Conference Agenda

France is the European country with the highest rate of artificialized surface per inhabitant. To remedy this, the legislator adopted a new regulatory tool in 2021: the Zero Net land Artificialization (ZNA). Based on the observation that land is first and foremost a portion of living soil, the ZNA is the result of a land-parsimony posture taken to the extreme. It has been designed with an environmental approach and is part of the fight against climate change. However, land is also the support of human activities, and is therefore at the heart of many issues, in particular social ones.

By limiting the net artificialization of soils, land parsimony-led policies in ZNA perspective have the direct effect of limiting urban sprawl. It therefore indirectly encourages maximization of land and real estate, by shifting demand to existing supply or to unvalued stocks. What are the social effects of such land maximization and real estate needs postponement attributable to a homogeneous application of ZNA and land parsimony-led policies on French territories? This presentation formulates the hypothesis that land parsimony-led policies in ZNA perspective will have significant social impacts, in particular on affordable housing markets.

On the one hand, the additional land tension artificially induced by parsimony-led policies might be added to that existing in already highly constrained territories, continuing the increase in land and property prices in the areas already under tension. The resulting mechanism might complicate meeting the needs of affordable housing. On the other hand, the effects of land parsimony-led policies seem out of step with the challenges posed by the overflow of land freed up by demographic decline in declining territories. Thus, the interlocking of the issues of land and real estate market’s tensions and that of the diversity of social housing affordability, raise the question of spatial justice in the application of parsimony-led policies in ZNA perspective.

A new paradigm shift in Olympic facility management in response to wider societal workplace diversity expectations is predicted in the lead up to the 2032 Brisbane Olympics & Paralympics. Sporting facilities should serve as inclusive environments positioned to provide safe, exciting, and engaging experiences for spectators and athletes. They also offer social, economic and environmental benefits for the wider community. The Olympics represents the epitome of sporting events and provides unique opportunities for nations to showcase aspects of their nation's culture to the world. The 2032 Brisbane Olympics & Paralympics presents an unprecedented opportunity to showcase Australia’s commitment to diversity and inclusion on building cultural competency and professional development strategy in workplace environments across all sporting facility management services. Currently there is a paucity of research into stakeholder and wider community views of diversity and inclusion in the management of sports facilities. This study aims to explore the challenges and opportunities for promoting diversity and inclusion in sports facility management leading up to the Brisbane 2032 Olympic & Paralympic Games and provide recommendations for the improvement in diversity and inclusion opportunities including recruitment, promotion, training, education and strategic partnerships. Women, members of the Australian Indigenous community, people with disability, and management professionals from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are underrepresented in the planning, design, construction and senior level management of key sports facilities in Australia. The specific guidelines and future directions highlighted in this study will assist sports facility management researchers and practitioners for both public and government sectors. It is hoped that the Brisbane 2032 Olympic & Paralympic Games provides an unparalleled opportunity for Australia to get serious about diversity and inclusion in sports facility management and demonstrate this as a priority to Australian society.

Our study presents new evidence on the impact of sales agents' appearance on their sales performance in the real estate industry. Using a unique micro-level dataset of detailed property transactions in major Chinese cities, we calculate the objective measures of facial attractiveness and facial masculinity/femininity of over 40,000 real estate agents and estimate their relationships to both client matching process and sales performance. After controlling for agents' dynamic work experiences, as well as a rich set of housing characteristics and buyer and seller demographics, we find a significant positive relationship between facial attractiveness and sales performance, particularly in terms of client matching quality, properties' time on the market, and transaction prices. Additionally, our analysis reveals that agents with neutral looks outperform their peers with more masculine or feminine characteristics. We also quantify the beauty premium in the housing markets and provide potential explanations for our findings.

Racial inequality at the very top of corporate America has received little attention from scholars. The correlation between CEO race and compensation has yielded inconsistent outcomes across different studies and reports. Additional research may be necessary to explore the theoretical and practical implications of the divergent conclusions drawn in prior studies as race and ethnicity are important personal attributes that could change the way firms treat their executives and how executives behave. This research paper specifically focuses on the real estate industry to further explore, and understand the relationship between executive race, ethnicity, and compensation. Exploring CEO pay in the real estate industry can provide valuable insights into the compensation practices, market trends, and competitive landscape of this significant sector of the global economy. In particular, we seek to answer if there is a significant pay gap between each of the defined race and ethnic groups, relative to one another and relative to Caucasian executives. It is a challenge to empirically disentangle the effects of the discrimination component from the effects of the non-discrimination component on executive compensation.