Organisational logics of cross-border real estate markets: constellations of actors and geographies in the case of the office market of Warsaw

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Susanne Heeg
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: from 2010 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 178177700

Aim of this research project is to analyze the organizational logics (enabling guidelines and practices: "handlungsanleitende Logiken") which foster the creation and integration of the real estate market of Warsaw into international markets. This implies to analyze a) the production and creation of organizational logics in respect to the places where they are developed, in respect to the involved actors as well as to the networks which take form and b) the circulation and mediation of these logics. The research project is based on the assumption that the creation of cross-border real estate markets implies profound qualitative transformations on markets which have been inaccessible until the 1990s. Our understanding is that these changes require more than economic deregulation, the presence of international actors and an increase of foreign investments. Our case study is the office market of Warsaw where global real estate investments are on the one hand a rather recent phenomenon and where on the other hand the market undergoes a very dynamic development since the global financial crisis.We already examined the making of market and site reports and the applied practices by real estate consultancies from 1995 till 2010. Our aim now is to explore further developments, modifications and adaptations of organizational logics within the network of actors. Beyond consultancies we will address real estate investors, financiers and developers in our analysis. Our assumption is that due to an increased market maturity and long-term engagement of actors in the Warsaw office market, they adapt the organizational logics to their needs, customers and experience. We assume that the modification and adaptation of organizational logics can be explained by the particular embeddedness of actors of cross-border real estate markets in global-local knowledge networks between global cities. Constellations of actors and their geographies speak for a transnational character of enabling practices for local real estate markets.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants