澳洲economic essay范文

Types And Benefits Of An Office Economics Essay
 

An office is a place to house personnel who undertake administrative services. The office building should promote working efficiency and comfort, and minimise running cost. The provision of car parking is also important to value, as is location. Location relative to other offices, and to transport facilities for customers and staff makes the town centre the traditional location for offices, but traffic congestion and lack of car parking help to explain the trend of out-of-centre business parks.

 

According to Businessdictionary.com, office is defined as a location, usually a building or portion of a building, where a company conducts its business. Office is extended by Rosen (1984) who views office space as one input a production process in which its output is most cases is in the form of financial, information, management and administrative services.

 

2.1.1 Central Business District
 

Location factors play a key role in any explanation of the spatial distribution of economic activities and of companies’ choice of a location. In a sense, location factors are a spatial precipitate of the production factors required by a company. One location factor, namely accommodation, has remained underexposed, yet its relevance to location choice should not be overlooked. In that light, accommodation should be considered as a cost item that varies with the location. Influence of rent differentials on the choice between rent contracts with and without relocation provisions investigating the effects of relocation provisions on office rents.

 

The benefits of the CBD are surveyed in Daniels (1991). He suggests that centralization allows service firms to reduce uncertainty: through optimal access to a diverse labour market; communications technology infrastructure; and client and market information.CBD concentrations reflect both inertial forces and agglomeration economics. Inertia results from the embedded infrastructure and institutions in historic cities that facilitate communication and investment. Agglomeration economies follow from these initial advantages. One key reason why firms continue to seek central locations is that face-to-face contacts are important in preserving competitive advantages.

 

2.1.2 Benefits of having offices in residential areas在住宅区建立办公楼的益处
 

The good accessibility and agglomeration economies are the main factors for the office occupier to choose to be located in Central Business District. However, instead of benefiting from the economics of agglomeration, there are also some problems like traffic congestion, pollution, high occupancy costs and so on. The main external cost is congestion. Increasing road vehicles, the benefits of high accessibility afforded by people have been progressively diminished by eternal costs. Moreover, there are extra costs of congestion like higher fuel consumption, reduced speed and time spent in traffic jams.

 

Comparatively, residential area could offer some locational advantages such as less traffic congestion, lower occupancy costs, cheaper labour costs, less time commute to working space and other factors as well.

 

2.1.3 Types of Office are commonly found in residential area在住宅区容有各种类型的办公楼
 

2.1.3.1 Freestanding独立运营
 

Freestanding office buildings generally include a self-contained building on an individually recorded lot or parcel. The building may contain single or multiple users or tenants. Space may be rented or owned by the tenant. Its occupancy of a separate recorded parcel or lot and need to singularly satisfy appropriate zoning criteria is perhaps the only generalization that may be made of the freestanding office structures.

 

2.1.3.2 Garden Office公园式办公处
 

The garden office generally provides for multiple tenancies in a low-rise assembly of buildings. It is particularly attractive to professionals and service-oriented businesses that benefit from proximity to surrounding residential areas. Its scale is generally conducive to locations near residential development, and the architectural style and scale may closely resemble garden-style multifamily residential construction.

 

2.1.3.3 Townhouse Office 城市住房式办公处
 

Low-rise office space compartmentalized vertically may be classified as a townhouse office. Similar to its residential counterpart, each unit is organized to access directly to the exterior at grade level. The individual units may be single-storey or multiple levels. While normally a single tenant occupies each unit, smaller businesses may occupy separate floors of the same unit. Townhouse office, like garden office, benefits from a scale that is conducive to a location near residential areas. Its tenant profile focuses heavily on occupations and professional services that seek that proximity.

 

(Sidney O. Dewberry, 1996)

 

2.1.3.4 Mixed use 混合型
 

Office use is mixed with other uses such as retail or residential in the same building. This kind of building may be in large or small scale.

 

2.1.4 Office Relocation 办公处再迁移
 

Urban planners have long advocated urban business district dispersion to alleviate traffic congestion in the central business district. But at the same time, urban planners prefer to contain the secondary and tertiary business districts together so that the infrastructure that emanates from the center city will not have to expand in every direction that demands large municipal, country, and metropolitan area budgets.

 

Office developers prefer the purchase or lease of office building sites in the secondary or tertiary business districts due to lower values and lower asking prices for such suburban sites. Office building construction works must be take into account the protection and safety of passers by and also the limitations on the parking and storage of construction vehicles on-site. Special permission from the city and the payment of special fees may be required to construct or rehabilitate an office building involving one or more congested city streets.

 

Perhaps the most hotly debated issue in respect of office location is that of decentralization and relocation, and, linked with it, the future of the main office centres, especially London. However, conflicting views are advanced regarding the pace, degree and direction of decentralized office development.

 

During the 1980s one of the most powerful engines of the property boom was the growing number of companies that decided to relocate their business premises. With the erosion of the property cost differential between London and the regions, one key incentive for companies to relocate office employment to provincial cities became much more reduced. While rapid rental inflation in Central London in the late 1980s helped trigger a record volume of decentralization in the years 19902, this tailed off very sharply in 1993-4. Some increase in out-movement is said to occur in the popular and currently planned relocations (Damesick 1994).

 

Research has found the following features in the relocation decisions made by companies ( Rawson-Gardiner 1993):

 

Relocation will continue, but the forces energizing these moves will be different from those in the late 1980s.

 

Relocation decisions made since the recession really took grip were driven more by operational and business factors than by purely property cost considerations.

 

The restructuring or reorganization of a company often prompted a move, or conversely, the relocation was used as a catalyst to implement cultural corporate changes.

 

A significant proportion of the 500 largest companies in the UK feel that scope remains for further reducing property costs through the rationalization of space requirements.

 

Although property costs will continue to play an important role in some relocation decisions over the next few years, relocations will be more likely to take place to achieve savings through the reorganization of the property portfolio and/or a desire to downsize, rather than as a means to escape from exorbitant rents.

 

The major problems regarding location related to staff matters, especially with long-distance moves, and the use of relocation consultants specializing in human resources was prevalent.

 

Relocation overall is an effective tool for achieving both cost control and corporate change.

 

2.2 Factors driving the relocation office to residential areas 办公处移向住宅区的因素
 

2.2.1 Investment Opportunities投资机遇
 

Another key reason why office seeks residential area as an office location is because of the investment opportunity. Property value in the reception areas relative to office premises in CBD is much higher than the office property whichever located in residential area. Lower property value in residential area is an attractive opportunity for the office occupants to own the office premises.

 

2.2.2 Rental Price租赁价格
 

Due to locational advantages, rental costs of office space in city centres are always high and some times increase at a remarkable rate especially when the supply situation is tight. The demand of office space in CBD is on the rise, but there is very little development land in CBD that is available. The scarcity of available commercial real estate drives up the office rental price in CBD areas. Because of this, people nowadays choose to move out from the CBD and instead relocate to an office space outside CBD areas. According to C H Williams Talhar & Wong Klang Valley Second Quarter of 2009 office sector report, average prime rentals in Kuala Lumpur were established at a range between RM5.50 and RM8.00 per sq ft. Office occupants can get even a lower rental price in non-CBD areas to achieve more economical operations.

 

Furthermore, rents paid for any location will depend on the saving in transportation costs. The lower the access costs, the higher the rents bid for a location (Wingo, 1961; Mills, 1972). Along this line of reasoning, it is obvious that congestion will inevitably increase the occupation costs for a building located in a congested area. Besides this the modern telecommunications mean office occupants can now work in of the most beautiful areas of the country and save on expensive rental space in the city.

 

2.2.3 Car Parking 停车场
 

Availability of parking space, either for office occupants or visitors is also an important factor to shift the office from CBD to a residential area. Parking that is convenient to both occupants and visitors. There is a lack of parking lots in CBD area and the car owner is forced to park their car along the roadside. Although there are car park buildings, but the parking fees are expensive in CBD area. It has been found that the parking problem appeared to be the most important motive for office shifting from CBD to residential areas.

 

2.2.4 Access to Clients 客户来源
 

It has been pointed out that linkages and communication are important considerations influencing office locations. Office occupants will prefer to seek central locations because office located in centre of the city will make it easier for them to serve their clients. It also benefits in the accessibility of face-to-face contacts.

 

Rapid advances in information technology have reduced some of the information advantages of a central location. A non-CBD located office can trade electronically, pass information via electronic mail, access information on the Internet and so on.

 

Some researchers believe that the advancement of ICT will diminish the agglomeration economies of CBD. The use of ICT in conveying information replaces the need for fact-to-face interactions among firms in the city centre (ball, Lizieri and MacGregor, 1998).

 

Face to face contact will become a less important consideration in office locations and consequently will release many offices from the need to be located in the CBD. (Goddard, 1971)

 

2.2.5 Personal Preferences 个人偏好
 

Edward (1983) argued that behavioural theory was more appropriate in evaluating the office location than normative approach. The influence of personal preferences of the decision makers in office location decisions is an important area of study.

 

Alexander (1978) found out that this factor became more important is the firm is smaller, and the location decision is more personal. An American study indicated that top companies which located to the suburban areas of the New York region tend to favour sectors closest to executive residential area (Quante, 1976).

 

According to (Jack Harvey), branch offices of commercial and professional firm favour locations close to a residential population, the high streets of small towns and suburbs being popular. Except for estate agencies and building societies, such offices can occupy rooms above shops.

 

2.2.6 Availability of Staff 员工的情况
 

Cheaper labour cost can be obtained in residential area due to the fact that the residential development is normally on the cheaper land in the fringes of urban area. Labour cost paid for the secretarial staff in non-CBD area is much lower rate compared to the CBD rate.

 

Furthermore, it is also easier for staff recruitment since it is located in residential area which a place with a large pool of managerial and professional labour and there is also a reduction in labour cost that can be identified as potential benefits available for shifting of offices from CBD to residential area.

 

2.3 Constraints of Office Shifting限制办公迁移
 

Even though non-CBD locations could offer some advantages to certain types of office activities, but there are still some factors such as economical factors that will derail office mobility. Firms choose to cluster in a centre that offers comparative location advantages such as proximity to labour and suppliers, accessibility to major transportation systems and convenience of face-to-face contacts. The agglomeration of firms gives rise to nucleus city with high concentration of employments, which evolves over time into a Central Business District (Marshall, 1961; Krugman, 1991).

 

2.3.1 Prestige of CBD location CBD地理位置的出众
 

Location in CBD may offer a prestige address that other location can not provide. CBD is a place that gathers the top-skill talents and has dense internationalization atmosphere. It is the place that the multinational corporations are converged together and the market is wide. CBD has attracted multitudinous financial enterprise to settle in the area and also the area where high-quality customers are gathered and hence there are obviously policy advantages and it is a good investment environment.

 

CBD provide optimal access to a diverse labour market and also access to embedded infrastructure and institutions that facilitate communication and investment. It is also a location that allows people to have face-to-face contacts that is important in preserving competitive advantages. Some office occupants still continue to seek a central location as their office location because they believe that once they move out from the central areas, they will be far behind compared to their competitors and they also believe that central areas is only the place that firms and clients gather.

 

Alexander (1979), giving an opinion that many firms are located in the central areas because they have always been there, they see it as important to their business image to remain in the centre or because they are unwilling to break away from as established or ‘accepted location’.

 

2.3.2 Office Linkage and Communication Factors办公处的联系与通讯要素
 

Even though high accessibility in CBD areas may cause terrible traffic congestion but still other activities may have to travel farther for face-to-face contact with the shifting of office from CBD to residential area and this may result in increases in transportation costs.

 

However, research has shown that “fear of damage to linkages or loss of contacts” still form a major deterrent to office mobility (Alexander, 1979). Although modern telecommunication technology is expected to provide an advanced connection to each other such as using internet conferencing but yet there are still some meetings that people need to attend on their own and it is the time consuming travelling from a residential area to CBD to attend the meeting. Hence there is a significant disadvantage of wasting time as well as wasting of transportation costs.

 

The majority of the clients are located in the central area, an office location in the centre area will make it easier for the office occupants to serve their clients. The availability of efficient transports network that is provided in central area links up all the road links and this make for easy access for their clients compared to the office in residential area.

 

2.3.3 Staff Recruitment and Maintenance Problem 员工招聘与维修问题
 

CBD is a place that gathers the top-skill talents and has a dense internationalization atmosphere. It is a place in which the capital managerial talents, the foreign affairs talents, the financial professional talents are most concentrative. Some organization are anxious to ensure minimum loss of this talents staff and cannot afford high staff losses once they move out from the CBD areas. They also worry about the old staff will not willing follow the firm's shift to the residential area and are also anxious about the new hires staff will not meet their requirement and perform well in the organization.

 

(Sheryl, 1998), pointed our that when ask about specific recruitment problems, most supervisors reported that new hires were limited because of a lack of experience supporting people with developmental disabilities (DD) (60% of homes) (see table). Other limitations of new hires included of experience with job responsibilities (39% of homes), lack of specific training (38%), and a general lack of maturity (32%).