Freelancer’s Personal Development

In the Industry of Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition

(MICE)

Afifah Rahmania

, Windijarto

and Dian Ekowati

Postgraduate School, Universitas Airlangga, Jl. Airlangga no. 4-6, Surabaya, Indonesia

Faculty of Economics and Business, Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia

Keywords: Freelancers, Strategy, Personal Development, MICE Industry

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine freelancers’ strategies and how they develop themselves

in order to be hirable assets and qualified enough to meet the requirements in the industry of MICE,

depending on the event being conducted. Design/methodology/approach – This research started with a

literature review building the knowledge basis for the topic. The primary data were gathered through several

in-depth interviews with MICE freelancers. Secondary data were collected from event publications and

freelance advertisings. Results and collected data were sorted, reduced, and displayed. Finally, a conclusion

was drawn to answer the research question. Findings – Freelancers were motivated by several factors,

namely: working hours’ flexibility, higher earning potential, diversity of work, less commuting and more

travel. Freelancers are eager to learn new things as part of their personal development process. Should

freelancers wanted to change their interest from freelancing at conference event, which requires the

knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) of business English, to freelancing at exhibition event, they must

develop and upgrade themselves, so that they have the KSA on how to deal with exhibitors and visitors

during the exhibition. Research limitations/implications – Freelancers who were interviewed are those

who have been working at MICE industry. Follow-up interviews with companies were conducted in order to

find out whether they provide further training and development for their freelancers. Practical implications

– The findings of this study suggest that freelancers who are interested in working at MICE industry must

have a basic knowledge of event organizing for starters. Different kind of events will require different

knowledge, skills and abilities (KSA) as well. Thus, freelancers need to identify where their competencies

would fit best at certain kind of event.

1 INTRODUCTION

An increasing workforce quota is witnessing a shift

from stable and linear career systems into

transitional and fluid ones and is taking charge of its

own career development, seizing opportunities for

career development without the traditional company

boundaries. This does not imply that the traditional

career path is dead but it is certainly no longer the

norm for a sizeable segment of the workforce

(Baruch 2006).

The individual responsibility for finding sources

of work and remaining employable, and therefore

competitive, holds particularly true for contingent

workers (Auer et al., 2014) and especially

freelancers, who also have to cope with fewer formal

rights and greater uncertainty compared with

traditional workers (Osnowitz, 2010). In exchange

of higher autonomy and personal choice compared

with wage employees, freelancers, who also have to

cope with fewer formal rights and greater

uncertainty compared with wage employees,

freelancers or portfolio workers, or those “who

charge fees for services and are independent of their

clients in employment terms” (Fraser and Gold,

2001), have to perform a series of critical

enterprising actions to survive and succeed in the

modern, information-intensive economy. These

critical behaviours include the thorough

understanding of their marketplaces, customers,

strategy development, and the enactment of

activities related to marketing and branding

themselves (Storey, Salaman, and Platman, 2005).

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Rahmania, A., Windijarto, . and Ekowati, D.

Freelancerâ

Zs Personal Development.

DOI: 10.5220/0007552208260828

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference Postgraduate School (ICPS 2018), pages 826-828

ISBN: 978-989-758-348-3

One of industries that relies its company’s

success on freelancers is MICE industry. This

industry has been growing rapidly in Indonesia. For

that reason, the government created a bureau right

under the country’s Tourism Ministry to handle

everything related to MICE industry in Indonesia.

To understand the magnitude of this rapid

development, let’s take a look at the statistics from

the World Tourism Organization. There are more

than 1.1 billion trips being made worldwide, and at

least 14% of said trips are categorized as business

trips. On top of that, records also show that there are

more than 83.16 million of trips related to various

MICE events. The potential that our country’s

tourism holds combined with serious effort from

both government and industry practitioners such

as booth contractors, event organizers, exhibition

organizers, event services companies, etc. result in a

boost in our MICE industry (CPI, 2017). Most of

those parties achieve their goals by hiring

professional freelancers who have specific

competencies and abilities related to the MICE

industry.

Despite this occupational group being at the

cutting edge of new ways of working, its

representation in the literature has been minimal,

barring a few exceptions. Recognising that the

significant presence of freelancers in the MICE

industry demands a more thorough conceptualisation

of career success, this research attempts to present

deeper insight into the ways in which employability,

professional commitment, and attitudes towards

one’s career are associated with subjective career

success in a sample of freelancers in the industry of

MICE.

2 METHODOLOGY

Both quantitative and qualitative research methods

are important in the fields of organisation studies

and human resource management (Creswell 2009).

The two research directions differ from each other in

their basic epistemological assumptions.

Quantitative research assumes regularities in social

contexts that can be analysed objectively and

explained theoretically by data. In contrast,

qualitative research assumes that there are no

general regularities in social contexts. Such research

is therefore oriented more strongly to individual

cases and cannot claim to depict the research object

completely and in all its facets (Creswell, 2009).

However, the different individual interpretations

enable the researcher to gain a deeper understanding

of, and some initial information about, the research

object (Bluhm et al., 2011).

For this study, authors firstly conducted a

literature review of the current state of research.

Secondly, several freelancers working in the field of

MICE were contacted to be interviewed. Chosen

freelancers are working in different sectors related to

MICE industry. The primary data were gathered

through in-depth interviews.

This research used the concept of career

development to analyse the process done by MICE

freelancer while developing themselves in order to

fit the requirements of MICE events they are trying

to work at.

3 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH

PROBLEM

Personal development is basically the continuous

process of developing oneself by building your

competencies and realizing your potential (Rothwell

2010). Different from regular workers who receive

training from their employers, freelancers are

responsible to develop and upgrade their skills,

competencies for their own benefits. But

interestingly, in the industry of MICE, companies

are relying their success mostly on the freelancers’

performance. In this study, question to be answered

is; how freelancers who are working in the MICE

industry develop themselves to fulfil the event’s

need?

4 CAREER DEVELOPMENT

In the context of freelancing, objective career

success (e.g., pay and promotions) becomes less

relevant as it is often hard to obtain throughout an

instable and multidirectional career path

(Verbruggen, 2012). Objective career success is

obtained through direct comparison with stable and

predictable metrics, which are unavailable both to

freelancers as well as those who study them. In the

light of this, subjective career success, entailing

feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment

regarding one’s career, should be put under a greater

scrutiny.

There are four steps in career development,

namely; self-assessment, reality check, goal setting,

action planning (Kaswan and Akhyadi, 2015).

Self-assessment is the process of determining

interest, value, personality, and skill. Self-

Freelancerâ

Zs Personal Development

827

assessment is often a psychological test. Assessment

may also include exercises that allow the individual

to consider whenever and when they want to be in

the future. Each individual can do this on his own,

with the help of a supervisor, or with others in the

field of coaching or career counselling.

In carrying out a reality check, an individual

collects information to determine whether the self-

assessment is realistic and how the assessment fits

the needs of the company / organization to the

workforce in the future. Meeting someone in the

targeted work environment may be a good way to

test assumptions about what the job is like.

Goal setting involves determining progress or

achievements for the future, such as the position

achieved, the skills acquired, and the pursued

developmental efforts.

In action planning, individuals make plans for

how they achieve their goals. In many cases, action

planning means choosing developmental

opportunities that are appropriate for the purpose.

5 FINDINGS

MICE freelancers were motivated by several factors:

working hours’ flexibility, higher earning potential,

diversity of work, less commuting and more travel.

Freelancers are eager to learn new things as part of

their personal development process. Should

freelancers wanted to change their interest from

freelancing at conference event, which requires the

knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) of business

English, to freelancing at exhibition event,

freelancers must develop and upgrade themselves, so

that they have the KSA on how to deal with

exhibitors and visitors during the exhibition.

Freelancers tend to start their development

process by seeing their skill then looking for events

that fit their personality and passion. Freelancers

will constantly develop themselves in accordance to

the needs of the event.

6 CONCLUSION

MICE freelancers’ personal development started by

identifying their own knowledge, skill, and ability

related to the MICE industry. Since every MICE

event requires a specific skill and competency,

freelancers must develop themselves in order to fit

the requirements. The continuity to develop

themselves directly linked to the development of the

event itself. Should the event they are working at

needs to advance its goal then the freelancers would

have to upgrade their skills and competencies.

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Hemphill, Erik W. Johnston, and Stephanie D.

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Baruch, Yehuda. 2006. “Career Development in

Organizations and beyond: Balancing Traditional

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Bluhm, Dustin, Wendy Harman, Thomas Lee, and

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| Exhibition Contractor, MICE Services, Booth

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https://cpi-link.co.id/the-rise-of-mice-industry-

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