It has been theorised that human functioning is governed by a triadic reciprocal causal interaction between the cognitive, behavioural and environmental contexts within which people operate. Applying this
theory to the real estate development context, it can be hypothesized that if the internal dispositions of project participants can be determined and the situational context in which they operate is known, then their behaviours as project participants can be predicted. This hypothesis if valid has potential implications for behavior management on real estate construction projects, especially in respect of behaviours relating to aspects such as collaborative working which is considered a priority on many modern projects. This study explores the application and validity of this theory within the real estate construction project context in relation to specific dimensions of team orientation by examining empirical evidence from a number of projects in the UK. The aim is to establish if it is possible to predict the behaviour of project participants by examining their perceptions and attitudes on these real estate construction projects and the situational context under which these projects were undertaken. The results generally confirm the hypothesis, demonstrating that if appropriate internal dispositions and environmental cues are created within the traditionally adversarial and combative environment in which real estate construction projects take place, team-orientated behavior change can be stimulated. Some of the interventions that take root from the constructs underpinning the theory, and could potentially generate the team-orientated behaviour change, are outlined.

Given the increasing interests in international diversification, the need for investors to have access to information on the different real estate markets across various regions of the global market becomes relevant. With a focus on the Nigerian market therefore, this paper examined the characteristics of direct property and listed Property Company in comparison with other securities in the Nigerian Stock Exchange over the 2001 through 2007 period. The capital returns for each of the investment sectors were analysed with the use of mean returns, the standard deviation, skewness, kurtosis and return/standard deviation ratio. Also, correlations and covariances between each pair of investments as well as Shape market index model were used to establish the diversification potential of direct and indirect real estate in the Nigerian investment scene. The results show that several investment options in real estate and stock markets in Nigeria offer very attractive returns although with compelling high return/risk ratios. The results also indicate that indirect and direct real estate investments outperformed other investment options on nominal return/risk basis and they seem to offer significant diversification benefits for investors of a mixed-asset portfolio (real estate and stocks) as well as portfolio comprising of only indirect and direct property investments.

The concept of sustainable development has always been on the lips of many government officials in Hong Kong. Yet, seldom could we find a paper specifically investigate the sustainable development objective of property management companies’. There are two major objectives in this paper: 1) to find out whether property management companies have provided sustainable property management services, 2) how traditional Chinese thinking smoothen sustainable property management. The results from a survey of 14 local property management companies show that sustainable development is not a major concern for property management companies. Although, all of the local property management companies studied provides cleaning, security, repair and maintenance services, none of them have included the sustainable development concept as their operational objective. Only a few of them state explicitly that they provide environmental, social and economic services to their customers. Even so, in view of global warming problem, sustainable needs from the green groups and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government, it is expected that sustainable property management will be future agenda of all the property management companies. This paper proposes how traditional Chinese thinking can provide insight on sustainable property management by reviewing the previous literatures.

The high cost of building materials, particularly cement has been a source of concern to governments and private real estate developers in developing countries. The use of rice husk ash as a partial substitute in concrete was investigated. The objective was to reduce the cost of construction by reducing the total quantity of cement required in any given structure. Some preliminary tests, amongst which were the bulk density, specific gravity and sieve analysis of the constituent materials were conducted. Also carried out was the loading test on the reinforced concrete slabs (800mm x 300mm x 75mm) used in the study. The slabs were cast based on replacements of 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% of the cement with rice husk ash. Control slabs were cast without any cement replacement. The bulk densities of the rice husk ash, sand and granite were 530kg/m3, 1650kg/m3 and 1500kg/m3 respectively. The specific gravities of these materials were 2.13, 2.63 and 2.67 respectively. The sieve analysis of the aggregates showed that the materials were well graded. Analysis of the loading tests showed that a 20% rice husk ash substitution for cement produced the optimum result in strength and performance. The study has shown that the flexural load of slab containing 20% rice husk ash as partial replacement of cement in reinforcement concrete slabs is about 80% compared to that of the control reinforced concrete slabs.