University campuses in spatial transformation

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to examine the impacts of spatial transformation in the Network Society on facilities management principles in the context of an interdisciplinary university campus. Design/methodology/approach -This study reports a holistic case study with eight embedded units in one interdisciplinary university campus in Finland through a business model approach. Findings -The findings propose that spatial development projects should be examined holistically on three facilitation layers, namely, social, physical and virtual, through five business model lenses of Offering, Customers, Revenue Streams, Resources, and Cost Structure. Based on the findings, four main business model types can be identified and distinguished mainly in terms of collaborating with different partners and supporting a different core task of the university. Research limitations/implications -The cases are highly context-dependent, and their business models are ever evolving, which is why the dynamics of the development processes should be studied in more detail. The types of business models differ fundamentally, which is why their evaluation criteria could be tailored accordingly. Practical implications -The results suggest that the spatial transformation requires multiple supporting processes and principles, expanding the roles of the campus managers: finding a balance between localization and globalization, and individualism and communalism; collaborating with internal and external parties; identifying potential grass root spatial development projects to be supported; and engaging users in their expertise. The strengthening impact of social facilitation is capable of opening new business opportunities. Originality/value -This study indicates that the spatial transformation is happening in practice and offers guidelines for dynamically reacting to it from the facilities management perspective.

Changing academics’ ways of working: towards a distributed university campus

“…Specific consideration of those spaces is of utmost importance, especially in light of the Covid-19 pandemic which forced knowledge workers to rethink their work locations. At the same time, universities have made unprecedented investments to improve on-and off-campus infrastructures in order to rethink their role as urban attractors, innovation hubs and knowledge-sharing facilitators (Rytkönen, 2015;Baldry & Barnes, 2012). For these reasons, universities are becoming increasingly dependent on the presence of non-academic spaces (Chapman, 2006;den Heijer, 2011;Haugen & Aasen, 2016;Kuntz, 2012).…”

Enthusiastic Academic and Support Service Staff as an Agent for Change: A Case Study Based on a Project in African Higher Education Institutes

“…-D G -and physicallying unique experiences, and merging learning spaces and p online space through multiple media. Castells (2014), framework has been taken up by different scientists: it serves as a background to analyse the impacts of spatial transformation in the network society (Rytkönen, 2015), designing spaces for networked learning Nordquist and Laing, 2015), and relationships between professional work and www.ejel.org 90 ©ACPIL information communication technology in the DNS (Baker, Warburton, Hodgkin, and Pascal, J 2016).…”

A call for co-working – users’ expectations regarding learning spaces in higher education

“…The actualisation of this alignment is the responsibility of campus management organisations and corporate real estate management (CREM) (Beckers et al, 2015a.). Most higher education learning spaces are managed by experts in CREM and facility management (Rytkönen, 2016). In facility management research and practice, there has been an ongoing discussion regarding the ability of CREM to contribute to higher education and campus management (Beckers et al, 2015a(Beckers et al, , 2015bVidalakis et al, 2013).…”