Reflective Writing: Definition, Use, And Importance; Social And Cultural Impact, Conflict Management, And Risk Management In Event Management

Definition and Use of Reflective Writing in Event Management

Reflective writing can be defines as a practise of narrating practical experience in a written format. It can be regarded as an effective tool to foster critical thinking. Reflective writing at times referred to as analytical practice under which the writer narrates a real story or an imaginary scene, sudden events, interaction, memory or passing out under the light of personal knowledge, thinking capability, emotion and situation. the main questions which must be addressed under reflective writing is, “why I am doing”, “What did I notice”, “How will I execute the plan, ” What might have been done” and “How it can change me” (Farrell 2013). Reflective writing helps in understanding a particular event under the personal understanding and knowledge.

Critical thinking is a process of analysing information and is recognised as an essential outcome for the students under diverse disciplines. Critical thinking can be regarded as an important aspect for the students who are studying event management. Reflective writing helps them to achieve excellence in critical thinking. Several aspects of critical thinking that can be refined via reflective writing includes study of the present situation, weighing possible management measures, consideration of the client’s mind set, analysis of the circumstances and market trends (Naber and Wyatt 2014).

All events have certain social and cultural impacts over the participants and at times over the wider host communities. These impacts are direct impact. Social and cultural impact on event can be defined as socio-cultural consequences experienced by a human population as a result of any private or public actions (Delamere, Wankel and Hinch, 2001). These actions alter the pattern in which people work, live, play, organize their needs and manage with the members of the society. The positive socio-cultural impact includes increased level of participation and thereby increasing perspectives, shared experience with revitalizing traditions and building of pride (De Bres and Davis 2001). The negative socio-cultural impact includes complete social dislocation, loss of amenity or manipulation of community, bad behavior giving rise to negative image and community alienation. Socio-cultural impact may at times result in death or injury.

After reading research articles centering social and cultural impacts over the life of the people, I learnt that there lies an immense importance of social and cultural impacts over the concept of event management. The importance of topic is, the events or festivals deliver opportunity to the host countries to re-invent their cultural identify. Centring this unique cultural identity, typology of the event management can be framed. Tourists prefer to visit countries, which are culturally rich and popular for collective participation in celebratory events. This tourist attraction is the point of interest in event management. The concept that I have learnt from this topic is; socio-cultural impact helps in building community resource, increase in celebration and social cohesiveness. A culturally rich country or place will have higher number of tourist footfall and leading to importance of crowd management. This increase in crowd may cause loss of amenities and inequitable distribution of cost and it will be the duty of the event management team to manage this accordingly.

Social and Cultural Impact on Event Management

Conflicts in a team arise out of competing agendas, extreme work pressure, mismatch skill set, personality clash, performance issue, insecurity among the team members and poor involvement in decision making. However, just like in every sector of professional life, event management also demands rigorous teamwork in order to successfully stage an event. A team working for an event management must have a target, common priority in goals, focus on performance, sharing of identity and synergy between the team members. However, a team needs to be managed properly otherwise, it will give rise issues centring imbalance in conflict management. Five core pillar of conflict management include collaboration, avoidance, compromise, accommodation and healthy competition. Other aspect of conflict management includes constant communication, mutual appreciation and tolerance of calculated risk (Trudel and Reio 2011). However, prevention is better than cure so if generation of conflict should be curb at the initiation level. Generation conflict can be effectively side-passed via framing clear expectation, maintaining positive energy within the team, effective exchange of ideas and opinions between the team members, observance of co-operative climate and open communication.

Table: Strategies for Conflict Management

Source: Moore 2014

After studying conflict management among the team, I learnt that while working as a team conflict may arise between the team members but effective management strategies will be helpful in side passing this issue. I feel this topic is important for event management studies because anything related with management demands rigorous team and the terms like conflict and conflict management is associated with teamwork. Effective management of conflicts will help in the generation of successful yet functioning team.

Risk management is effective management of any future risk, which can negatively affect or influence the event. Potential risks at times are also referred as “possible problems”. However, risk are not always directly associated with events, risk may also be classified as financial risk like fraudulence, marketing risk like miss-interpretation of the event or over promotion. Risk management is necessary for all organization. Every part of event management is associated with potential threats and thus proper risk management strategies are imperative for an event management team or firm. Effective risk management is done via identification of the “potential risk factors”, proper assessment of the risks and subsequent dealing in a planned manner (Tang and Musa 2011). Previously risk management was done in an informal manner. But lately the concept of risk management strategies have been formalized and properly documented.  It is the duty of an event management team to successfully employment risk management throughout the project. Special events encompassing large crowds, big venue has recipe for all the potential hazards. However, risk cannot always be treated as a harmful entity. It is the duty of an event management company to win over a particular event, which the other market contemporaries have dodged for being too risk. Now this will help in outnumbering the market competitors and will promote customer attraction (Tummala and Schoenherr 2011).

After studying the topic of risk management from several research papers, I came to the conclusion that effective risk management is crucial for an event management firm. The importance of the topic is, risk management not only helps to secure the existing opportunities but also helps to uncover new opportunities. For example early prediction of heavy rainfall can generate an opportunity to print rain caps for the visitors at the festival ground with the logo of the sponsor’s printed over it. The theory can be apply in event management via balancing risk with strategies like proper maintenance of administration, crowd management, health and safety issues and security.

Conflict Management in Event Management

The things which I am planning to implement while joining as a professional in event management team is effective time management. Time management is processing and planning of events with exercised conscious and control over time (MacCann, Fogarty and Roberts 2012). This will help me to achieve excel in meeting my targets on time. In event management punctuality is must and is considered as an important criterion for customer retention. So via effective management of time, I will specialize in personal skills, target achievement and will also promote overall improvement of the team. Apart from time management another thing which thing important for an event management professional is interpersonal skill. Interpersonal skills are defined as special skills utilized by a person in order to interact with other in a structured and in a polished manner (Asumeng 2013). In event management interpersonal skill is given highest priority as interaction with the clients is the first step towards customer retention or attractive. It is a pre-requisite for any organization. In this competitive market of event management, my sound intrapersonal skills will help me to outnumber my market competitors, will also make me presentable, and will project me as a promising fresher in the corporate world. Only interpersonal skill is not enough, I am also planning to work on my creative and innovative skills. These skills will help me to dig out new yet innovative plan in this competitive market and will help me deliver my best under pressure (De Bono 2015). New ideas are always encourage in an event management firms as it is all about keeping the customers satisfied via providing a tang of variety.

But before implementation, I need to shape my up above mentioned skills further and for this I will join soft skill training class and will seek help from my seniors who are veterans in this profession. This interaction with the seniors will not only help me to improve my soft skills but also will help be create bond bonding. After all, when it comes to any professional work in the corporate world, it is all about teamwork (Costa, Passos and Bakker 2014). Also in my future career will try to implement effective risk management program in order to prevent financial loss.

References:

Asumeng, M., 2013. The effect of employee feedback-seeking on job performance: An empirical study. International Journal of Management, 30(1), p.373.

Costa, P.L., Passos, A.M. and Bakker, A.B., 2014. Team work engagement: A model of emergence. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 87(2), pp.414-436.

De Bono, E., 2015. Serious creativity: How to be creative under pressure and turn ideas into action. Random House.

De Bres, K. and Davis, J., 2001. Celebrating group and place identity: A case study of a new regional festival. Tourism Geographies, 3(3), pp.326-337.

Delamere, T.A., Wankel, L.M. and Hinch, T.D., 2001. Development of a scale to measure resident attitudes toward the social impacts of community festivals, Part I: Item generation and purification of the measure. Event Management, 7(1), pp.11-24.

Farrell, T.S.C., 2013. Reflective writing for language teachers. Sheffield: Equinox.

MacCann, C., Fogarty, G.J. and Roberts, R.D., 2012. Strategies for success in education: Time management is more important for part-time than full-time community college students. Learning and Individual Differences, 22(5), pp.618-623.

Moore, C.W., 2014. The mediation process: Practical strategies for resolving conflict. John Wiley & Sons.

Naber, J. and Wyatt, T.H., 2014. The effect of reflective writing interventions on the critical thinking skills and dispositions of baccalaureate nursing students. Nurse Education Today, 34(1), pp.67-72.

Tang, O. and Musa, S.N., 2011. Identifying risk issues and research advancements in supply chain risk management. International journal of production economics, 133(1), pp.25-34.

Trudel, J. and Reio, T.G., 2011. Managing workplace incivility: The role of conflict management styles—antecedent or antidote?. Human Resource Development Quarterly, 22(4), pp.395-423.

Tummala, R. and Schoenherr, T., 2011. Assessing and managing risks using the supply chain risk management process (SCRMP). Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 16(6), pp.474-483.