Insignificant or ignored? Antisocial behaviour in private housing in Hong Kong

Because of aggravating antisocial behaviour (ASB) or the neighbourhood problem in housing, many western governments have given ASB control a central place in their policy agendas. However, tackling ASB often involves a great deal of politics. Although ASB and controlling it have attracted much scholarly attention, the focus has almost always been placed on social housing. It is unclear whether this problem does not exist in other types of housing or if it is simply ignored. Drawing on a study of private housing developments in Hong Kong, this article examines the extent and seriousness of ASB as a problem in private housing. It shows that the problem does raise wide concerns among residents, and that many residents complain about noise nuisances and littering in their living places. On the other hand, most residents feel that the efforts of housing management agents in countering the problem are in vain or inadequate. In fact, when reacting to ASB, housing managers inevitably face a number of issues that originate from the joint appointment of managers by all homeowners and the lack of enforcement powers. In particular, controlling some neighbourhood nuisances is difficult and costly. This article concludes with an agenda for empirical research to explain the proliferation of ASB from the transaction-cost perspective

Raziskava o sprejemljivosti komasacije za urbano prenovo v Hongkongu

Ker se Hongkong spopada z vse hujšim propadanjem, si mestne oblasti zelo prizadevajo za obnovo. Vendar se sanacija zaradi zamudnega in zahtevnega pridobivanja zemljišč pogosto zavleče. Obvezni odkupi pridobivanje zemljišč sicer pospešijo, vendar tej tehniki marsikdo očita, da ustvarja družbene napetosti med predstavniki za prenovo in prizadetimi lastniki posesti. Nekaj pravic prizadetim lastnikom zagotavlja zakon o zaščiti zasebne lastnine, vendar se nekateri odločijo še za dodatne ukrepe, da si zagotovijo udeležbo pri dobičku, ustvarjenim s prenovo. Prisilna selitev zaradi prenove lahko resno ogrozi socialne mreže. Zaradi teh težav so strokovnjaki predlagali »komasacijo« (ang. land readjustment). Ta tehnika zagotovi partnerski odnos med interesnimi skupinami, udeleženimi pri projektu prenove. V tujini uporabljajo komasacijo v različne namene, vendar je njena uporabnost za prenovo zgradb v Hongkongu vprašljiva. Ta prispevek se ukvarja s sprejemljivostjo komasacije v Hongkongu. Sestavili smo vprašalnik, ki ga je izpolnilo 356 prebivalcev mesta Kowloon City. Na podlagi rezultatov raziskave smo oblikovali predloge in praktične rešitve. Izsledki o trajnostni prenovi mest ponujajo dragocena spoznanja za javne upravljavce in mestne upravitelje

Willingness to Participate in Collective Action: The Case of Multi-owner Housing Management

ABSTRACT Management of multi-owner housing is never straightforward because of the need for collective homeowner action. Mancur Olson suggests that a rational individual will not participate in collective action which provides no positive net benefit for him or her. Based on this premise, it would seem that rationality drives homeowners to free-ride on others' efforts and that, as a result, no collective action will take place. However, some homeowners do actively participate in housing management, and it is worthwhile to examine why some participate and others do not. Building on the wide-ranging applications of the collective interest model (CIM) in explaining political participation and environmental activism, this paper expands its relevance to the arena of housing management. The explanatory analysis which is based on the findings of a structured questionnaire survey in Hong Kong corroborates the central propositions of the CIM and provides a theoretical account of homeowners' willingness to participate (WTP) in housing management. In brief, the WTP is a function of beliefs about personal and group efficacy, the value of the collective good, and the selective benefits and costs of participation. These findings have far-reaching implications for the formulation of government policies promoting homeowners' active involvement in housing management in Hong Kong and other megacities

Evaluation of Property Management Agent Performance: A Novel Empirical Model

For many different reasons, property management agents (PMAs) are appointed for managing housing developments in both public and private housing sectors in many different cities. While third-party housing management eases the burdens of property owners and tenants in taking care of their properties, it may lead to agency problems. In fact, cases of mismanagement of multi-owned properties are common in Hong Kong and other Asian cities, leading to accelerated urban decay and augmented confrontations between property owners, users and PMAs. To promote better property management services, the performance of PMAs should be evaluated so market players can benchmark the performance of different PMAs for better-informed decision-making. This study reviews previous and existing measures for evaluating PMA performance and proposes a new evaluation model which is built upon the residual concept proposed by William Sharpe. The ideas underpinning the framework and how a PMA’s performance is evaluated using the framework are detailed. Using this new model, 217 housing developments in Hong Kong are studied and the performance of the respective PMAs is evaluated and benchmarked. The evaluation outcomes are validated with the SERVQUAL scores of these 217 housing developments. Practical implications of the research findings follow

Contingency factors influencing MAS design of manufacturing firms in Malaysia

From a contingency framework, this paper empirically examines the relationship between decentralization, advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) and market competition on the adoption of sophisticated management accounting system (MAS) design among manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Using a structured questionnaire and regression analysis, data from 137 manufacturing firms from Malaysia show that the sophistication of MAS adopted is significantly and positively related with AMT adoption and market competition. The findings suggests that the adoption of sophisticated MAS design is parallel with the adoption of advanced manufacturing innovations and is able to assist firms to cope with the changes in the business environment. However, a positive but insignificant relationship was observed in the relationship between decentralization and MAS design. These results have contributed to the management accounting change literature by suggesting that attempts by the MAS designers to improve the timeliness and the scope of the information are of particular relevance to the managers of the firm

Lead-lag relationship between the price-to-rent ratio and the macroeconomy: An empirical study of the residential market of Hong Kong

The price-to-rent (PtR) ratio is one of the most commonly used indicators to assess housing market conditions by policy makers and real estate practitioners. It is often employed as an economic barometer to detect whether a housing bubble exists and determine whether the property market has become unaffordable relative to historical trends. Despite a plethora of research studies on the PtR ratio in the housing literature, relatively little is known about its long-term dynamics with macroeconomic and financial determinants. By utilising time series data on the Hong Kong residential property market, this study examines the cointegration and causal relationships between a wide spectrum of macroeconomic indicators and the PtR ratios of housing segments of different tiers which comprise different socioeconomic groups of homebuyers and investors. The results point towards market compartmentalisation, in the sense that the PtR ratios of the housing submarkets respond to changes in macroeconomic fundamentals in a differential manner. For instance, the PtR ratios of housing segments with a greater proportion of owner-occupiers are statistically less y correlated with investment-related macroeconomic attributes, such as foreign direct investment and equity market performance. On the other hand, the pricing of large-sized housing units in prime locations, generally favoured by investors from mainland China, are found to be Granger-caused by the exchange rate of the Chinese Yuan to the Hong Kong dollar

Dynamics between Direct Industrial Real Estate and the Macroeconomy: An Empirical Study of Hong Kong

Pricing of direct industrial real estate (DIRE) has long been under-researched due to the paucity of analysable data. Compared to other types of real estate, DIRE has often been regarded as more inefficient because of information asymmetry amongst market players stemming from a lack of market transparency. Therefore, pricing of DIRE usually does not follow a random walk and should be more predictable than other types of real estate. Along this line of reasoning, this study empirically investigates the causal relationships between the price-to-rent ratio of DIRE and macroeconomic attributes using cointegration and causality techniques. More specifically, we employ data on the market of Hong Kong to investigate the lead-lag relationships between the price-to-rent ratio of DIRE and a wide spectrum of macroeconomic and financial indicators, including inflation, money supply, national income, exchange rates, performance of housing market and other economic indicators specific to the industrial sector. The results of our statistical tests reveal significant evidence that DIRE is generally moving in syncs with other segments of the economy over time in terms of long-term cointegration. Further, DIRE tends to lag behind the overall macroeconomy in terms of Granger causation with the price-to-rent ratio exhibiting varying lengths of time lag with the macroeconomic determinants. The findings of the study carry important implications for informing property valuation practices and industrial land policy, particularly in designing urban revitalization programmes aimed at optimising industrial land use

From seen to unseen: Designing keyboard-less interfaces for text entry on the constrained screen real estate of Augmented Reality headsets

Text input is a very challenging task in the constrained screen real-estate of Augmented Reality headsets. Typical keyboards spread over multiple lines and occupy a significant portion of the screen. In this article, we explore the feasibility of single-line text entry systems for smartglasses. We first design FITE, a dynamic keyboard where the characters are positioned depending on their probability within the current input. However, the dynamic layout leads to mediocre text input and low accuracy. We then introduce HIBEY, a fixed 1-line solution that further decreases the screen real-estate usage by hiding the layout. Despite its hidden layout, HIBEY surprisingly performs much better than FITE, and achieves a mean text entry rate of 9.95 words per minute (WPM) with 96.06% accuracy, which is comparable to other state-of-the-art approaches. After 8 days, participants achieve an average of 13.19 WPM. In addition, HIBEY only occupies 13.14% of the screen real estate at the edge region, which is 62.80% smaller than the default keyboard layout on Microsoft Hololens.Peer reviewe