Facilities Management Best Practice in the Nordic Countries: 36 Cases

Citation

Waheed, Z. (2009), "Facilities Management Best Practice in the Nordic Countries: 36 Cases", Facilities, Vol. 27 No. 9/10, pp. 413-413. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632770910969658

Facilities Management Best Practice in the Nordic Countries: 36 Cases was surprisingly, a very good read. That may have to do with my own interest in the case study methodology and the facilities management (FM) profession, but even objectively speaking, the book was interesting and fluent to read. Primarily intended as teaching resource and the output of a three‐year research project covering the Nordic counties, it may just have been a bland, uninspiring collection of cases. But this, it was not.

The author is a well‐established academic, and this academic rigour is definitely apparent in the way the material has been handled in throughout the text. For a book to be used as a teaching resource, structure is of paramount importance. This book is an extremely well‐structured one. Since the case studies originate from five Nordic counties, the book starts with an introduction of the FM market in the Nordic countries. The Nordic orientation towards design, the preference for natural light and materials, organisational culture and the issues of trust and self‐organisation of members is explained before the case findings are introduced. It is only after the structure of the book and the major findings from each of the 16 themes have been explained, do the authors present the various cases. These themes vary from in‐house FM development to supplier partnerships to infrastructure and space management and have all been adequately presented through relevant case studies.

The no‐nonsense appearance of the book is clearly representative of its content: pertinent, original, concise and well structured. Every case is handled differently, according to the primary issue at hand. Company background, mission and the primary issue description lead on to the development of the phenomenon, the practice adopted by the organisation and the learning outcomes. The authors always appear enthusiastic about the cases, keeping this academic investigation into practice interesting throughout. Although theory in not directly discussed (and perhaps would have been beyond the scope of the book), the theory surrounding each of the case themes has been well covered through the issues being studied and the way the findings have been presented.

This is a valuable teaching resource. A supporting web site with suggested activities, worksheets, further reading material and teaching resources would perhaps help in making this text a much bigger success as a teaching resource.