Critical Literature Review written in 2021/2022 for my third year of my Facility Management course at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. This is a critical investigation into literature sources that can be found online on the topic of Outsourcing within FM. For this CLR, I got a 7.6.
Organization
De Haagse Hogeschool
Facility Management
Author
Class
Return Date
11th of January 2022
Academic Year
2021-2022
Employer Assignment
De Haagse Hogeschool
Word Count
4558 words
,Preface
Dear reader,
This assignment includes a critical literature review that is written to complete the Integrated and
Strategic Facility Management program at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. While writing
this assignment I have done a lot of research to gather a lot of information from different reliable
sources to write this review. The critical literature review is based on nine articles all related to the
topics of integrated and strategic facility management. The topic of outsourcing was also an
important one and therefore was used often in this review. The nine articles used for this review
have been selected by The Hague University of Applied sciences and are therefore in line with this
module. This creates a framework/landscape. This confirms that the author has done good research
to look critically at the articles, before jumping to assumptions or conclusions.
This Critical Literature Review is an individual assignment. The information from the resources that
are used are connected to the several topics and subjects for the Review.
First, I started by reading all nine articles, then I made an outline for my main question and my sub-
questions. My lecturer helped me perfect and possibly correct my main question and sub-questions.
After I did this, I started writing down key words that are important to the topic. While reading the
nine articles I am focusing on these keywords to highlight relevant information. However, this took
quite a lot of time which sometimes made researching the topics very long. But with the help of my
lecturer it was always possible to ask for help as she is also experienced in writing articles or
literature reviews.
While writing this critical literature review I learned a lot about subjects as Facility Management,
outsourcing and outsourcing in the Facility Management department, trends and innovations,
developments and performance management systems. All this new knowledge that has been gained
has further developed me and will certainly help me in the future in my job as facility manager.
During this period, we had several guest speakers who shared a lot of useful information with us.
Their experiences about how everything is done in practice and the actual work field, helped me to
write this critical literature review. I would like to thank all guest speakers for all their inspiring and
interesting stories.
Finally, I want to thank all my lecturers for helping me while writing this critical literature review. The
lecturers were willing to answer my questions that had and help me when I got stuck and did not
know how to proceed. They also always gave me good tips to achieve a good result. Also, I want to
thank my fellow classmates for their help and good tips, and they gave me good support while
writing this critical literature review. It was nice to be able to spar about the topics and each other's
main questions with my classmates. I found this an interesting assignment to do, and I have now
experienced how to write a critical literature review. Also, the assignment was very educational to
improve my English language in writing. By reading many different articles and/or book chapters,
I gained an in-depth understanding of some of the most the important aspects of Integrated Facility
Management.
I am happy and proud of the result, and I hope you enjoy reading this Critical Literature Review.
A great gratitude for reading.
,Table of contents
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................................5
FM department in an organization........................................................................................................................6
Critical Opinion....................................................................................................................................................6
Outsourcing within Facility Management............................................................................................................7
Critical Opinion....................................................................................................................................................8
Added value outsourcing strategies.......................................................................................................................8
Critical Opinion....................................................................................................................................................9
Current trends and developments within Facility Management and outsourcing...........................................9
Critical Opinion..................................................................................................................................................10
Development for the FM department..................................................................................................................10
Critical Opinion..................................................................................................................................................11
,Introduction
To start the content of this review, the importance of Facility Management (FM) is a little bit
discussed. The Facility Management department gets more and more responsibilities with time. The
department is becoming larger and more important to an organization by adding value to an
organization's primary process. In addition, more and more organizations are getting a facility
management department because it is essential. This because subjects as sustainability, real estate
and the delivering of services are becoming a part of the responsibilities of FM. The development of
facility management is an interesting topic to research. What is the main way of this development
and how do trends and innovation have inpact on this development?
Before we explore this development, first an explanation of the reason for this critical literature
review. This critical literature review was made with The Hague University of Applied Sciences as the
bidder. This critical literature review is done within the module Integrated Facility Management and
there are nine articles chosen to review. The nine articles are all about subjects as outsourcing,
development and trends and innovations. These topics were explained during the lessons and
workshops of this module. The nine articles will be critically reviewed using a main question and
some sub questions.
The main question is made based on the read articles and the topics that were discussed in the
classes.
The main question of this critical literature review is also discussed and approved by the lecturer.
Down below you will find the main question and sub questions that are used in this critical literature
review.
Main question:
In which ways are trends and innovation within facility management causing FM to change as well as
outsourcing (strategies)?
Sub questions:
o What is Facility Management and what is FM in an organization?
o What is outsourcing?
o What is the added value of outsourcing strategies?
o What are the current trends and developments within FM and outsourcing?
o How can trends and innovations cause change within Facility Management?
Reading Guide
In order to understand how this critical literature review is structured, this text guides the reader
through how the review should be read and understood. After the reader has read this introduction,
the next chapter will immediately contain the first sub-question and ultimately provide an answer to
the main question with all five sub-questions. Following are the other 4 sub-questions to which an
answer will be given, using the articles as sources. In these sub-questions we will take a critical look
at the literature. All this literature is compared with each other, to identify differences and
similarities in order to arrive at a reliable answer. To ensure that the literature is reliable, the
reliability of the authors of the articles is also examined. Theories and models of experts, who are
specialized in the fields, are used. How do the experts who work in practice look at the subjects and
in which way organizations could use this review to work with some of the subjects? This also
examines whether the articles are good to use and how they should be used. The strengths and
weaknesses are explained by looking at the reliability of the authors. After the chapters in which the
sub-questions are discussed and answered, the conclusion follows. In the conclusion, an answer is
given to the main question that has been formulated. Finally, there is a bibliography with an
overview of all literature and articles that have been used.
5
, FM department in an organization
This chapter answers the following sub-question: What is Facility Management and what is FM in
an organization? This chapter is about the FM department within an organization and the added
value of FM in an organization. This chapter will assist in ultimately answering the main question.
According to IFMA, Facility Management contributes to the organization’s bottom line through their
responsibility for managing and facilitate organization’s largest and most valuable assets, such as
property, buildings, equipment. These assets house personnel, inventory, productivity and other
elements of operation to facilitate the primary process. (What is Facility Management, 2020).
Similarly, the article from FMHOUSE shares the same opinion about FM in an organization. The article
states: FM activities are relevant to various levels and dimensions of the organization by joining
primary business activities at several levels: strategic, tactical and operational. (What is Facility
Management in an organization all about?, 2015)
Facility management is always seen as the department that only deals with reducing costs and
increasing efficiency by managing the built environment. But the article written by Daniel von Felten
and Christian Coenen states that FM is also service-oriented. ‘’Insights from services management
and the theory of FM show clearly that FM should be considered a services management discipline.’’
(Coenen & von Felten, 2014). In addition, Mr. Tian and Mr. Liu agree with the service-oriented side of
FM. This is reflected in the following statement from the article: ‘’Facility management (FM), from a
service-oriented approach, addresses the functions and requirements of different services such as
energy management, space planning and security service. Different service requires different
information to meet the needs arising from the service.’’ (Tian, 2014)
In the article ‘In search for the added value of FM’ written by Per Anker Janssen he wrote about the
inside of FM with help from the model De Vries (2016): ‘’ It maps the resources used by FM as inputs
into the internal processes to produce outputs like space, services, development and relations, and
the impacts of the provisions from FM can have on core business in terms of satisfaction, cost,
productivity, reliability, adaption, and culture, and on the surroundings in terms of economic, social,
spatial and environmental aspects. (Jansen, 2013)
Mr. Looy gave a description and example of the side of the services. According to Mr. Looy it works
like this: “In service provision, FM is wide in scope, concerned with the major strategic decisions to
the very detailed decisions such as posting the signs to the ladies’ toilet in a restaurant’’ (Looy, 2003).
But Mr. Mudrak said the following about what are the most important parts within the Facility
Management department to survive at all. Mr. Mudrak writes the following statement in his article:
“Nowadays, the dedication of FM organisations to new developments and continuous innovation
processes seems to be the way to stay in business, constantly exceeding customers’ expectations and
adding value to the core business of the client organisation’’ (Mudrak, 2004). The strength of this
article is that the author is reliable because of his educational background and because of the reliable
sources he uses in his article.
In conclusion, all the articles have the same opinion about the fact that facility management can no
longer be ignored as a department within an organization. In addition, two of the articles deal with
the fact that the facilities department is also focused on services, and thus service-oriented, and not
only on the end goal of reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Critical Opinion
To come to a conclusion after reviewing the read articles, it can be said that organizations can no
longer ignore the Facility Management department and it is needed to not only facilitate and
6
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