Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision-making framework based on empirical evidence to improve the current real estate portfolio disposal procedures in the banking sector.Design/methodology/approach -The empirical research is based upon a comparative analysis of four in-depth case studies in the Netherlands that in combination represent a market share of approximately eighty per cent of the Dutch banking sector. The case study protocol comprises a systematic document review of corporate business and real estate strategies and semi-structured interviews with representatives of the selected organizations. The organization roles of interest to this study represent two tiers of decision making within a corporation, directly involved in corporate real estate (CRE) portfolio composition. These are namely an executive board representative and the CRE/ acquisition /facilities manager.Findings -The results of this research indicate a strong relationship between the corporate organisation characteristics, legacy and strategy; the identified disposal drivers and the decisionmaking in CRE disposal strategies. The weighing of different strategic drivers and order of steps within the execution of these strategies is largely dependent on the organisational goals and objectives, with the CRE strategy as the embodiment of these. Corporation size limitations and a narrow core business focus can lead to reduced applicability for these organizations of the theoretical CRE management concepts of disposal strategies.Research limitations/implications -The analysis of corporate strategy documents was undertaken with publicly available material since internal documents were not made available due to confidentiality issues. This paper represents a case study research on one particular country and to generalise, further research is needed in different legal, financial and economic contexts.Practical implications -The framework of strategy improvements provided in this paper advocates a proactive instead of a reactive approach to corporate real estate management. The findings are useful to practitioners involved in the management of corporate real estate and particularly corporations in the banking sector interested in creating value through their real estate portfolio.Originality/value -This work provides an extensive in-depth analysis of the Dutch banking sector through incorporating four case studies that comprise over eighty per cent of the market share. The thorough analysis of evidence and generalizability to the sector and Nation proclaim the value of this paper.2

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop an operational framework with guidelines and lessons to improve the current real estate portfolio disposal procedures of freeholds, based on empirical evidence from the banking sector. Design/methodology/approach The empirical research is based on a comparative analysis of four case studies, representing approximately 80 per cent of the Dutch banking sector. The case studies comprise a systematic document review of corporate business and real estate strategies and semi-structured interviews with decision makers who steer the organisation’s corporate real estate (CRE) portfolio composition. Findings This research shows a strong relationship between organisation characteristics, legacy and strategy, disposal drivers and CRE disposal strategies. The weighing of drivers and order of steps in strategy execution strategies largely depend on organisational objectives. Research limitations/implications This paper reports empirical findings from Dutch case studies. To generalise, further research is needed in different legal, financial and economic contexts and in other sectors. This paper suggests a more thorough study of the relationship between space-use efficiency and technological innovation implementation.. Practical implications The framework proposes strategy improvements and a proactive approach to corporate real estate management (CREM) to create value through real estate portfolios. Originality/value This paper provides a thorough analysis of the CREM of the Dutch banking sector and is applicable to CREM in this and other sectors.