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PurposeCorporate occupiers require offices and services which meet their business needs, while landlords must attract and retain occupiers to maximise occupancy and rental income. The purpose of this paper is to help landlords and property managers understand what aspects of property management matter most to corporate occupiers, so that they can achieve a mutually beneficial relationship.Design/methodology/approachThis paper analyses interviews with 1,334 office tenants in the UK, conducted over an 11-year period, to investigate determinants of occupier satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. Structural equation modelling and regressions are performed using respondents’ ratings of satisfaction with many aspects of occupancy as explanatory variables. The dependent variables include satisfaction with property management, value for money, overall occupier satisfaction, lease renewal intentions and occupiers’ willingness to recommend their landlord.FindingsThe aspects with most impact on occupiers’ satisfaction are the office building itself, its location and amenities, and also communication with their property manager, a belief that their business needs are understood and the property manager’s responsiveness to occupiers’ requests. Occupiers’ loyalty depends mainly upon feeling that their rent and service charges provide value for money, an amicable leasing process, the professionalism of their property manager and the corporate social responsibility of the landlord. “Empathy” is crucial to occupiers’ willingness to recommend their landlord, and clear documentation and efficient legal process improve occupiers’ perception of receiving “Value for Money”.Research limitations/implicationsThe sample is skewed towards occupiers of prime office buildings in the UK, owned by landlords who care sufficiently about their tenants to commission studies into occupier satisfaction.Practical implicationsThis research should help to improve the landlord – tenant relationship, benefitting the businesses that rent property and helping building managers understand where to focus their efforts to achieve maximum effect on occupier satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.Originality/valueThere has been little academic research into the determinants of satisfaction of occupiers of UK commercial property. This large-scale study enables the most influential factors to be identified and prioritised.

In the face of growing pressure placed on the natural environment, the study on which this article is based considered the effectiveness of interpretive provision in mitigating the harmful effects of tourism on the environment. The aim of this research was to determine whether guided or non-guided interpretation is most effective in reaching the stated goals of interpretation. The four key goals of interpretation, namely visitor satisfaction, knowledge gain, attitude change and modification of behaviour intent, were used in the assessment of the relative effectiveness of guided and non-guided interpretation in the Kruger National Park, South Africa. Through comparing responses to questionnaires from post-visit samples and observing both guided and non-guided interpretation, the research found that guided interpretation was only marginally more effective in reaching the four key goals of interpretation than the non-guided interpretive media. Guided interpretation was found to be more effective in terms of visitor satisfaction, whilst guided and non-guided interpretation had only marginal differences in effectiveness in relation to knowledge gain, attitude change and intent to modify behaviour.Conservation implications: The necessity of implementing an appropriate interpretation programme within protected areas cannot be overemphasised. The interpretation programme should be designed to include elements of both guided and non-guided interpretation in order to achieve a predetermined goal. The effectiveness of the programme should be evaluated periodically and amended where appropriate.

One of the key issues to be resolved in the management of natural resources is the extent to which resources can be used and managed in common. With its focus on shared rights, responsibilities and use, common pool resource (CPR) theory has much to offer natural resource policy and planning. However, the policy models and frameworks developed under CPR theory tend to ignore the economic, political, social and cultural context of a resource situation. Such context helps to determine how the actors in a resource situation relate to their social and natural environment and so make resource decisions. Contextual factors are dynamic forces based locally and remotely from resource management regimes and define (i) what is physically, legally, economically and socially feasible in terms of the supply of products and services from a resource; and (ii) what is economically, socially and culturally desirable, by establishing the demand factor. This paper presents a framework of analysis for CPRs, which proposes that there is a contextual factor continuum, forming a series of relationships from local contextual factors to the more remote. The researcher is advised to ‘backsolve’ from resource use outcomes to contextual factors, via the choice sets available to resource users in terms of (i) products and services demanded, (ii) different decision-making rules, and (iii) different action strategies. Such analysis is crucial in informing effective policy review and subsequent changes to institutions.

This paper introduces this Special Issue on the Role of Contextual Factors in Common Pool Resource (CPR) research and provides an introduction to CPR theory. It advocates an interdisciplinary, holistic approach to natural resource policy analysis, which assumes the entire resource system, and the wider social, cultural, ecological and economic environment in which it is embedded, as the correct subject for research. The paper recognizes the need to examine how different users of resource systems interrelate and how each relates to their environment. It calls for more diachronic research and for research that extends beyond the geographical boundaries of a particular resource system. Contextual analysis must be focused at different levels. While contextual factors vary from resource situation to resource situation, generic categories of factors may be useful. The uncertainty of contextual influence demands that a balance is struck between the need for flexible management regimes, which allow users to adapt to changing contexts, and the need for stable, long-term resource management planning. The ability to incorporate the knowledge systems of the user groups into policy and management frameworks may determine the extent to which they are able to adapt to change in time to prevent resource deterioration. In doing so, the researcher should be aware that both the research and researcher are contextual factors that may become internalized. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.