Professional Identity and Leisure Management Practice - Essay Example

? How is professional identity being conceptualized and related to leisure management practice? IntroductionWhile moving forwards in their professional journey individuals develop certain types of beliefs and attitudes about the profession they belong to. It is important for the professional to understand the boundaries related to a specific profession. These boundaries can be ways in which a professional interacts with the individual he meets while playing his specific role related to his job. The people the individual interacts with while playing his professional duties can be his professional team members. Individual must develop the understanding regarding their specific role in their profession, which is termed as “professional identity” (PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES, 2012). Leisure management prepares individual for the challenges they will be facing in their professional world. The relevant skill that must be possessed by the manger is outlined and then the individual is made to understand the importance of those skills on professional level. Leisure management starts with defining the foundation of competency based theories related to management. In leisure management the individuals are explained that how the specific professional role they’ll be performing will affect their organization and customers. Specific management areas such as marketing, human resource, communication, employee development, etc. are also discussed in leisure management (HURD, 2008). Both these discipline are said to be interrelated from psychological aspect. The interdependency of both the discipline can be proved. Both these aspects highlight the roles and the skills that are necessary for the individuals in their professional life. Relevant literature is present on this topic which gives evidence regarding the interdependence of both these topics. Terminological development Professional identity Professional identity can be defined as the acquisition of new role by an individual. The concepts of professional identity can be related to social context. It can be defined as a systematic way in which an individual organizes, evaluate and identifies the perception about itself. The way an individual interacts with its work group differentiates him from other groups. Professional identity helps in the acquisition of the realistic view about their profession. Professional identity helps the individual to evaluate the present alternatives and defines certain strategies and goals. Students are said to be the active participants of professional identity (JACKSON, 2013). According to the social identity theory, the behavior of one professional towards the other depends on the strength and relevance of the social identity of that person. Nonverbal and verbal communication which prevails in the professional environment is an important way for the individuals to socialize within their work environment. At the initial stage of their profession the individuals develop certain responsibilities about their profession and their roles. When the individual gets engaged in contradictory or ambiguous situation, they get engaged in self questioning as well as self-reflection of oneself as a result of which the personality of the individual may be reshaped. The construction of national identity takes place through discourse between the individuals. Leisure management practice Leisure management practice involves challenges that will be faced by the individual as recreational managers. There is a need of building certain competencies in the individual which will relate to their professional roles. These competencies can be built in an individual by encouraging them to think as managers. Activities and texts can be used as source of building competencies in an individual regarding their specific profession. In leisure management practice the individual learns that how can their role as mangers may affect their firms and customers. Several areas of management are the focus of study of this process. There is a need of conducting experimental learning for the students so that the better understanding of the professional work can be developed. Activities must be assigned to the individuals in whom they must be asked to define the specific roles of a manger. Such activities will help individuals in developing competencies that will help in performing their specific roles in the organization. Several examples which have been derived from everyday life, business activities and that are present in the book must be discussed with the students, in order to increase their knowledge. Practice and real world activities and projects also help the individual to have a closer look at their future professional jobs. The competency driven approach of the leisure management practice helps students to develop certain skills and knowledge in them that will help them in their professional life. These competencies will help them to run the operations related to their job with perfection. Discussion of conceptual and contextual development The literature on the topic of professional development in accordance with the leisure management is scarce. A research was conducted to study the psychological adaption that took place while professional identity development of the individual. Various psychological factors were identified that are used to build personality development in the students. The psychological factors which were identified associated with developing professional identity in an individual were formal status, role ambiguity, role competence and expectation for others. There were several other factors which were identified. However the important ones have been mentioned. Role conflict, comparing oneself with others and role ambiguity are considered to be the important psychological factors which may be the cause of disequilibrium in the building of professional identity of the individual. The result of the study suggests that the professional identity of the individual can be formed by creating equilibrium between the formal status of the role of an individual in the respective firm and the competence in that role. The individual with flexible learning abilities are said to develop professional identity more quickly than the others and the reason behind this is that they possess the capabilities to acquire different kinds of skills at one time, which is a favorable factor for them as the professional identity is a diverse discipline and it includes a variety of aspect attached to it (McElhinney Rowena, 2008). Leisure management is a broad discipline. Its scope includes media, art, country side, event management, tourism, sport and many such aspects which are related to recreational activities. Diverse role are performed by the recreational managers and their responsibilities are also diverse. Various disciplines can be related to leisure management such as human resource management, psychology, economics, finance and marketing. The important discipline which may be linked to leisure management is psychology. (MANAGING LEISURE, 2012) It is important for the leisure management students to develop professional identity if they want to seek job in their respective fields. The professional identity of an individual is different from that of their personal identity. There are several steps that help the individual to accomplish to develop professional identity. The first and the most important step for the student of leisure management is to join a relevant association. The educational institute which the individual is planning to be associated with should be efficient enough to develop the management skills of the students for the respective professions. The individual must join local chamber of commerce and must attend their meetings regularly. This will help to build the profile of the individual in the community and their social as well as professional contacts will be increased (TIMOSTSUK, 2010). The profile of the individual must be created on the social networking website. These professional profiles of the individual must then be linked with other professional pages and websites of several different companies. If the individual is looking for a job then its profile must be on the relevant networking sites which allow the employers to have a look at their profile. Conferences, meeting and other public meeting which are being arranged by professional firms must be attended by the individuals. This conference and the meeting that the individual plans to attend must be according to their respective future profession. This is again another source of increasing the professional contact of the individual. This will also help the individual to develop their professional identity and they will be aware about the latest trends which are occurring in the renowned firms of the country. An individual must work hard and act professionally all the time, as it will help him to maintain and create new professional contacts. The way an individual behaves is important, as it is an indicator if he possesses the skills of professionalism. The attitude, performance and the way of thinking and interacting of the individual is important as it helps the firms to evaluate that whether or not the individual is capable of playing certain roles in an organization. (BOWERMAN, 2013) Several aspects of psychology are related to the leisure management practice. Psychology is however important in different type of businesses as it helps to study the nature and behavior of the consumers. As leisure management is related to several different types of discipline, so the aspects of psychology in leisure management are kind of diverse. It’s a need for the leisure mangers to define strategies that are compatible with the psychology of the customers. The firms dealing with leisure or recreational businesses have diverse cultural customers which they have to serve and therefore it is important for the mangers to understand the psychology of customers belonging to such diverse background and design their strategies accordingly. The leisure mangers must be aware of the fact that there are certain economic rewards which they may get if they succeed to provide effective recreational services to the customers. Therefore they must work toward attaining the organizational goals by acquiring the satisfaction of their customers (WHEELER, 1983). Research proves that the knowledge about professional ethics is also an important part of developing professional identity. The way an individual behaves is an important aspect for the firm because the mangers with the correct attitude are able to attract more customers, therefore individual with professional identity can be considered as a valuable assets for the firm because they contribute towards increasing the profitability of the firm by attracting and retaining customers in the respective business to which they belong (AYLING, 2006). The leisure mangers have to deal with customers who belong to different cultural backgrounds; therefore they must have relevant knowledge about their roles in the firm. They serve diverse customers therefore their expertise in their respective fields must also be diverse. They must have relevant knowledge about the cultures and traditions of different countries as it will help to serve the customer more effectively. There are several gestures that may be acceptable in one culture but are considered unethical in another, the leisure managers must be aware of all these aspects belonging to different culture and background, as it decreases the scope of performing any mistake which may result in losing the customers. The duties and responsibilities of the leisure managers are diverse because they not only have to manage the customers but also have to study their psychological aspects and design their promotional activities accordingly. Studies shows successful strategies that help in the professional identity of the individual also form the basis of the professional success of the individual. This increases the important of the educational institutions in developing the professional identity of the individual as the strategies and techniques that they learn through these institutes help them to effectively to earn profit for the firm (GORDONA, 2012). Conclusion The study of the topic suggests that professional identity plays an important role in leisure management. Various psychological aspects have been identified that play an important role in building the professional identity of the individual, and the importance of these factors can also be witnessed in the leisure management program. The study also indicates Leisure management is dependent upon variety of aspects as it deals with customers belonging to different cultural and traditional background and thus it is important for the leisure management students to have knowledge of different cultures and tradition so that may be able to serve the customers in a proper way. The managers belonging to the recreational business must be multi-talented as they have to perform variety of task in their single job. Reference AMY HURD, R.B.J.M. (2008) Leisure Services Management With Web Resources. AYLING, D. (2006). Fostering moral courage: What do business students learn about professional ethics in cooperative education placements? In R. Coll (Ed.). Proceedings of the 9th Annual NZACE Conference, Queenstown. (pp. 116-120). Available from http://www.nzace.ac.nz/conferences/2006.shtml BOWERMAN, T. (2013) How to Develop a Professional Identity, [Online], Available: http://www.ehow.com/how_7654591_develop-professional-identity.html [30 May 2013]. CYNTHIA GORDONA, M.L. (2012) 'Discursive negotiation of face via email: Professional identity development in school counseling supervision', Linguistics and Education, vol. 23, no. 1. INGE TIMOSTSUK, .A.U. (2010) 'Student teachers’ professional identity', Teaching and Teacher Education, vol. 26, no. 8, pp. 1563-1570. JACKSON, N. (2013) Developing a professional identity, [Online], Available: http://learningtobeprofessional.pbworks.com/w/page/15914940/Developing%20a%20professional%20identity [1 May 2013]. 'MANAGING LEISURE (Manage Leisure)', Behavioural Science and Public Health Journals. MCELHINNEY ROWENA, C.K. (2008) Professional Identity Development, The University of Edinburgh. PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES (2012), [Online], Available: http://www.faculty.londondeanery.ac.uk/e-learning/interprofessional-education/professional-identities [1 May 2013]. WHEELER, K.G. (1983) 'http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0001879183900027', Journal of Vocational Behavior, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 1-11. Read More