Lecture 1: Professionalisation and the Events Industry Jenny Flinn

 The Emergence of the Events Industry  The Role of the Events Manager  The Events Profession?  Defining Professionalism  Critiquing Professionalism  The New Professionalism  Implications for the Events Industry

 The history of events ◦ Markers of special occasions ◦ Benchmarks for our lives  Secularisation ◦ Pre-industrialisation  Based around times of the year  Release of social pressure ◦ Post-industrialisation  Commercialisation  Control

 Post war, use of events as public celebration  Development of specialist events facilities in 1970s and 1980s  Los Angeles Olympics 1984 ◦ Increasing recognition of the commercial power of events ◦ Economic and social impacts  Vicarious consumption (Wood, 1982)

 Growth in the number, diversity and popularity of events  Development of the experience economy (Pine & Gilmour, 1999)  Shift in management focus  Increased public expectations and a saturation of the market mean that one of the key differentiators of success will be the people who operate within the industry (Minten & Wosley, 2001)

 Consumers have been conditioned to demand professionally run events  Growing realisation about the need to develop event management professionals who are able to create, organise and manage events (Getz, 1997)  Increasing use of the term ‘events professional’ and perception of events as a ‘professional industry’ (Eyerman, 2001)  But what does this really mean?

 Various definitions of professionalism exist  Trait theory  Wilensky’s (1964) five stage natural history of professionalisation ◦ The emergence of a full time occupation ◦ The establishment of a training school ◦ The founding of a professional association ◦ Political agitation directed towards the protection of the association by law ◦ The adoption of a formal code

 Functionalist theory ◦ Identifies elements of a job that have functional relevance to society as a whole ◦ Ability to gain recognition as professions by society ◦ Demonstration of social responsibility

 Being a ‘professional’ is seen to be highly desirable ◦ Confers status ◦ Legitimates the industry  Professional status is seen to offer numerous ‘benefits ◦ Privileged status ◦ Monopoly over areas of work  Essentially concerned with exclusion  Are traditional views of professionalism relevant to an events industry operating in a postmodern society?

 Hanlon (1999) suggests that a new, commercialised version of professionalism is required  Middlehurst & Kennie (1997) suggest a model of professionalism focused upon ◦ Commercial vision ◦ Effective response to market and client demands ◦ Managerial skills ◦ Entrepreneurial skills ◦ Success through profit

 Harris (2004) suggests that in order to be professional the events industry must display the following characteristics: ◦ Commercial vision ◦ Effective response to client demands ◦ Managerial skills ◦ Success through profit (where appropriate) ◦ Entrepreneurial skills ◦ Code of conduct ◦ Common interest ◦ Recognition by society ◦ System of reward ◦ Provision of training

 Eyerman, M.K. (2001) Three Cheers for Event Management. London and UK Datebook, Vol. 7 (3), pp. 1.  Friedson, E. (1994) Professionalism Reborn: theory, prophecy and policy. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.  Getz, D. (2000) Developing a Research Agenda for the Event Management Field. In J.H. Allen, L.R. Jago & A.J. Veal (2000) (Eds) Events Beyond 2000: setting the agenda – Australian event evaluation, research and education conference. University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.  Getz, D. (1997) Event Management and Event Tourism. New York: Cognizant Communications Corporation.  Goldblatt, J.J. (2000) A Future for Event Management: the analysis of major trends impacting the emerging profession. In J.H. Allen, L.R. Jago & A.J. Veal (2000) (Eds) Events Beyond 2000: setting the agenda – Australian event evaluation, research and education conference. University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.  Harris, V. (2004) Event Management: a new profession? Event Management, Vol. 9, pp  Hanlon, G. (1999) The Changing Nature of Professionalism and the Fracturing of the Service Class. International Review of Sociology, Vol. 9 (1), pp  Henry, I.P. (1993) The Politics of Leisure Policy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.  Middlehurst, R.J. & Kennie, T. (1997) Leading Professionals: towards new concepts of professionalism. In: J. Broadbent, M. Dietrich & J. Roberts (1997) (Eds) The End of the Professions? The restructuring of professional work. London: Routledge.  Minten, S. & Wolsey, C. (2001) Working in Leisure. In: C. Wolsey & J. Abrams (2001) (Eds) Understanding the Leisure and Sport Industry. Harlow: Longman.  Pine, J.P. & Gilmore, J.H. (1999) The Experience Economy: work is theatre and every business a stage. New York: Harvard Business School Press.  Quicke, J. (2000) A New Professionalism for a Collaborative Culture of Organisational Learning in Contemporary Society. Educational Management and Administration, Vol. 28 (3), pp  Wilensky, H. L. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? American journal of sociology, Vol. 70 (2), pp  Wood, H. (1982) Festivity and Social Change. London: Leisure in the Eighties Research Unit, Polytechnic of the Southbank.