many long-term challenges in the community as a result of their injury: one of the most problematic can be in returning to work (RTW). It may not only be a significant issue for the person with a catastrophic injury but also for their family, friends, the employment industry, and society. Worldwide mean RTW rates for people with catastrophic injury are approximately 30-40%; however, in Australia the overall mean rate is unknown. Internationally, the best RTW rates reported for moderate to severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) come from the UK, Sweden and USA, whilst for spinal cord injury (SCI) they are in Switzerland and Sweden. There are several differences in the way rates reported are calculated such as the time post-injury, making it difficult to definitively identify whether one country achieves better RTW rates than another. Several studies have been conducted to determine the factors which facilitate and limit RTW for people with catastrophic injury. These include having pre-injury employment, age, education, severity of injury, level of cognitive impairment, being functionally independent, fatigue, psychological adjustment to the change, social support and the work environment to name a few. There is a general lack of understanding of the experience of people with catastrophic injury who return to work and, therefore, little known about how job retention can be successful in the long-term. Four types of VR interventions have been identified to facilitate RTW – 1) program based rehabilitation, 2) supported employment, 3) case co-ordination and 4) hybrid or mixed. An evidence review identified 15 relevant articles and it was found that there was limited high quality evidence to support any type of intervention more effective than the other. There was however moderate evidence identified for the effectiveness of case co-ordination for achieving successful RTW for people with moderate to severe TBI and high level evidence for a specialist TBI-VR combination intervention. A reduction in the claiming of benefits after 1 year was also observed. The most promising RTW intervention for people with SCI appears to be supported employment; however, as only one RCT has provided this evidence, further studies are required. Several factors that affect the likely success of RTW interventions were also identified in exploring the research evidence and implications for future research were identified. Substantial research has been conducted on RTW interventions in people with TBI since the late 1980s, however this is not the same for SCI. High quality evidence and transparent reporting of study details are still lacking. This NTRI Forum aims to enhance understanding of the features of optimal return to work practices following traumatic brain and spinal cord injury and identify barriers and facilitators to their implementation. Two questions were identified for deliberation in a Stakeholder Dialogue: 1. In the Australian context, what are the barriers to, and facilitators of, application of strategies to optimise RTW outcomes for people with catastrophic injury? 2. How could identified barriers and facilitators be addressed to ensure successful RTW and better retention of people with catastrophic injury? An accompanying document (Dialogue Summary) will present the results of the deliberation upon these question

Engineering E-Collaboration Processes to Obtain Innovative End-User Feedback on Advanced Web-Based Information Systems

In recent years, web-based information systems (WIS) and services have proliferated in all sectors of the economy. Unlike traditional IS, the development of WIS is evolutionary due to unceasing changes in the technological environment, regulation, and user needs. A new discipline, Web Engineering (WE), has emerged to promote systematic and disciplined approaches toward successful development of high-quality and ubiquitously usable WIS. User involvement is also a must for all organizations that aim to stay competitive and provide superior services for their customers. We have designed two structured e-collaboration processes for obtaining innovative end-user feedback on an advanced WIS under continuous evolution. Our feedback processes are purported for the perfective maintenance of WIS, where enhancements such as new functionality or increased efficiency are introduced continuously. We reflect on our experiences of two action research cycles through a Collaboration Engineering (CE) lens, and analyze the usefulness and suitability of the designed processes in these and other contexts. Our study contributes to the WE and CE streams of research by adding to the discussion of user-centered development and WIS evolution employing disciplined methods. For organizations, the developed e-collaboration processes offer novel means to involve end-users in their WIS development process. We believe that the designed processes may be applied in various WIS as well as in traditional IS contexts in different industries

Consumers\u27 acceptance and use of personal health record systems: A theoretical model

Recently, there has been a growing trend towards consumer-based healthcare in which consumers are increasingly becoming partners in their own care. One way of accomplishing this is to provide consumers with access to their health records through the use of Personal Health Record (PHR) systems. In spite of their potential benefits, recent research has shown that PHRs are not yet popular or well known to consumers. The overall objective of this research is to investigate the influences of various personal, behavioral, and environmental factors on the adoption and use of PHR systems by Canadian consumers. Drawing on both the information systems and behavioral healthcare literatures such a model is developed and presented. The proposed model will be validated using a longitudinal design over a period of 16 months involving patients from two local clinics. The study participants will be introduced to an existing PHR system at those clinics. The system will subsequently be made available for their potential use. Users will be surveyed at various points in time regarding their perceptions about the system utilizing both close-ended and open-ended questions. Collected data will be analyzed using structure equation modeling and qualitative data analysis techniques