Demands, Expectations and Responses: The Shaping of Housing Management

There have recently been a number of claims that housing research is too much driven by the agendas of professionals and policy-makers, and that it should aim to be more conceptually focused through utilising analytical and interpretative methodologies. This paper represents an attempt to provide such an analytical and interpretative approach to one area of housing research, namely housing management as practised in the UK. The paper first examines the structural context of housing management, specifically the implications of the current social and legislative climate, before moving on to an analysis based on an Economic and Social Research Council funded project on the social construction of the occupational role of housing management. Both secondary sources and interview data are drawn on to show how there are multiple constructions of housing management, and that these reflect and reproduce institutional, organisational and personal responses to the demands and expectations placed on the delivery of housing management.