Fastighetsmäklare - ett yrke eller en livsstil? : En kvalitativ studie om mäklarbranschens kontext och dess passande ledarskap

Sammanfattning: Title: Real Estate Agent – A profession or a lifestyle? Authors: Erik Bogren & Ulrika Carlsson Heie Supervisor: Michal Lysek Background: Research has shown that the real estate brokerage industry is complex, and the context of the industry consists of a demanding work climate. Stressful factors for new as well as old real estate brokers lead to the real estate brokerage industry having a high turnover of personnel, which mean high direct and indirect costs for the real estate brokerage agency. One of the biggest and most perplexing problems sales managers face is retaining sales talent as the brokerage industry can involve long irregular working hours, psychological stress, and burnout. The research has thus found several different factors that make up parts of the industry's context, but the research is still lacking when it comes to creating a composite picture of what the context for today's brokerage industry looks like and the concrete guidance that can be given to leaders in the brokerage industry for a lower staff turnover. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how leaders in the brokerage industry can, through their leadership, prevent real estate agents from leaving the industry based on a found context. What is the context of the brokerage industry and how does it influence real estate agents to stay or leave the industry? How can leaders in the brokerage industry through their leadership influence real estate brokers' choice to stay or leave the industry based on the context found? Method: This research study has been carried out as a qualitative study with an inductive approach based on classic grounded theory. Ten respondents from Halland and Skåne (counties in southern Sweden) participated in the study and were then interviewed through physical meetings. The respondents consist of four managers and four employed real estate agents active in the brokerage industry, as well as two deregistered real estate agents who have left the brokerage industry. Result & Discussion: Through a model, the result is presented which shows that the context of the brokerage industry consists of challenging working conditions. This can be managed through leadership actions that can help real estate agents achieve industry survival. The result is discussed based on a frame of reference and empirical evidence. Keywords: Leadership, the brokerage industry, working conditions, leadership actions, industry survival.