Professional standards: the current state of event management associations

Abstract

As the event management industry grows and consolidates worldwide, event management associations play an increasingly significant role in professional support to the industry and its managers. Event management associations provide newcomers and existing practitioners with the necessary skills to ensure the continued growth and success of event management professionals. This paper reviews the literature on professional associations and specifically explores the issue of ethical conduct that event management associations expect from their members. While there is a growing interest in the concept of ethics, especially in the tourism and leisure industries, there are no prior studies that investigate the codes of ethics of event management associations. The paper identified that of the 152 professional associations servicing the events industry 39.5% (60) associations had stated codes of ethics or professional codes of conduct/standards. Content analysis of these codes of ethics/conduct indicated four major categories. These included 'effective business practices', 'reputation, respect and personal conduct', 'communication' and 'professionalism'.