This informative study explores the elements of housing price in Malaysia and found the price is affected by many factors. This study of great practical significance has shown that house prices are determined by the demand for attributes, not only of the dwelling units themselves, but also of the region in which the units are located. There are many structural, neighborhood and locational attributes that could have brought impacts on house prices (Chin, Chau, & Ng, 2004). Structural characteristics, location-specific factors, and neighbourhood characteristics may define various sub-markets. Sub-markets may be defined by structure type (e.g. single-family detached, row house, town home, and condominium), by structural characteristics (property age housing consumers may have strong preferences for newly constructed properties or for historic properties), or by neighbourhood characteristics (e.g., public education and public safety). Results show that the housing price in Malaysia evidently depends on population, demand and supply, location, physical characteristic, accessibility, developer, cost of material and income. It is also influenced by neighbourhood factors as people nowadays will likely choose a better neighbourhood. These factors determine whether the housing price will be high or low. In summary, the government must take an active role to monitor and take appropriate measures to control property prices.

The study examines the quantity surveying (QS) firms' strategic orientation and its relation to strategic planning process. The strategic orientations based on Miles and Snow typology were used to identify the strategic orientation for QS firms. The strategic planning process that includes the efforts of strategic planning, degree of involvement in strategic planning and formality were also determined. The declined period in Malaysian construction industry from year 2001 to 2005 has been determined. The research aims to establish the strategic orientations of QS firms and the strategic planning process carried out by QS firms in terms of processes, degree of involvement and formality. The strategic planning process is examined using qualitative and quantitative data to thirty four QS firms in Malaysia. Spearman's rank correlation was used to test the hypotheses. The research is part of the doctoral research. The study concludes that there are significant correlations between the QS firms' strategic orientation (Prospector and Defender) and efforts in strategic planning process during declined period. The QS firms' strategic orientation also correlated with the degree of involvement of top management and senior quantity surveyors in all three stages of strategic planning. In addition, formalized strategic planning depends on the Defender strategic orientation.

PurposeThis paper aims to analyse the relationship between the degrees of involvement of key design participants in the decision‐making process of refurbishment projects on the design performance.Design/methodology/approachThe approach takes the form of a literature review of the published journals and textbooks along with a postal questionnaire with professional architects. In total 234 selected professional architects in Malaysia were involved in a postal questionnaire survey. A total of 82 questionnaires or 36 percent were identified as being fit to be used for the data analysis.FindingsThe degree of involvement of key participants are varied at all stages. Greater involvement of key participants is one of the ways to obtain more information on increased integration in the design process. Highest involvement of key design participants was found in the construction stage, which implies that more tasks need to be carried out in refurbishment projects. The involvement of an M&E engineer outside their normal domain in the design process could improve the design performance of refurbishment projects.Research limitations/implicationsThe literature review in the refurbishment design process was rather limited. Only limited study was carried out in specific areas owing to time and cost constraints.Practical implicationsThe paper helps the project manager identify skills and professions that are important in the refurbishment design process, which could improve the completeness and accuracy of design product before work is started on site. This would help to reduce unnecessary design changes during the construction stage. The scale of fees for payment of the architect's services in refurbishment projects needs to be amended so that the amount paid up to contract documentation stage would be reduced from 70 percent to a more reasonable figure.Originality/valueThe paper determines the types of designers that are critically required in refurbishment projects, in order to have a more effective design process and thereby improve the accuracy and completeness of refurbishment design before work is started on site.

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The rapid growth of telework or working from home (WFH) is inspired by the growth in knowledge-based economy, rapid technology progress, virtual operations and digital workforce. The original push on teleworking as a tool for cutting traffic congestion and improving air quality did not lead to large-scale adoption of teleworking in Malaysia. Indeed the research of WFH in Malaysia is scarce and its implementation among the organizations almost unavailable even though the nation is moving towards promoting green economy. However, with the sustainability and green concerns, teleworking can be considered a part of firm's strategic and innovative to enhance competitive advantage which may lead to economic and environmental improvement. Thus the emerging trend for sustainable growth (e.g. quality education, modern workforce, green innovation, knowledge and digital society) has inspired this research to seek the benefits of working from home (WFH), factors that trigger WFH and basic requirements for WFH to be initiated have been unearthed by many researchers and implemented by many developed countries in the world. This paper explores the literature on WFH in some of the developed countries and the topic of WFH in Malaysian scenario is discussed by proposing a framework for future research to be carried out by Malaysian organizations.