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Speaking of
Events...
Julia Rutherford
Silvers, CSEP
Certified Special Events
Professional Event Management Authority & Educator
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An EMBOK Research Menu July 10, 2006
EMBOK Day at the 2006 Las Vegas International Hospitality and Convention Summit, held June 6th at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), included vibrant discussions surrounding the scope and validity of the International EMBOK Model and strategies for its improvement and adoption by a broad variety of academic and industry stakeholders. One of the suggestions that resonated for the academic participants was to create a research menu based on the EMBOK that would provide students with viable research topics that would be of value to the industry.
Creating new knowledge through research is a significant link between academia and industry, providing students with learning opportunities and industry practitioners with data that can serve as a foundation for good decision making, event development, and strategies for continuous improvement. This was, in fact, one of the uses conceived for the Event Management Body of Knowledge, a knowledge framework and descriptive summary of the scope and processes that are used in the management of events that may be customized to meet the needs of various cultures, governments, education programs, and organizations.
The research menu presented here is an illustration of how the International EMBOK Model may be approached when seeking topics for research that will quantify, qualify, verify, or validate commonly held beliefs and practices that industry practitioners have acquired throughout their careers, turning the “school of hard knocks” into hard science. This research may be conducted within the academic realm as well as by associations that serve various industry sectors. Research data from both sources will contribute to the body of knowledge and will serve current and future practitioners, as well as event consumers through improved standards of practice.
This knowledge will provide important guidance to organizers and authorities. For example, studying the number of on-site ambulances included at various event types and sizes could provide standardized guidance for new events. Such data could be collected from the historical records kept by ambulance services, which might serve as a foundation for best practice or regulatory standards that would protect the health and safety of consumers at public events.
The EMBOK Matrix as shown below is comprised of Sectors and Domains (with their functional areas, referred to as Classes) and offers hundreds, even thousands of research opportunities. The EMBOK Matrix identifies 280 fields of inquiry, or 360 fields of inquiry with the Phases and Core Values included. One square within the Matrix indicates a single Class for a single Sector; one row indicates a single Class across all Sectors. Within each Class there may be countless elements (as illustrated in the Silvers Taxonomy comprised of approximately 600 items), but even with a simplified estimate of five elements per Class (e.g. Food & Beverage*: food service scope, catering operation selection, menu selection, service planning, and alcohol management) the number of discrete fields of inquiry jumps to 1,400.
*Food & Beverage has replaced Catering in the Design Domain in the original EMBOK Model due to the varying definitions of catering throughout the global industry.
One may approach the topics within a single industry sector (e.g. Meetings and Conventions or Sports Events), or comparisons between sectors or across all sectors. Such comparative analyses will enhance understanding of the horizontal and vertical nature of the overall events industry, as illustrated below. Many goods and services are used in a variety of event sectors, and data that identifies the similarities and differences between all sectors will not only help to illustrate the scope of the events industry as a whole, it will reveal opportunities for organizers and providers alike.
It should be readily apparent that the scope of research, both possible and desirable, is vast. A single square within the EMBOK Matrix offers researchers rich opportunities for discoveries to dissertations, through which the EMBOK will raise the stature and standards of the events industry and all its inhabitants.
Matrix Research Opportunities
Administration Domain Research Opportunities
Examples
Design Domain Research Opportunities
Examples
Marketing Domain Research Opportunities
Examples
Operations Domain Research Opportunities
Examples
Risk Domain Research Opportunities
Examples
Other Matrix Research Opportunities
Additional Matrix Applications
Each Class in each Domain has an impact on and will be impacted by every other Class. One may examine the impact of one row (e.g. Administration: Financial), which represents 34 points of consideration. The entire matrix of Domain Classes represents 1,190 points of consideration, and when the five Phases of the EMBOK are added, represents a minimum of 5,950 points of consideration. When this is compounded by a minimum of five elements per Class (e.g. employees, volunteers, union workers, temporary staff, etc. plus structure of authority, job assignments, job descriptions, etc. all under Administration: Human Resources), one is looking at a minimum of 29,750 points of consideration, and more likely twice to ten times that many "decisions" to be made for a single event. Although much of this analysis is done almost unconsciously and rarely documented by most practitioners, such documentation facilitates knowledge transfer and provides evidence of due diligence.
The International EMBOK Model, comprised of Processes, Phases, Domains, and Core Values, may be used to create a matrix showing tasks for each element of each Class of each Domain. When extrapolated out to analysis of a single event, such a matrix would provide an operational register with 4,375 points or opportunities for continuous improvement.
What has yet to be identified, however, are the scale variables that will allow events to be fully classified. The scale of an event could be small, medium, large, or mega (or other designations) and the challenge will be putting agreed-to numbers to these qualifiers. Some governments have used attendance numbers as the baseline for certain statutory requirements. South Africa’s new Sports and Safety legislation, for example, requires a “qualified event organizer” (among other things) for any event of 2,000 people or more.
The sheer volume of research to be done may seem overwhelming. However, as academic programs in events management and events of all sizes and types proliferate throughout the world, this becomes a wealth of opportunity rather than a burden.
Let’s go to work!! Philip Mondor, Vice President of the Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council, provided astute and though-provoking comments regarding the EMBOK Research Menu on the International EMBOK web site at http://www.embok.org/filemgmt/index.php?id=36.
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