Managing Corporate Events and Job Satisfaction Among Young Professionals

Abstract

This paper explores the topic of using corporate events as a mechanism of managing young highly educated professionals as a specific category of employees. Literature review shows that corporate events are regarded primarily and used predominantly as a marketing mechanism. Management aspects are dominantly considered in the area of operational organization of these events, while their role as a mechanism of organizational integration and the achievement of important organizational goals in the domain of managing certain categories of employees are largely neglected. Our study focuses on the analysis of the potential use of corporate events as an organizational mechanism for managing job satisfaction among young professionals in Serbia. Thus we want to redirect the attention of the academic and professional community from the dominant attitude of regarding corporate events as organizational events aimed at customers’ attraction and retention, introduction and promotion of new products or services, to the attitude that affirms corporate events as a mechanism of managing employees’ behavior; the mechanism that is in the hands of the company’s management and that can successfully be used for a different approach in managing specific categories of employees. Since the relevant literature does not either describe or analyze the link between corporate events and human resources of the organization to a significant extent, our study is set up as an exploratory empirical study, with an aim to empirically explore this relationship, draw conclusions and hypothesize about the potential use of corporate events for the management of job satisfaction among young professionals. Accordingly, the first part is smaller in scope; it sets the basic theoretical and conceptual elManagement Journal for Theory and Practice Management 2013/66