published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Master / Master of Public Administration

published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This paper concerns with a study of policy of Hong Kong Government in effective building management. With the Government’s established policy in advocating building management, the Home Affairs Department (HAD) make use of competitions to induce property management companies (PMCs) and owners’ organizations to improve the management standard. After semi-structured interviews with organizer, judges and participants of competition, the Government’s policy is analyzed. Laguna Verde (LV) in Kowloon City District is taken as an example for illustration. It was found that they make use of techniques similar to business competitive strategies for preparing the competition. This may be the reason for their continued championship. It was concluded that the policy is well address to the objective of advocating quality building management and therefore effective. In addition, the policy has attributes of being an efficient policy, with equity and community acceptance. The institutional constraints are also less because the policy well aligns with other policies. In addition, the policy is flexible and different format can be adopted to address different policy and social needs. Quality Building Management Competition (QBMC) is a territory-wide district-base programme organized by the HAD. LV has been successful in obtaining the championship in Kowloon City District QBMC for five consecutive terms, i.e., 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, 2008-09 & 2009-10 (the term of 2007-08 was suspended). Using LV as an example, it is considered the factors for achieving quality management. The various strategies adopted by LV in obtaining the championship are studied. It is then utilized to illustrate the key elements of quality management through owners’ and occupiers’ participation. These include the set up of management committees / owners’ corporations (OCs), the representative groups, to manage common parts of buildings and the appointment of PMCs, the trade practitioners, to provide services including professional support and management of common areas. It is also illustrated in this paper that there are other dimensions of institutional arrangements, ranging from the establishment of legal framework, provision of professional and support service to OCs by the Government, to the statutory regulation on the property management industry, which contribute to effective building management and maintenance. HAD, in response to government’s call on encouraging owners’ / occupiers participation in private building management, makes use of this competition to promote the good practice of building management. PMCs and OCs also make use of the competition in promoting their public image and enhancing the value of their properties. Therefore, a case study of how LV obtains the championship and an analysis in the implication of the competition in implementing the Government’s policy and serving the objective in private building management is valuable. The literature review includes the conceptual framework of challenge in managing common property, i.e. the tragedy of the commons versus the tragedy of the anticommons: when multiple owners hold rights to exclude others from a scarce resource and no one exercises an effective privilege of use, the resource might be prone to overuse / underuse. In the context of building management, this refers to the attribute that common area of the buildings is of multiple ownerships. If the rights and obligations of such communal private property are not clearly defined, this will inevitably lead to lack of proper maintenance of the common parts and in turn the dilapidation of buildings and the diminishing value of properties. This problem known as the tragedy of the commons and the anitcommons gives rise to different institutional arrangements for property right governance or property management. It is further investigated into the choice among different institutional arrangements and the collective action of owners’ active participation in building management by referring to transaction costs analysis and Collective Interest Model. Besides, the literature review gives background information of the competition, property management in general in Hong Kong, description of Kowloon City District QBMC and competitive strategies, in which both positioning and resources based approach will be applied. This is a descriptive research and qualitative method will be adopted. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted to the key staff participated in the competition. The organizer, that is, HAD and District Council (DC), as well as key members of the judging panel will also be interviewed. From the analysis on various opinions from participating parties in the QBMC, it is concluded that QBMC, being a competition programme, together with a series of individual and continual publicity and educational programmes, performs the function of facilitating effective building management by OCs and service quality improvement committed by PMCs. It echoes to and is efficacious in achieving the Government’s policy in encouraging owners’ / occupiers participation in private building management. To a certain extent, the Government’s role in provision of well-established statutory framework and support services for OCs, as well as in implementation of regulatory framework for private property industry in Hong Kong contributes to effective building management. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

High rise buildings are commonly found in Hong Kong. Neighbours are so close to one another that activity next door could bring disastrous effect to the whole building even if only minor malpractice is found in daily activities. There had been a number of fires with large number of casualties and deaths in the recent years. Fire safety management in buildings across Hong Kong has been one of the most discussed topics in the territory by the government, politicians and the general public. Investigations of those incidents revealed that there are common malpractices found in those buildings – ineffective means of escape routes, unauthorized alteration to building usage and structures and low awareness on fire safety management. The government did take remedial actions after each fire by imposing more requirements on fire services equipments and systems for types of buildings that had been burnt in previous fires. Furthermore, ad hoc fleet checks to buildings with similar characteristics as where the fires were had also been carried out to meet public concern right after blazes. Long term measures such as enactment of new laws, amendments to existing codes of practice on fire safety equipments and systems, strengthening execution of laws towards offenders, launch of promotional programmes by the Fire Services Department to raise public concern on fire safety awareness have been in effect aiming at lowering the figures on fire cases and hence loss in lives and properties. After series of actions taken, number of fire cases, casualties and deaths result from fire did not go down in the past few years. Building fire safety condition in two cities in South East Asia, Singapore and Tokyo, are taken for comparison with that of Hong Kong. It is discovered that there are merits from the two cities for our reference in order to get the safety levels of our buildings be raised. The two governments in Singapore and Tokyo take proactive approach on control and promotion of fire safety in buildings while our policies are passive ones. Besides, both Singaporean and Tokyo government plan their policies with focus on the weaknesses found that bring adverse effect to the key issue. In order to cultivate safe atmosphere for citizens in Hong Kong, the government is strongly recommended to adopt proactive approach that addresses the root cause of the issue. Compulsory appointment of independent Fire Safety Manager, adoption of total fire safety management concepts with focus on emergency planning and drills, incentive programmes to raise the public awareness on building fire safety are expected to strengthen the concepts of fire safety in the community. On the other hand, compulsory formation of owners’ corporations, legal review and amendments to current ordinance on building management in order to maintain equilibrium for management power among stakeholders, including building managers, of buildings and last but not least, putting legal liability on professional building managers for fire safety malpractices are suggested measures to address the root causes of the phenomena. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Statutory Minimum Wages was effective in Hong Kong on 1 May 2011. It is not a newly invented concept and actually many European and Asian countries have adopted the minimum wages policy for long. Since the implementation of the minimum wages, it has been a controversial topic in our Hong Kong society. Being the one works in the property management field, this dissertation aims to examine the implementation of the Statutory Minimum Wages among the property management companies in Hong Kong and to critically review and evaluate the costs and benefits of this policy on the property management companies. Many scholars and economists have taken efforts to study the impacts of implementing the Statutory Minimum Wages. By reviewing those studies it helps to understand the possible costs and benefits that the minimum wages policy could bring. However, most of the studies are focused on the impacts of the minimum wages policy to the personal or society, very rare that they would have studied on the impacts of the minimum wages on a specific industry. There are also no scholars and economists did a research on the impacts of the Statutory Minimum Wages on the property management industry. To understand the impacts of the Statutory Minimum Wages on property management companies in Hong Kong, both primary and secondary data research has been conducted in order to find out the answer. For the secondary data research, data are collected via various channels including government’s report, Census and Statistics Department, journals, books and newspapers etc. For the primary data research, both qualitative and quantitative method has been used. The quantitative questionnaire interview aims to interview the people working in the property management companies and see how the implementation of the minimum wages could have impact on them. There is also a qualitative face to face interview to the property managers so as to understand the impacts of the minimum wages policy to the property management companies. By gathering the information and analysis the data, this paper suggests that at the current stage the implementation of the Statutory Minimum Wages could bring more benefits than costs to the property management companies in Hong Kong. The overall living standard and living quality of the people working in the property management companies has been improved. Although the minimum wages would increase the company operation cost, it is suggested that the benefits generated could cover the cost increment in long run and it is worthy to continue the enactment of the minimum wages policy. Nevertheless, there is the recommendation that the future review of the minimum wages level should not be too aggressive. Prior any adjustment taken there should have a detail study on the market situation and the company affordability. Great changes at a time would be out of the affordability of the property management companies, which in turn would lead to the negative effect of close down of companies and trigger the layoff of employees. The policy should be review and adjust bit by bit so as to favor for the long term development of the property management companies in Hong Kong. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Taking a look at building management in Hong Kong, it is observed that some Owners’ Corporations (OC) initiate maintenance before orders are received from the Government, others do not. This illustrates that OCs of buildings have different perceptions of risks and are responding to these risks in their own ways - some actively considering and prioritising stakeholders’ safety and interests, yet others may not. OCs that implement self-initiated building maintenance work before receiving any statutory order may have certain attributes lacking in those that implement building maintenance only after receiving Government orders that may be subject to penalty. Similarly, some Owners are willing to contribute their personal time and effort for collective good. They pay attention to building management and maintenance; some even become executive members of OCs. It is assumed that Owners willing to spare their own time to take part in OC work and be committee members with no formal reward, may hold characteristics different from those of other Owners. It is proposed that these characteristics are General Citizenship, "Organizational Citizenship Behavior" (OCB) and "Corporate Social Responsibility" (CSR), and these factors may show value disparity amongst different Owners and OCs. If every OC holds a considerable level of citizenship and tries to learn the lesson by observing risk events, the Government can save cost from the need to deploy additional resources to promote and monitor maintenance work on private buildings. This thesis therefore aims to identify the differences between OCs and other Owners in building management and maintenance, as well as the impact of citizenship on building management and maintenance, with reference to the Social Learning Theory proposed by Bandura. Both qualitative and quantitative findings supported the objectives and hypotheses of this study. Independent sample t-test confirmed that OC members demonstrate high levels of General Citizenship, OCB and CSR than other Owners. Multiple regression model indicated that 43.2 per cent of the variation in OCs in taking initiative to maintain their buildings may be explained by four explanatory variables, namely CSR, OCB, Group Cohesiveness and General Citizenship. The implications of this study suggested that in addition to the direct impact of citizenship on building maintenance, citizenship may spillover from one form to another in the context of building management, and the transformation is mediated by the organizational context and other situational factors. This study concludes that in order to achieve a stronger effect of citizenship in different settings, further improvement is required in the political system and in education to cultivate a more complete sense of citizenship for citizens of Hong Kong. In addition, future study shall be extended to explore the impact of citizenship on OC decisions on other aspects of building management, including community and estate activities, facilities, security and cleansing, as well as planning and budgeting. Further research and testing can be conducted to develop a more robust conceptual framework, including the mediating effects among the manifestation of citizenship and its impact on building management and maintenance. / published_or_final_version / Real Estate and Construction / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This study is to investigate the property management services towards safety condition of buildings in Hong Kong. Those property management services were found under a larger framework on property management industry brought by the housing managers including Building Repair & Maintenance, Management of Environment, Property Management Services for Owners / Tenants / Community, Facility Management, Law in Practice, Finance Management, Human Resources Management and other attributes of property management services. The results of the survey implied that the housing managers or practitioners of the property management industry realized those services would brought to the safety condition of the building in Hong Kong with significant impacts, but most of them would only put their focuses on the facility management or Building Repair & Maintenance. From the study, we could see there was raising concern on Finance Management and Law in Practice which was conformed to the past literature on safety condition of the buildings. This study also showed how the socio-demographic characteristics would affect the perceptions of the housing managers and the practitioners of the property management industry on the property management services. Much more of this study is to explain the importance of considering the point of views of the different property management services in affecting the safety condition of the buildings. To illustrated the relationship between the property management services and the safety condition of the buildings in order to understand how important of the property management services is in maintaining the safety condition of the buildings. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Electricity generation is the major emission source of air pollutants in the highly industrialized Pearl River Delta Region. In a compact region like the Pearl River Delta, pollutants can easily transfer from one city to another. The research question of this study is to construct an optimal and mutual agreeable scheme to reduce electricity consumption in the Pearl River Delta Region, which involves the collaboration of all cities in the Region. The main objective of the study is to conduct a cooperative scheme that internalizes the external social cost of electricity consumption through optimal electricity consumption reduction. This research first surveys papers on urban environmental problems, especially environmental problems caused in Pearl River Delta Region. Literature review indicates that public electricity generation is the major emission source of air pollutants in this region. Secondly, this research reviews literatures on the social costs of electricity consumption. Reviews show that external costs of electricity consumption in different countries differ widely, ranging from 13% to 700% of electricity price. This study adopts the lower quartile of this range, which is 13% of electricity price. Thirdly, urban operations research is reviewed, and a major policy instrument for environmental improvement, environmental tax, is investigated. This study develops a hierarchical structure of urban operations research to study the collaborative management of electricity consumption reduction in the Pearl River Delta Region. This urban operations research model includes seven essential steps: problem definition; objectives identification; performance measures; data analysis; analytical framework construction; model solution and courses of actions; and policy implementation. Moreover, this novel urban operations research model is applied in collaborative management of electricity consumption reduction in the Pearl River Delta. This research uses statistical and mathematical methods to estimate the parameters relevant to GDP, electricity consumption, external costs of electricity consumption, and environmental tax, and then formulates the operational model. Then, this model is employed to evaluate non-cooperative equilibrium condition among the eleven Pearl River Delta cities under a non-cooperative market outcome; to derive individual city’s external cost of electricity; to derive environmental levy and optimal electricity consumption reduction; and to design a compensation plan. In the compensation plan, under cooperation, in both 2013 and 2014, four cities (Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Foshan, and Dongguan) have to pay for their net spillover external cost of electricity consumption. The other seven cities (Zhuhai, Jiangmen, Huizhou, Zhaoqing, Hong Kong, Macao, and Zhongshan) would receive compensation. The urban operations research model for regional cooperation in electricity consumption reduction developed in this study provides an instrument to deal with the pollution problem in the Pearl River Delta Region. It facilitates the exploration of hitherto intractable problems in regional environmental cooperation and established solution plans. The urban operations model is expected to provide practical policy choices for a Pearl River Delta environmental collaboration scheme. This research represents the first attempt on an application of urban operations research model of collaborative management scheme of electricity consumption reduction in Pearl River Delta Region. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy