Internal Corporate Events - A tool for corporations to communicate to and motivate their employees

Abstract

The meeting industry forms a major element of the tourism industry. Furthermore, rapid developments point to the industry being more significant today than ever before. Conventions, exhibitions, fairs, congresses, conferences, and events are all constituents of this industry. Corporate events are important for corporate marketing, internally and externally, and corporations implement events as strategies for many reasons. Internal Corporate Events (ICE), such as company conferences, kick-offs, Christmas parties and incentive trips, are strategic corporate approaches to increase employee motivation and performance and to communicate to their employees. The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate the overall perspective on ICE, to describe its practice in corporations, to analyse its role as a communicational and motivational tool within corporations, and to recommend and discuss the possibility of evaluating ICE. The fieldwork research was undertaken with interviews and questionnaire surveys in Sweden of corporations that use ICE, of event companies and of industry organisations. The findings indicate that the event market in Sweden is successful and that ICE are a valuable tool to motivate, educate and strengthen employee relationships within companies and to communicate to the employees. Hence further research and emphasis in this area would be recommended.