Business, Enterprise & Management

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Accessibility, diversity, and inclusion in the UK meetings industry
(Taylor & Francis, 2020-09-04) Dashper, Katherine; Finkel, Rebecca
Issues of accessibility, diversity, and inclusion are becoming increasingly important for MICE managers around the globe and need to be considered in terms of both event attendees and employees/meetings professionals. The UK MICE sector is facing an unprecedented period of disruption in relation to the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the uncertainty of Brexit, the impacts of which may have far-reaching consequences in terms of equality and diversity. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 13 stakeholders - meeting planners, venue managers, entrepreneurs and member organization leaders - this paper considers how issues of accessibility, diversity, and inclusion are playing out in the changing landscape of the UK meetings industry. Findings suggest that although the MICE sector is paying increasing attention to the importance of accessibility, there is evidence of persistent inequality and marginalization on the grounds of gender, age, ‘race’ and (dis)ability. We question if a focus on diversity remains a priority in economically, politically, and socially unsettled times, and what this may mean for an inclusive future for the UK meetings industry.
Being an academic is not a 9-5 job': long working hours and the 'ideal worker' in UK academia
(2015-09-04) Sang, Katherine; Powell, Abigail; Finkel, Rebecca; Richards, James
The deregulation of working time has been occurring over recent decades. Academia is one of the many industries that can be characterised by a long hours work culture and intensification of work. This is significant given the negative effects of such a work culture on the physical and mental health and well-being of workers. Using evidence from two UK-based qualitative studies, this paper begins to explore the causes and effects of academic long hours work culture further. It has a particular focus on the extent to which the long hours culture is a result of cultural and structural changes in higher education, which have led to an increased focus on performance and outcome measures. It queries whether this is also shaped by more personal factors, such as the desire to excel and blurred boundaries between work and leisure, whereby the pursuit of knowledge may be a source of leisure for academics. It finds that while individual factors contribute to the long hours culture, these factors are shaped by cultural norms and pressures to cultivate a perception of the 'ideal academic' within an increasingly target-driven and neoliberal environment.
Broadcasting from a neutral corner?: An analysis of the mainstream media's representation of women's boxing at the London 2012 Olympic Games
(Routledge, 2014-07-11) Finkel, Rebecca; Dashper, Katherine; Fletcher, Thomas; McCullough, Nicola
Women's boxing was included in the Summer Olympic Games for the first time at the London 2012 Olympics. This chapter critically analyses mainstream media representations of women's boxing at the London 2012 Olympics in newspapers and TV broadcasts, and seeks to examine how women competitors were represented in terms of the linkages between gender and athleticism in the traditionally masculine space of the boxing ring (Mennessen 2000). It also explores to what extent representation reinforces or challenges male-dominated narratives in sport participation and discourses (Theberge 1997). Indeed, many female boxers maintain that the sport can promote self-esteem through physical strength and positive expressions of power. Part of the legacy agendas for the London 2012 Olympics has been to provide an international platform to encourage more women to become involved in sport. This can be achieved not only through medal success, but also positive media representations of female athlete's abilities to act as positive role models. Utilising documentary research, methods include content analysis of both mainstream newspaper and televised broadcast coverage of women boxers and women's boxing matches at the London 2012 Olympics. It is argued that the London Games have been successful in improving the collectively recognised legitimacy of women's boxing and providing an arena for the global consumption of women's sport, where issues of power and representation are tested and contested through the gendered mediated lens.
‘Doing gender’ in Critical Event Studies: A dual agenda for research
(Emerald, 2020-12-01) Dashper, Katherine; Finkel, Rebecca
Purpose: To introduce critical gender theory to events studies and set an agenda for research in this area. This paper focuses on various contexts, approaches, and applications for 'doing gender' in critical event studies. It draws upon interdisciplinary frameworks to develop robust theoretical ways of interrogating issues related to power and structural inequalities in events contexts
Gendered Violence at International Festivals: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
(Routledge, 2020-04-28) Platt, Louise; Finkel, Rebecca; Platt, Louise; Finkel, Rebecca
Gendered Violence at International Festivals is a ground-breaking collection that focuses on this highly important social issue for the first time. Including a diverse range of interdisciplinary studies on the issue, the book contests the widely-held notion that festivals are temporal spaces free from structural sexism, inequalities, or gender power dynamics. Rather, they are spaces where these concerns are enhanced and enacted more freely, and where the experiential environment is used as an excuse or as an opportunity to victim-blame and shame. As an emerging and under-researched area, the chapters not only present original work in terms of topics, but also in theoretical and methodological approaches. All of the chapters are cross- or interdisciplinary, drawing on gender, sexualities, cultural and ethnicity studies. Studies from a range of highly regarded academics based around the world examine the subject by looking at examples from a wide range of destinations including; Spain, Argentina, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada and the UK. This significant book progresses understanding and debates about gendered festival experiences and emphasises the symbolic and physical violence often associated with them. This will be of great interest to, undergraduate and postgraduate students and academics in the field of Events Studies. It will also be of use to practitioners or non-for-profit workers in the festival industries, including festival management organisations and planning committees.
Governing major events legacy: Case of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games
(Cognizant Communication Corporation, 2018-09-26) Sharp, Briony; Finkel, Rebecca
This paper explores the emerging importance of planning and governance surrounding the concept of event legacy by focusing on an in-depth case study of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Given the long-term nature of the concept of legacy, the need for planned and thorough pre-, during and post-Games management is essential if legacy outcomes are to be monitored effectively. Research methods employed for this study consist of in-depth interviews (n=14) with policy makers, organisers, and local community associations, who were involved with legacy planning and implementation for the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. The findings present Glasgow’s legacy approach as an advancement in the understanding of legacy governance and planning in relation to critical event management. By designing and implementing legacy governance structures at an early stage, each stakeholder role is established and can be monitored while allowing for some flexibility within the legacy management partnerships. In addition, the notion of a partnership legacy can be seen to have grown from innovative legacy governance structures, such as collaborative working and network creation, put in place by Glasgow in the early stages of legacy planning, which can act as a model of best practice for other major event host destinations.
Growing online: Activist identities in the 'Grow Your Own' English blogging community
(Bloomsbury, 2020-11-26) Pierce, Nadine; Casteltrione, Isidoropaolo; Tominc, Ana; Tovares, Alla; Gordon, Cynthia
Human Rights and Global Events
(Routledge, 2016) Finkel, Rebecca
Introduction to Special Issue on Social Justice & Events-related Policy
(2015-01-09) Finkel, Rebecca
This special issue showcases policy research focusing on social justice and planned events and stems from the reality that the events industry has become truly globalised and more countries with various approaches to civil rights and cultural equity are investing more and more in large-scale events.
Is wine consumption in Britain democratizing? Communicating class and taste through the Saturday Times wine column (1982–2017)
(Taylor & Francis, 2019-10-24) Welch, Nikki; Tominc, Ana
The popularisation of wine drinking was one of the most significant changes in British drinking culture in the 20th century, in terms of the increase in both the availability and acceptability of wine for the general population. Based on a discourse analysis of 35 years of Jane MacQuitty’s Saturday Times Wine Column (1982-2017), this paper argues that while wine has been discursively constructed as a drink of the many, the distinction traditionally associated with wine drinking in Britain remains. The data demonstrate how MacQuitty constructs wine through the media stylistically as everybody’s drink, while also constructing and maintaining a distinction between ‘us’ as an in-group whose wine knowledge and taste are distinct from ‘them’.
Kalashnikov and Cooking-spoon: Neo-Nazism, Veganism and a Lifestyle Cooking Show on YouTube
(Informa UK Limited, 2017-07-25) Forchtner, Bernhard; Tominc, Ana
Food consumption has always been a deeply symbolic, identity-related issue. But contrary to the intuitive assumption that links meat-free diets to peace-loving, left-leaning actors and ideologies, this article illustrates how a group of (German) neo-Nazis, Balaclava Küche (Balaclava Kitchen), appropriates vegan diet in its YouTube cooking videos. Analyzing these videos, supported by an interview with the group, the article inquires into the various ways in which cooking and food consumption are intertwined with their politics. It closes by putting the group's attitude into a wider perspective, suggesting an ideal typical model of how links between culture, nature, and identity can be understood.
Landscape of commercial sex before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games
(2015-01-09) Finkel, Rebecca; Matheson, Catherine M.
In the past decade, debates regarding the sex industries, especially street-level sex work, have become exacerbated by the hosting of international sporting events. Such issues as displacement, safety concerns and financial cuts to social services have contributed to the problematisation of the overlap between mega-event spaces and commercial sex spaces. This fuels the culture of social and physical marginalisation experienced by sex workers and perpetuates the stigma associated with commercial sex. The different approaches that destination cities have implemented to address these aspects of the urban environment reflect the gendered geographies of sex work. This research focuses on the landscape of the sex industries in Vancouver in an effort to illustrate the implications that the preparations for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games had on these particular communities. Qualitative research methods have been conducted in the form of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with city officials, police, former sex workers/current activists, academics, NGOs and community support charities. Gendered discourses concerning sex workers' rights to the city and how policy debates regarding criminalisation of demand/legalisation of sex work are linked to constructions of public space are also analysed. There is scope from the findings of this research to inform events-related social policies with regard to commercial sex, especially as more and more cities and countries bid for and host large-scale events.
Legitimising amateur celebrity chefs' advice and the discursive transformation of the Slovene national culinary identity
(Sage, 2013-11-29) Tominc, Ana
This article seeks to discuss the legitimation strategies of the two Slovene amateur celebrity chefs Luka Novaks and Valentina Smej Novak and the consequent call for a discursive transformation of the Slovene culinary identity. Using as a tool Van Leeuwen's legitimation strategies, it seeks to understand the discursive construction of the chefs' authority, that is, how do they legitimise their call for a change in Slovene eating habits, focusing on the introductory texts found in their cookbooks. Second, it concludes that by doing this, they have not only constructed themselves as the new authorities in Slovene cooking but also advocated the new middle-class taste as the only acceptable taste in Slovenia, that is, the contemporary Slovene national cuisine. Their call for transformation, however, seems contradictory, as they, on the one hand, draw on tradition and expert authority and, on the other hand, refute this in order to be able to position themselves as equal to these authorities.
Maintaining sustainable island destinations in Scotland: The role of the transport-tourism relationship
(2013-11-16) Currie, Christine; Falconer, Peter K.
The reliance on tourism as an economic generator has become increasingly important in island communities following a decline in traditional industries. The flow of visitors to these areas impacts upon a variety of sectors and service provisions, adds to job creation, and evokes vibrancy in areas with low and dispersed populations. The mercurial and interdependent nature of tourism is both supported and challenged by the input of numerous stakeholders with a heavy private sector advocacy. In comparison, whilst some entrepreneurial transport provision is evident, geographical distance and low population density contributes to subsidisation and public sector governance of transport systems to curb service irregularity and ensure infrastructure investment. This article investigates the feasibility of cross-sectoral interaction between transport and tourism stakeholders and their perceptions and experiences of working together to manage destinations. Exploratory research involving in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders identified a growing awareness of the benefits and necessity of collaboration between sectors to increase the attractiveness, accessibility and in turn sustainability of island destinations. Analysis suggests that the extent to which joint working occurs is dependent upon collaborative capacity; leadership; and the cohesion, strength and scope of local governance.
The material culture of music festival fandoms
(SAGE, 2020-12-06) Barriere, Louise; Finkel, Rebecca
This paper aims to explore an under-researched area of the entanglements between festivals and individual/collective identities by focusing on the material culture of festival fandoms. We start by conceptualizing festival fandoms as communities of people who attend the same festival or a similar festival type on a repeated basis. Our research focuses on how these recurrent festival attendees materially express their belonging to such communities, and how they claim being a fan as part of their identity. The core of the article starts with three conceptual sections. There, we discuss the existing literature in different related areas of research, which we link together utilizing Bourdieu’s (1986) forms of capital. First, we look through the theoretical lens of social capital at how various types of festivals foster identity communities and contribute to their visibility. Second, we explore the function of festival merchandising from the perspective of both events managers and festivals attendees within economic capital frameworks. And third, we explain that fans use derived products to mark their status and belonging to a community of taste as related to cultural capital conceptualizations. The following sections of the article are based on auto-ethnographic approaches. Through reminiscence and in-depth interviews with each other, we recount personal narratives of reflective practice and situate our lived experiences within the aforementioned conceptual contexts. As a conclusion, we state that investigating the material cultures of festival fandoms has the potential to contribute to future evolutions of event management.
On Bauman: Power, ethics and social hermeneutics
(Routledge, 2018-04-17) Pieczka, Magda; Ihlen, Øyvind; Fredriksson, Magnus
With the concept of liquid modernity - Bauman offers an understanding of postmodern society as a continuation of modernity. His idea of adiaphorization could inspire the pursuit of a sociological explanation of the problem of ethics in public relations practice. Responding to Bauman in research terms directs us towards hermeneutic phenomenology as an approach to illuminate public relations practice by exploring tensions and structures within the experience of the individual consciousness of practitioners. A number of specific points are offered in relation to the potential of Bauman's work to contribute to research, pedagogy, and practice in public relations. These could be summarized under terms drawn from the sphere of Bauman's thought such as: nomadism, disobedience, social hermeneutics, a commitment to the emancipatory goals of knowledge together with a commitment to humanity as the foundation for action. The discussion concludes with the importance of approaching public relations phenomenologically through the prism of the individual's experience of professional life in the liquid organization.
Spiritual attitudes and visitor motivations at the Beltane Fire Festival, Edinburgh
(2014-03-12) Matheson, Catherine M.; Rimmer, Russell; Tinsley, Ross
Outside the peak season for tourism to Edinburgh, Scotland, during the evening of April 30th, visitors attend a festival with ancient Celtic overtones. Frequently, the evening is cold and windy. Our objectives are to: identify motivations for attending the festival; trial questionnaire items on spiritual attitude; and assess whether spirituality might be relevant in assessing visitor intentions. The method of investigation involved exploration and confirmation phases to test structures in distinct subsamples. Further, a strict approach was applied to identify factors that had theoretical value. Spirituality attitude is found to be a factor, as well as the motivations of cultural adventure and escape. Given the nature of the event, the time of year and composition of the audience, encouraging repeat visitation and using this to develop and manage Edinburgh's tourism strategy has potential. Recommendations are made to management. 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
The 'dirty downside' of global sporting events: focus on human trafficking for sexual exploitation
(2014-12-29) Finkel, Rebecca; Finkel, M.
Objectives: Human trafficking is as complex human rights and public health issue. The issue of human trafficking for sexual exploitation at large global sporting events has proven to be elusive given the clandestine nature of the industry. This piece examines the issue from a public health perspective. Study Design: This is a literature review of the 'most comprehensive' studies published on the topic. Methods: A PubMed search was done using MeSH terms 'human traffickings' and 'sex trafficking' and 'human rights abuses'. Subheadings included 'statistics and numerical data', 'legislation and jurispudence', 'prevention and control', and 'therapy'. Only papers published in English were reviewed. Results: The search showed that very few well-designed empirical studies have been conducted on the topic and only one pertinent systematic review was identified. Findings show a high prevalence of physical violence among those trafficked compared to non-trafficked women. Sexually transmitted infections and HIV AIDS are prevalent and preventive care is virtually non-existent. Conclusion: Quantifying human trafficking for sexual exploitation at large global sporting events has proven to be elusive given the clandestine nature of the industry. This is not to say that human trafficking for sex as well as forced sexual exploitation does not occur. It almost certainly exists, but to what extent is the big question. It is a hidden problem on a global scale in plain view with tremendous public health implications.
The carnivalesque and event evolution: a study of the Beltane Fire Festival
(Routledge, 2014-10-20) Matheson, Catherine M.; Tinsley, Ross
This paper centres on the Beltane Fire Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. The objectives are to: first, identify the stages of the festival's evolution and their respective characteristics; second, distinguish features corresponding to the carnivalesque; and, finally, examine the changes in event evolution, particularly regulatory interventions, and their effect. A qualitative approach comprising interviews with internal and external festival stakeholders was utilised. It is argued that there are three stages in the festival's evolution: revival and early development; development and regulation; and, maturation. The characteristics of these evolutionary stages are identified. As the festival has developed and been subject to increasing regulation, features of the carnivalesque have been reduced.
The discursive construction of class and lifestyle: Celebrity chef cookbooks in post-socialist Slovenia
(John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017-11-15) Tominc, Ana
This book discusses transformations in the construction of culinary taste, lifestyle and class through cookbook language style in post-socialist Slovenia. Using a critical discourse studies approach it demonstrates how the representation of culinary advice in standard and celebrity cookbooks has changed in recent decades as a result of general social transformations such as postmodernity and globalization. It argues that compared to the standard cookbooks, where nutritionist ideology is at the forefront, the celebrity cookbooks reflect the conversational, hybrid nature of the genre, through which they promote global foodie discourse, while at the same time localizing the global trends to the Slovene context. The book lays at the intersection of discourse analysis, sociology, food, cultural, communication and media studies and (post-) socialism and should be of interest to those interested in celebrities, food media, socialism and post-socialism, cookbooks, globalization and discourse change.