Facilities

Purpose – This paper sets out to assess the extent of application of two important facets of facility management – building management and the principle of public-private partnership (PPP).

Design/methodology/approach – The approach takes the form of a survey of German communes, the primary interest in this regard being the question of the determinants of this application. The theory of planned behaviour forms the theoretical basis of the investigation. A total of 282 mayors, 217 treasurers and 168 heads of real estate offices ultimately participated in the survey.

Findings – Professional building management, understood to be a package of facility management services during the building use phase, and in particular PPP, have so far only been realised in German communes to a very limited extent, despite consistently positive attitudes on the part of the decision-makers. The investigation sheds light on the differential reasons: in the case of PPP, normative pressure for co-operation between communes and business proves to be the most influential determinant, while in the case of building management subjectively perceived control is of greatest importance.

Research limitations/implications – The results reflect just processes in communes, but they give an example of the usability of the theory of planned behaviour as the explanation of the FM-implementation process.

Practical implications – The results give ideas for pushing the FM-implementation in communes.

Originality/value – There has been no previous research on this topic.