Constructing a competence model for international professionals in the MICE industry: An analytic hierarchy process approach

Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education 15 (2014) 34–49

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Constructing a competence model for international professionals in the MICE industry: An analytic hierarchy process approach Hui-Wen Vivian Tang n Teacher Education Center, Ming Chuan University, No. 5 De Ming Rd., Gui Shan, Taoyuan County, Taiwan, ROC

a r t i c l e in f o

Keywords: MICE industry English for specific purposes Analytic hierarchy process English-medium instruction Communicative competence Intercultural competence

abstract The study aimed to construct a competence model for educating and evaluating Englishproficient international professionals for the MICE industry in Taiwan. An initial competence framework extracted from the existing literature was decomposed into a hierarchical structure for analytic hierarchy process (AHP) analysis. AHP through pairwise comparisons by 11 experts was utilized to determine weight values of competences pertaining to the development of a content-based English-medium educational program for international MICE professionals. The overall prioritization of competences solicited by AHP provided practical and research implications for prioritizing training needs with consideration to contextually-specific factors of a different setting under investigation. & 2014 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

1. Introduction The past decade has seen sustainable growth of the meeting, incentive, convention, and exhibition (MICE) industry in the form of hosting mega-events and constructing massive centers in the Asia-Pacific region, including Taiwan (Hing, McCabe, Lewis, & Leiper, 1998; Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan, 2008; UFI, 2011a; Fourie & Santana-Gallego, 2011). UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (formerly named the Union des Foires Internationales), revealed in its December 2011 data that Taipei ranked 7th among all Asian cities in terms of the amount of available exhibition floor space (UFI, 2011b). Taiwan has also improved its ranking at the International Congress and Convention Association from 35th in 2008 to 27th in 2011 (CNA, 2012; ICCA, 2012). The economic value of the convention industry in Taiwan was estimated at approximately of US$ 300 million (NT$8.7 billion) in 2012. Government spending on the plan of developing Taiwan into an Asia MICE base amounted to US$76 million (NT$2.2 billion) from 2010 to 2012 (CNA, 2012). The ongoing expansion on convention venues and numbers of international expositions has brought with it the challenge of preparing students for careers in the industry on the rise (Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan, 2008). Aside from growing demands for MICE workforce resulting from the continuous construction of convention properties and expansion of international events, increased globalization has led to a need for greater number of trained international professionals to provide professional service to participants and visitors from all over the world (Davies & Brown, 2000; Tsai, 2013). The English language is the current lingua franca for international communication. Hence, in addition to training and staffing an adequate number of skilled MICE personnel, the cultivation of English-proficient MICE professionals will be an

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2014.04.001 1473-8376/& 2014 The Author. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).

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add-on to internationalize Taiwan's MICE industry (Her, 2007; Tsao, 2011; Tsai, 2013). Despite a general academic response to educational practices and research on human resource development in the fields of hospitality, tourism and international business, there has been very little written on the topic of MICE education and much less on professional training for the cultivation of international MICE professionals. In view of the tourism and economic contributions of international MICE activities to the host destination, indentifying essential competences for international professionals in the MICE industry constitutes a topic of great importance for upcoming large-scale events hosted in Taiwan, China, and other Asian countries. The thrust of the present study, therefore, was to test and develop a group decision-making model, termed the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), used to prioritize essential competences that international professionals in the MICE industry should acquire in order to meet the language and professional demands of the industry on the rise. The overall prioritization of competences for international MICE professionals would provide a reference for curriculum and training program planning, as well as a mechanism for evaluating and selecting a professional workforce to serve in a diverse international MICE arena. The model was constructed in the context of an Applied English Department of a tertiary setting in Taiwan, especially English major students who are exposed to academic track options of tourism or international business. However, the model can move beyond this to assist in generating the relative weights of competences considered important to the effective operation of any large-scale event held in other non-English speaking countries. In sum, the specific purposes of this study are as follows: 1. To construct a comprehensive competence model for international MICE professionals based on the existing literature and expert opinions for analytic hierarchy process (AHP) analysis. 2. To synthesize, through the application of AHP, a set of prioritized core competences and competence indicators that may be used as a reference for designing training programs, as well as a mechanism for selecting qualified international professionals for the MICE industry in Taiwan.

2. Literature review 2.1. Professional English language education and the event industry Taiwan's determination to promote business tourism and incentive travel has signaled a major impact on the development of English for Specific Purpose (ESP) in tourism-related education to meet the rapidly rising market demand driven by economic, social, and technological advancement (Her, 2007; Chang & Hsu, 2010). In Taiwan, the formal and informal learning of English has taken place in a variety of ways as expanding educational opportunities for personal and professional growth (Chern, 2002; Nunan, 2003; Oladejo, 2005; Her, 2007). Amongst all the notable approaches to English language teaching, communicative language teaching (CLT) has been the most influential method within the Chinese societies since 1980' (Sun & Cheng, 2002; Chern, 2002; Hu, 2005; Oladejo, 2005; Ye, 2007; Pan, 2010). To address different communicative needs of disparate disciplines and professions, a great deal of research has been done about improving communicative competences of students enrolled in English for general purposes or English for specific purposes programs in the Chinese context (e.g. Anderson, 1993; Yu, 2001; Rao, 2002;Chern, 2002; Liu, 2005; Hsu, 2011; Spring, 2012). During the last two decades, research on English for Specific Purposes (ESP), English for Professional Purposes (EPP) and content-based English-medium instruction in the Chinese context has grown rapidly (e.g. Tsui,1991; Chia, Johnson, Chia, & Olive, 1999; Pang, Zhou, & Fu, 2002; Chang, 2005; Zhang. 2007; Yuan, 2009; Tsao, 2011). Expanded from the general umbrella term of business English, a plethora of ESP/EPP curricula or syllabi have been constructed in disparate business contexts, such as trade, finance, investment, economics, tourism, hospitality, to name a few (Pang et al., 2002; Chew, 2005; Abdel Ghany & Abdel Latif, 2012; Li & Li, 2013). The development route of ESP or EPP, along with the proposition that English is a necessary result brought by the demand of internationalizing the MICE industry, has extended to event management, trade fairs and the convention industry (Tsai & Davis, 2008; Zeng & Yang, 2011; Tsai, 2013). Adhering to a traditional approach, the learning of ESP for non-English major students, including those in the fields of tourism, hospitality and event management, is merely one or two subjects studied (Chia et al., 1999; Kim, 2006; Chen, Chiu, & Lin, 2011; Hsieh, 2013). The vast majority of research on ESP/EPP course planning, therefore, has focused on probing into the linguistic and communicative competency via genre analysis, corpus analysis or need analysis to meet the demands of the learners (Ibrahim & Mahmoud, 2010; Nelson, Devardhi, & Tadesse, 2012). Little consideration, however, has been paid to the development of professional competence frameworks for shaping content-based and English-medium instruction programs from a cross-disciplinary perspective. In the current decade, the topic of English for the MICE industry has been recognized as an independent branch of ESP appearing in the era of economic globalization and trade internationalization (Zhu, 2009; Zeng & Yang, 2011). However, literature targeting on identifying competences for international professionals in the MICE industry is grossly inadequate. The current study is articulated in an effort to address the lack of research and practical evidence regarding identifying a professional competence model for international MICE professionals in Taiwan. As noted earlier, the proposed model and methodology may be extended to further studies on shaping international MICE

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professional competence frameworks based on contextually or culturally specific demands by other Chinese societies or non-English speaking countries. 2.2. The development of competence criteria and indicators for international MICE professionals 2.2.1. Communicative competences within the content-based ESP framework The concept of connecting the English-medium pedagogical initiative to language form, language function, and course content concerned with societal and real world demands has received increasing attention within the realm of professional English education for ESP/EPP learners (Grosse & Voght, 2012; Lafford, 2012). It was claimed that English-medium instruction usually does not exclude a role for linguistic teaching; instead, it is situated as ‘emerging’ from the content-area learning, unplanned and incidental (Courchêne, 1992; Lafford, 2012). Research on programs identified as content-driven via English-medium instruction has been carried out in school-based immersion programs, university ESP/EPP programs and adult education. Empirical research on evaluations of learning outcomes has served to allay concerns about possible effects on academic achievement or to investigate the contributions of such a model over mainstream approaches that teach English language and content-area knowledge as separate subjects. Much of this research has evidenced that students in content-driven and English-medium programs demonstrated greater language proficiency gains and subject mastery than students in the mainstream programs (Al-Ansari, 2000; Marsh, Maljers, & Hartiala, 2001). In curriculum studies during the past decade, the paradigm shift from content-based toward competence-based education was conceptualized to avoid discrepancies between what was intended by curriculum planners and what would be more relevant to market-oriented needs by the real world (Bates, 1995; Ladkin & Weber, 2010; Malan, 2010; LópezBonilla & López-Bonilla, 2012). To proceed from the pedagogical background of content-based to competence-based education and take into account the link between the learning of a target language and professional knowledge, skills and behaviours, the approach of “competence-based language education” is gaining ground in professional English and applied English curriculum designs (Benesch, 1993; Lum, 1999; Ramanathan & Morgan, 2007). Course designs ranging from teaching materials, syllabi, classroom activities and assessments are constructed based on measurable definitions of language competences as a channel through which knowledge, skills and behaviours are communicated via English-medium instructions as they are needed for life in the society and future employment (Davison & Cummins, 2007; Ramanathan & Morgan, 2007). With regard to competences identified in the existing foreign/second language education literature, the popularity of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has led the way for global acceptance of communicative competence as an influential theoretical framework and mainstream concept in teaching English as a second language. Although general principles and axioms for embedding communicative competences into English language teaching in the Chinese societies have been researched for decades, there is a dearth of research identifying key competences associated with curriculum development to train international professional workforce in various work settings, including the MICE industry. Over the past two decades, there have been dramatic changes in professional English course offerings in Taiwan's academic institutions, and professional English is increasingly being accepted as a legitimate and effective means of preparing English and non-English major students in various professions to succeed in the increasing globalized world (e.g. Chia et al., 1999; Chang, 2005; Zhang, 2007; Tsao, 2011). The globalization of business and maturation of technology have further encouraged continuing investigations into current practices of professional English education as a key determinant for career placement and success (Celce-Murcia, Dö rnyei & Thurrell, 1995; Gatehouse, 2001; Pang et al., 2002). In an attempt to shape English curricula around generic competences for effective work in the global village, the present study supports the notion that tailoring a professional English competence model would have implications for educational programs that prepare professionally and culturally competent graduates for employment in the MICE industry. As a pre-condition in shaping a content-area competence framework for international MICE professionals, the concept of communicative competence has been envisioned in different ways to address learners' specific needs for different disciplines, occupations and activities. For example, a recent discussion by Amorim (2010) maintained that communicative competence in business settings can be achieved by the following three organizing principles or pillars: (a) the production of spontaneous contextualized communication in the target language; (b) the development of cultural awareness specific to the professional arena; and (c) the applicability of praxis-oriented learning tailored to the workplace. Organizing principles of the three-pillar competences are illustrated in Fig. 1. The aforesaid study coincides with the three key competence criteria offered by Luka for tourism professionals (Luka, 2007a, 2007b). As can be seen in Fig. 2, ESP competence for tourism professionals, based on empirical needs analysis, was categorized into three criteria: communicative, intercultural and professional activity competences. Competence indicators associating with each criterion were then generated using students' self-assessments and observations (Luka, 2007a). ‘Communicative competence’, ‘intercultural competence’ and ‘professional activity competence’ from the ESP for tourism professionals formed the basis for decision criteria of the study. A summary of an integrated framework given below was graphed based on Luka's effort to further construct an AHP structure mapping essential competence for internationalizing the MICE industry. Communicative competence had been defined in English for general purpose literature as comprising four competence indicators, namely, grammatical, discourse, sociolinguistic and strategic competences. Pragmatic competence, defined as contextual lexis, language functionality, unity and constructions for continuity of communication, was added to the existing

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Cultural

Contextualized

Awareness

Communication

Communicative Competence

Praxis-Oriented Learning

Fig. 1. Organizing principles of the three-pillar competencies (Amorim, 2010).

four-competence ESL framework proposed by Canale and Swain (1980), and further elaborated by Savignon (2002). Some notable attempts have been made to document the importance of developing pragmatic competence within the context of foreign language learning (e.g. House, 2003; Vellenga, 2004; Martínez-Flor & Alcón., 2007). Effects of various types of instruction on the acquisition of pragmatic competence in the ESP context were also investigated by interventional studies to ascertain the need to implement instruction on different pragmatic areas, such as requests and suggestions (e.g. Usó-Juan & Salazar, 2002; Martínez-Flor & Alcón., 2007). Hence, pragmatic competence has been placed at the center of ESP or EPP research and has been regarded as an essential component within the framework of professional English communicative competence (Celce-Murcia et al., 1995). In shaping a comprehensive competence ESP framework for international MICE professionals, it is imperative to consider students’ development of intercultural and professional competences as vital content-area knowledge in conjunction with communicative competence documented within the literature on teaching English for general purpose.

2.2.2. Intercultural competence The cultural aspect of development as a part of the entire learning to foster ESP/EPP competences of international professionals has been stressed by many scholars (e.g. Zoranyan, 2008; Lindner, 2010; Ribeiro, 2011; Lafford, 2012). A great deal of research has asserted the importance of developing intercultural competence in English for tourism and business purposes (Dö rnyei & Csizér, 2005; Zoranyan, 2008; Wang, 2010). The second criterion or core competence named ‘intercultural competence’ was conceptualized by Luka (2007a) as having the following three competence indicators: (1) attitude, (2) declarative knowledge of cultural aspects, and (3) an ability to operate in different cultural contexts. Different competence frameworks used to teach and assess intercultural competence have been proposed in previous studies on management, international communication, tourism, foreign language education and other professional arenas (e.g. Bennett, 1993; Byram, 2000; Yu, Weiler, & Ham, 2001; Planken van Hooft, & Korzilius, 2004; Deardorff, 2006; Schulz, 2007). Nonetheless, it is generally affirmed that successful intercultural training can enhance individuals' three levels of competence: (1) the cognitive level; (2) the affective level, and (3) the behavioral level (Gertsen, 1990; Yu et al., 2001; Deardorff, 2006; Repečkienė, Kvedaraitė, & Jankauskienė, 2011). One of the most influential theoretical underpinnings of intercultural communication named Model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (MICC) theorized by Byram (2000) classified intercultural competence into five factors, including attitude, knowledge, skills of interpreting, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness. Another leading model of intercultural competence presented by Deardorff (2006) seems to concur with the frame of reference proposed by Luka's conceptualization when cultural learning is measured by three fundamental elements, namely knowledge, skills and attitude. In a vein similar to the three-level competence framework discussed above, Wiseman (2003) describes a comprehensive typology of intercultural competence in a model where three components are identified: knowledge, skills, and motivation. Brookes and Becket (2011) provided further insight into the concept and intricacies associated with developing global competences among university undergraduates. It was suggested that to be globally competent graduates requires a confluent educational approach to foster appropriate knowledge, values/attitudes and skills among university students (Brookes & Becket, 2011). Notable intercultural or global competence models capable of reflecting intercultural competence for ESP/EPP program designs are located in Table 1.

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ESP Competence

Communicative

Intercultural

Competence

Competence

Professional Activity Competence

Attitude

Grammatical Competence

Cognitive Competence

Pragmatic

Declarative

Personal

Competence

Knowledge of

Competence

Cultural Aspects

Discourse

Ability to Operate

Competence

Technological

in Different

Professional

Cultural Contexts

Competence

Sociolinguistic Competence

Strategic Competence

Fig. 2. ESP competences for tourism professionals (Luka, 2007a).

2.2.3. Professional competences in ESP contexts There is very little literature available that specifically identifies professional competences for English-proficient international specialists in the MICE industry. Most of the relevant academic studies discuss professional competence for developing competence-based curricula in various disciplines, such as engineering, management, business and tourism (e.g. Kriegl, 2000; Bodmer, Leu, Mira, & Rütter, 2002; Boyatzis, Stubbs, & Taylor, 2002; Horng & Lu, 2006). The literature has also documented a myriad of occupation-specific competences considered to be imperative for professionals in the hospitality and tourism industry. Such competences include inspiration-motivation, creativity, mentoring, keeping current, proactiveness, active listening, professional ethics, self-adjustment abilities, linguistic abilities, cultural competence, management skills, financial management ability, etc. (Perdue, Ninemeier, & Woods., 2002; Li & Wang, 2010; Kalargyrou & Woods, 2011; Coughlan, 2001; Causin, Ayoun & Moreo, 2011; Leong & Li, 2012). Although a number of studies have applied weighting techniques to construct competence models for educating MICE managers and planners in Taiwan (Lee, 2011; Hsieh, 2013), they are quite different from the present investigation in research orientation. This study, unlike the previous ones focusing on managerial and operational knowledge and skills, aimed to explore intercultural, communicative and professional competences of prospective professionals working in the international MICE industry. Recent studies on identifying competences for internationally educated professionals rarely concentrated on constructing a holistic competence framework required by workplaces. Only two studies were found which are significantly related to

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Table 1 Notable intercultural competence models.

Deardorff (2006)

Wiseman (2003)

Luka (2007a)

Cognitive level

Behavioral level

Knowledge (awareness and understanding of one's own culture and cultural differences) Knowledge (awareness or understanding of necessary information and actions)

Skills (think critically, solve problems and Attitude(openness, readiness and interact with people from diverse cultures) willingness to respect people from other cultures) Motivation (feelings, intentions, Skills (the actual performance of the behaviors being affective and appropriate to needs, and drives associated with the actual engagement in intercultural the context) communication Ability to operate in different cultural Attitude (inquisitiveness and contexts openness, tolerance) Values and attitudes (1) Challenges Skills (ability to) (1) Make well-informed and discards prejudice (2) Respects ethical and responsible decisions (2) See and values diversity (3) Accepts connectivity between global and local political and ethical responsibility dimensions (3) Work effectively across cultures (4) Communicate effectively across (4) Feels empowered to bring about change (5) Promotes justice and cultures (5) Cope with ambiguity in equality unfamiliar cultural contexts

Declarative knowledge of cultural aspects

Brookes and Knowledge and understanding of Becket (2011) (1) Core subject/discipline in different cultural contexts (2) Global contemporary issues (3) Different cultures and places Cultural norms and expectations (5) Languages

Affective level

the investigation of professional competence in the ESP context. As noted earlier, Amorim's definition of the applicability of praxis-oriented learning tailored to the workplace was echoed by Luka's third criterion, professional activity competence (Luka, 2007a; Amorim, 2010). Based on an extensive review of competence studies, Luka (2007a) concluded that tourism specialists’ ‘professional activity competence’ was further divided into the following three competence indicators: cognitive, personal and technologically-professional competences. As can be seen from the existing literature, limited research exists on identifying essential competences used to train, develop and assess international professionals in the MICE industry. Given the fact that the convention industry has been an important economic contributor to the world, and the globalization of business has contributed to the needs of international specialists, further investigation is needed to build a comprehensive and complete a competence framework for internationalizing the MICE industry (Nadkarni & Leong, 2007; Zhu, 2009; Zeng & Yang, 2011; Tsai, 2013). The research method utilized involved a twofold procedure, leading to the prioritization of competences for specific groups of workforce trained to be international professionals for the MICE industry in Taiwan. First, modified Delphi method was employed to solicit a conceptual framework pertaining to a set of hypothetical competences for international MICE professionals. Second, AHP was used to acquire a prioritized competence model which would be a source of reference for relevant program planners. 2.3. The application of AHP to studies on professionals' critical competence Analytic hierarchy process (AHP), initiated by Saaty in 1971, has been widely used to deal with multi-criteria decision making problems, including ranking attributes, determining the optimal alternative, and synthesizing performance indicators in the fields of management, economics, marketing, tourism and engineering (e.g. Saaty, 2000; Udo, 2000; Ananda & Herath, 2003;Vaidya & Kumar, 2006; Ho, 2008; Hong, 2009). Increasing numbers of research studies have begun to adopt AHP to assess, construct, generate, prioritize or measure competences demanded by various professions (e.g. Hafeez & Essmail, 2007; Lin, Lin, Chiu, Hung, & Chen, 2010; Chiu, Lee, & Lin, 2010). Those studies all involved the evaluation of the relative importance of attributes or criteria by experts or key stakeholders in the field under investigation. Table 2 depicts studies using AHP as a decision support aid to construct professional competences. The aforementioned studies adopted AHP as a valid decision aid used to identify competence criteria for course planning, personnel evaluation and selection. The literature contains other interesting research studies of AHP applications to education settings. For example, Grandzol (2005) demonstrated the value of AHP in selecting faculty in academic institutions. The feasibility of AHP in educational research can also be found concerning e-commerce security course development, English language program planning, introductory programming course design, curriculum development for the MICE workforce, as well as English course design for the tourism/hospitality undergraduate curriculum (Kim, Han, Kim, & Choi, 2005; Parker, Chao, Ottaway, & Chang, 2006; Chen et al., 2011; Tang, 2011; Hsieh, 2013). 3. Methodology The modified Delphi method and AHP analysis were used in the present study. A thorough description of the methodology section is broken down into the following five parts: (1) Setting and Delphi panel selection, (2) Hierarchy

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Table 2 Application of the AHP in previous studies on competence construction. Area of study

AHP applications

Author(s) and year published

Industry-oriented management education model

Incorporating Delphi and AHP in exploring management competences and management curriculum alternatives AHP is used to structure human performance improvement scheme Using AHP to evaluate individual competencies that are essential for government-own organizations Applying AHP to establishing a model for selecting middle managers Using the Delphi techniques and AHP to extract appropriate assessment criteria Prioritization of e-learning options using AHP Utilizing AHP to identify competences to be included to personal trainer course module, Using the fuzzy Delphi techniques and AHP to construct curriculum for professional MICE workforce

Lin et al. (2010)

Commercial and industrial organizations Government-owned organizations Middle managers in the medical industry Hotel first level supervisors Decision making about e-learning implementation Personal trainers at fitness centers Curriculum planning for MICE industry professionals

Albayrak and Erensal (2004) Hafeez and Essmail (2007) Fang et al. (2010) Li and Wang (2010) Begičević et al. (2007) Chiu et al. (2010) Hsieh (2013)

model development using modified Delphi method, (3) AHP instruments, (4) AHP data analysis procedure, and (5) Estimating the priorities and ranking of core competences and competence indicators. 3.1. Setting and Delphi panel selection The study took place in an applied English department of a tertiary setting in Taiwan known for its well-coordinated content-based and English-medium instruction and its salient feature of curriculum making in the academic tracks of tourism, international business, translation and English language teaching. English as a medium of instruction has been a legitimate pedagogical approach adopted by the department to facilitate the process of developing English language proficiency in parallel to the development of professional knowledge and communication skills encoded in the aforementioned communicative competences and a wide range of ESP and content-area competences. The department, thereby, was assessed in an antecedent qualitative investigation as having the capacity of developing a content-based and English-medium instruction ESP curriculum module for MICE professionals (Tang & Wang, 2010). In adopting Delphi panel as a group decision-making technique, the foremost concern is the size and composition of the panel (Cantrill, Sibbald, & Buetow, 1996; Loo, 2002). The literature maintained that for research studies relevant to planning or decision making, a typical panel size would range from 7 to 15 participants (Phillips, 2000; Labuschagne & Steyn, 2010). To justifiably adopt the group decision-making process, a homogenous group of experts is suggested to solicit appropriate consensus opinions (Baker, Lovell, & Harris, 2006; Novakowski & Wellar, 2008). Based on the above justifications, purposeful sampling was utilized to select 11 experts from the following three groups of stakeholders: four ESP teachers experienced in content-based instruction, four tourism/MICE professionals and three international business experts. All experts selected were based on the criteria of teaching, research or managerial work experience relevant to the application of English to the fields of international business, tourism, hospitality or MICE industries. The composition of the expert panel in the study, hence, was with heterogeneous educational and professional backgrounds. In an attempt to reach consensus building to harmonize views provided by multiple stakeholder groups with possible characteristic heterogeneity (Cantrill et al., 1996; Bolloju, 2001; Solms, 2009), the sampling strategy employed in the present study would first allow controversies and disagreements to arise, followed by AHP technique to bring a mathematical choice aggregation in decision making. 3.2. Hierarchy model development The foundation of the competence model for international MICE professionals being developed in the present study was mainly based on the ESP framework proposed by Luka (2007a, 2007b). The present study also used conceptual frameworks from the fields of English for general purposes, intercultural communication and professional performance indicators for building the research foundation. The initial hierarchy model was constructed through a modified Delphi process. The Delphi panelists, or the hierarchy task force, were recruited in the present study to identify a three-level hierarchy for further AHP judgment. In the first Delphi round, the 11 panelists were asked to qualitatively examine conceptual frameworks constructed by Amorim (2010) and Luka (2007a), together with other possible criterion indicators from communicative language teaching, intercultural communication and professional competence development literature. The main purpose of the first Delphi procedure was to acquire the content validity and reach a consensus on the framework depicting competence criteria and indicators prior to conducting AHP questionnaire survey. As a result of the first round

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panel review and discussion, the term ‘technologically-professional competence’ clustered under the criterion of ‘MICE professional competence’ adopted from literature was altered into ‘MICE work skills’. Further modifications include: the definition of ‘cognitive competence’ under the criterion of ‘MICE professional competence’ was altered into ‘general professional knowledge’; the criterion indicator ‘tourism-related knowledge’ was added to the framework under the competence criterion of ‘MICE professional competence’. They also reached a consensus on deleting the indicator of ‘personal competence’ clustered under the ‘MICE professional competence’, which was perceived by 7 panelists as overlapping with the ‘skills domain’ and ‘attitude domain’ under the criterion of ‘intercultural competence’. The panelists were then asked to vote for their preferred frameworks of intercultural competence indicators after reviewing the three models presented in Table 1 above. Nine of the eleven panelists voted for Deardorff's three-factor model of global competence (Deardorff, 2006). No further comments and concerns were raised by the panelists regarding the hierarchy prior to AHP judgments. Collectively, the five communicative competences indicators extracted from the English for general purpose literature, the three intercultural competence indicators initiated by Deardorff (2006), and the three professional competence indicators agreed upon by the panelists during the first Delphi round were included and clustered into an AHP hierarchy. Definitions of the 11 competence indicators used to explain the three core competences are described in Table 3 below. Fig. 3 depicts the adjunct model of the AHP hierarchy extracted by the Expert Choice 11.5 (2008). 3.3. AHP instruments During the second Delphi round, an AHP questionnaire was structured based on the modified AHP hierarchy before issuing to the 11 experts in the study. A total of 11 competence indicators were identified pertaining to the three contentarea core competence criteria for international MICE professionals. According to Saaty (2000), AHP questionnaires allow participants to choose a value scaling from 1 to 9 to rate the relative priorities between several pairs of alternatives under particular criteria with respect to a specific goal. The cornerstone of AHP is the pairwise comparison procedure which helps experts independently judge the relative importance of each criterion to the goal (Shapira & Goldenberg, 2005). To generate effectiveness comparisons, a detailed instruction for the Delphi penal were provided for using the 1-to-9 scale (Table 4). Expert Choice 11.5 (2008), the software that facilitates application of AHP, generated the AHP questionnaires at each order or level of the hierarchy grouped criteria or sub-criteria for pairwise comparisons. For example, Fig. 4 below illustrated each possible pairwise comparison for the three 1st-order criteria; a separate questionnaire listed the five 2nd-order criteria within the communicative competence criterion, yet another listed pairwise comparisons for the three 2nd-order criteria within the cultural competence criterion, etc. 3.4. AHP data analysis procedure This stage of the analysis was performed using Expert Choice 11.5 for criteria weights and competence indicator ranking. Pairwise comparison information obtained from the AHP instruments judged by the 11 experts was synthesized for each level of the hierarchical model formed a 3  3 matrix with the first-order criteria. Under the each 1st-order criterion, a 5  5 matrix, a 3  3 matrix, and a 3  3 matrix with the 2nd-order criteria were formed. Means of the 11 experts' judgments on each criterion and sub-criterion were calculated. A positive mean indicated that the row criterion was more important than the column criterion; the positive mean can be directly entered into the upper triangular portion of the matrix. If a negative mean was obtained, it indicated that the row criterion was less important than the column criterion; then, the entry into the upper triangular portion of the matrix should be ‘one divided by the absolute value of the negative mean’. The entries in the Table 3 The description of the competence indicators used in the AHP hierarchy. Core competences

Competence indicators

Descriptions

Communicative

Grammatical Pragmatic

Mastery of sentence-level grammar Mastery of contextual lexis, language functionality, unity and constructions for continuity of communication Mastery of intersentential organization. Socioculturally appropriate use of language. The verbal and nonverbal communication strategies used to enhance the effectiveness of communication

Discourse Sociolinguistic Strategic Intercultural

Knowledge Skills Attitude

Awareness and understanding of ones own culture and cultural differences. Think critically, solve problems and interact with people from diverse cultures. Openness, readiness and willingness to respect people from other cultures.

MICE professional

General professional knowledge MICE work skills

Knowledge and skills concerning business correspondence and computer/digital literacy Mastery of essential professional language and knowledge about history, meaning & operation of a specific event, and fundamentals of the MICE industry. Mastery of geographical features and tourism-related information of the host city.

Tourism-related knowledge

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Fig. 3. An AHP hierarchy pertaining to English competences for the MICE industry.

Table 4 Scale used in AHP pairwise comparisons (Saaty, 1995). Intensity of importance

Definition

1 3 5 7 9

Equal importance Weak importance of one over another Essential or strong importance Very strong importance Absolute importance

2,4,6,8 Reciprocals of above nonzero

Explanation

Two activities contribute equally to the objective Experience and judgment slightly favor one activity over another Experience and judgment strongly favor one activity over another An activity is strongly favored and its dominance demonstrated in practice The evidence favoring one activity over another is of the highest possible order of affirmation Intermediate values When compromise is needed If activity i has one of the above nonzero numbers assigned to it when compared with activity j, then j has the reciprocal value when compared with i.

Fig. 4. Survey questionnaire to conduct pairwise comparison for the 1st-order criteria (core competences).

Table 5 First-order criteria pairwise comparison matrix.

Communicative Intercultural MICE professional Sum of columns

Communicative

Intercultural

MICE professional

1 1 1.656 3.656

1 1 2.280 4.280

0.604 0.439 1 2.042

Table 6 Comparative analysis of average weights.

Communicative Intercultural MICE professional

Communicative

Intercultural

MICE professional

Sum of rows

Weights

0.274 0.274 0.453

0.234 0.234 0.533

0.296 0.215 0.490

0.803 0.722 1.475

0.267 0.240 0.492

lower triangular portion of the matrix were the reciprocals of the corresponding entries in the upper triangular portion. The pairwise comparison matrix for the 1st-order criteria (the three core competences) and sums of columns were illustrated in Table 5 below. Table 6 depicts the comparative analysis of average weights of the 1st-order criteria (core competences).

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The priority weights among 1st-order criteria can be seen from the Expert Choice output (Fig. 5).The other three 2nd-order criteria (competence indicators) pairwise comparison matrices were computed in the same manner. The validity of the questionnaire survey result was examined based on Satty's consistency test, aiming to provide a direct measure of consistency in judgment elicited by the experts. A consistency ratio (C.R.) measures how far a decision-maker's judgments are from perfect consistency. It is obtained by dividing C.I. by Random Index (R.I.). Saaty (1995) suggests the following Random Index (R.I.) based on the matrix size under investigation (Table 7). For instance, the 1st-order criteria matrix size in the present study is 3, and the R.I. is 0.58. According to Satty (1995), if the C.R. is less than 0.10, the judgments are reasonably consistent and therefore acceptable. If the C.R. is greater than 0.10, it is suggested that the decision-makers reevaluate their judgments. It can be seen from Fig. 6 below that the overall inconsistency ¼0.01 (i.e. C.I. ¼0.01). The calculation shown below indicates that the present study yields an acceptable level of overall C.R. of 0.0172. C:R: ¼

C:I 0:01 ¼ ¼ 0:0172 R:I 0:58

The C.R. computed for the three sets of pairwise comparisons on the 2nd-order criteria, with a highest of 0.012 and the lowest of 0.003, were well within the tolerance specified in the AHP literature. It was therefore verified that the consistency among the 11 experts' judgments was high. 3.5. Estimate priority weights and criteria ranking Fig. 6 shows the priority weights among 2nd-order criteria and their ranking. The result executed by Expert Choice was illustrated in Table 8. It shows the overall weights for the 1st-order criteria, and local and global weights for the 2nd-order criteria. Column 1 of Table 8 below shows that the ‘MICE Professional Competence’, which has an overall weight of 49.2%, plays an important role in experts' judgments of international MICE professionals' core competence selection. The criterion of ‘communicative competence’ accounts for 26.7%, and the criterion of ‘intercultural competence’ for 24.0%. Column 3 shows the local weights of the 2nd-order criteria within the 1st-order criteria. Column 4 records the global weights of the 11

Fig. 5. Priority weights among 1st-order criteria.

Table 7 Random Index values according to matrix size (Saaty, 1995). Matrix size

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

R.I.

0.00

0.00

0.58

0.90

1.12

1.24

1.32

1.41

1.45

1.49

1.51

1.48

1.56

1.57

Fig. 6. Priority weights among 2nd-order criteria and their ranking.

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Table 8 Weight values and ranks of the competence model for international MICE professionals. 1st-order criteria (core competences)

2nd-order Criteria (competence indicators)

Local weights

Global weights

Communicative competence (weight¼0.267)

Grammatical Pragmatic Discourse Sociolinguistic Strategic

Intercultural competence (Weight ¼ 0.240)

Knowledge Skills Attitude

MICE professional competence (weight¼0.492)

General professional knowledge MICE work skills Tourism-related knowledge

0.077 0.021 0.105 0.028 0.384 0.103 0.330 0.088 0.104 0.028 C.I.¼ 0.009; C.R.¼ 0.008 0.144 0.035 0.609 0.146 0.247 0.059 C.I.¼ 0.007; C.R. ¼0.012 0.119 0.059 0.553 0.272 0.328 0.162 C.I.¼ 0.002; C.R.¼ 0.003

Rank (11) (10) (4) (5) (10) (8) (3) (6) (6) (1) (2)

2nd-order criteria across all the criteria under judgments. Among the 2nd-order criteria, the competence indicator of ‘MICE work skills’ has the highest weight (27.2%), followed by ‘tourism-related knowledge’ (16.2%), ‘intercultural communication skills’ (14.6%), and ‘discourse competence’ (10.3%). The last three choices are ‘grammatical’, ‘strategic’ and ‘pragmatic’ competences, with weights of less than 3%, respectively.

4. Conclusion and discussion This study aimed to empirically rank priorities of core competences and competence indicators that are crucial for English-proficient international MICE professionals. The evaluation setting was targeted on an Applied English Department of a tertiary setting in Taiwan. Pairwise comparisons using the AHP were conducted to compute weighted values of MICE competences for international professionals in a hierarchical evaluation framework extracted from the literature and further modified as a result of Delphi panel discussions. Among the three core competences, ‘MICE professional competence’ was assessed by the 11 Delphi panelists as the most critical core competence that international MICE professionals must possess. The second important core competence is ‘communicative competence’, followed by ‘intercultural competence’. Among the 11 competence indicators, results of the AHP analysis show that ‘MICE work skills’ and ‘tourism-related knowledge’ clustered under the core competence of ‘MICE professional competence’ were perceived by expert panelists as the two highest ranking competences for international professionals in the MICE industry. ‘Intercultural communication skills’ clustered under the core competence of ‘intercultural competence’, ‘discourse competence’ and ‘sociolinguistic competence’ under ‘communicative competence’ were also regarded as highly relevant to the cultivation of English- proficient international professionals to serve in the MICE industry. The overall prioritization of competence indicators implies that the core competence of ‘MICE professional competence’ more importantly determines the work efficiency at internationalized event settings than the other two core competences. Results of the study also show that international MICE professionals, in addition to discourse and sociolinguistic aspects of the language competences, must equip themselves with ‘MICE work skills’, ‘tourism-related knowledge’ and ‘intercultural communication skills’ in order to provide adequate service to visitors around the globe. The AHP has been utilized by many researchers to identify and prioritize competence or performance indicators for the purpose of evaluating management/organizational effectiveness and developing training programs in a variety of disciplines, including hospitality/tourism management, event management and ESP for hospitality and tourism (e.g. Kim et al., 2005; Begičević, Divjak, & Hunjak, 2007; Hafeez & Essmail, 2007; Li and Wang, 2010; Chen et al., 2011; Horng, Hsu, Liu, Lin, & Tsai, 2011; Hsieh, 2013). In light of the above research, the present study attempted to make a specific contribution to the ESP literature by extending the AHP application to the development of a content-based and English-medium program for international MICE professionals in Taiwan. The following steps are involved when solving decision problems by AHP and Expert Choice: (1) constructing a structured hierarchy based on literature review and Delphi judgment; (2) performing comparative judgment of criteria and sub-criteria in pairs on a factor scale from 1 to 9; (3) verifying consistency of judgment by checking if the consistency ratio (C.R.) is less than 0.1; and (4) weighting the contribution of each criteria and sub-criteria to the goal and synthesizing the priorities. This present study disclosed the problem of assessing the importance of competences inherent in the area of international MICE professional education and training. The content-based competence hierarchical framework and the utilization of AHP through Expert Choice formed a basis that enables researchers and practitioners to get a sense of core competences and competence indicators underlying complex dynamic phenomena involved in the ESP/EPP literature. The method employed by the study in aggregating a large amount of information into a comprehensible format and the results of competence prioritization lead to a number of practical and research implications.

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5. Implications, limitations and future research 5.1. Implications for practice The MICE English hierarchical framework and the overall prioritization of core competences and competence indicators constructed in the study can serve as a foundation for planning professional MICE curricula or pre-event intensive trainings designed to efficiently deliver trainings for international MICE professionals. Synthesized results of the study can also be used to facilitate the hiring and recruiting process of trained international workforce for specific events held in Taiwan or other non-English speaking countries. To meet the market demands for international professionals, the integration of language-oriented development and professional-oriented learning via English-medium instruction has been proposed as the cornerstone of ESP and EPP education (Flowerdew, 1993; Yogman & Kaylani, 1996). The major assumption is that English-medium instruction could benefit both students' gaining of content knowledge and English language proficiency (Courchêne, 1992). One important pedagogical implication of the study is to embed highly prioritized competences into an English-medium instruction curriculum as an academic track option for applied English undergraduates. To inform how to teach, how to develop materials and how to test, it is proposed that the weight distribution of competences identified in the present study be used as reference for instructors of the following courses: Introduction to MICE Industry, MICE and Tourism, Event Management, International Etiquette, Interpersonal Communication Skills, Intercultural Communication, English Conversation, Public Speaking, etc. In doing so, highly prioritized competence indicators of ‘MICE work skills’, ‘tourism-related knowledge’, ‘discourse competence’, ‘intercultural communication skills/attitude’ and ‘sociolinguistic competence’ are demonstrable in the international MICE professional curriculum for applied English major students in Taiwan. The introduction of the present competence framework into the MICE industry would also shed light on practical concerns regarding the formulation of selection criteria and rubrics for hiring, staffing and evaluating qualified international MICE professionals. A hypothesized scoring rubric was coded based on the above undertaking as an example to illustrate how the seven most highly prioritized competences were authentically formulated into an assessment tool to describe the progress of students' acquisition of professional English competences and to evaluate qualifications required to be English-proficient international MICE professionals (Table 9). In addition to the above pedagogical and practical implications, on-going professional development of content-area instructors is also critically important for conveying the curriculum goals, assuring the accountability of the competence-based and English-medium instruction, and implementing the pedagogical methods to effectively involve students in classroom activities.

5.2. Limitations and implications for future research One of the major limitations of the study comes from the composition and the size of the expert panelists. The eleven experts recruited from the fields of English teaching, tourism/MICE management and international business were assumed to have full comprehension of the MICE industry and the MICE education. Nevertheless, due to the subjectivity and transitivity of AHP judgment, further research could expand the size of the panel to include opinions and comparative judgments from experts in the fields of educational administration, human resource development and AHP methodologists. Another limitation associated with the composition of the expert panelists lies in the selection of experts exclusively from Northern Taiwan, targeting at shaping a competence framework for an Applied English Department in Taiwan. It was empirically confirmed that cultural differences exist in different regions in Chinese societies (Kwon, 2011). It is therefore suggested that future research studies replicate the present study by taking into account factors that reflect cultural differences in Chinese societies. This can be done by involving multiple stakeholders formed by different cultural groups in future studies to assess different perceptions across cultures or regions in Chinese societies. Such investigations may lead to a diversity of competence priorities to reflect culturally specific characteristics of events held in different regions of Chinese societies. One of the major advantages of AHP is its flexibility in changing the weights synthesized from experts' judgments of criteria or alternatives on the basis of different contextual needs and therefore, it is easily adaptable with diverse areas of application (Vaidya & Kumar, 2006; Shahin & Mahbod, 2007). Table 9 A hypothesized scoring rubric constructed based on the 7 most highly prioritized competences. Competences

Weight value

% (suggested)

Superior

Excellent

Good

Fair

Poor

MICE work skills Tourism-related knowledge Discourse competence Intercultural communication skills/attitudes Sociolinguistic Competence General professional knowledge

0.272 0.147 0.103 0.201 0.088 0.059

30 15 10 25 10 5

30 15 10 25 10 5

24 12 8 20 8 4

18 9 6 15 6 3

12 6 4 10 4 2

6 3 2 5 2 1

Notes: Intercultural Communication Skills and Intercultural Communication Attitudes were combined into one dimension in the rubric.

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Previous research has provided evidence that English-medium content-driven programs helped students improve their English language competence and content area knowledge (Grabe & Stoller, 1997; Al-Ansari, 2000; Marsh et al., 2001; Snow, 2005). It is recommended that follow-on studies be conducted to investigate the effects of the competence-based and English-medium instruction on gaining of prioritized content-area knowledge and skills for the MICE industry by comparing the English-medium instruction group and the conventional ESP learner group enrolled in the hospitality, tourism or event management programs where the learners' native language is used as the medium of instruction. If the competences of a selected group of English-medium instruction students are significantly heightened through English-only training interventions designed based on competences prioritized by the present study, results of the study could serve as a more objective and effective basis for the development of international professional training programs for MICE industry. In conclusion, the utilization of AHP and expert judgments in the study challenged earlier structural-based or learnercentered schools widely endorsed in the ESP and EPP literature using register and rhetorical analyses or simply analyzing the needs or learning process of the students (e.g. Hutchinson & Waters, 1987; Blue & Harun, 2003; Su, 2009; Nelson et al., 2012). Professional English training needs to speak to the real tasks demanded by the workplace and provide students with essential competences identified by experts in the field. The study attempted to look at education and training of Englishproficient international MICE professionals from a different perspective which shifts the scope of interest from languagecentered, content or learning-centered approaches to a prioritization of competences that need to be mastered in the course of given time constrains. In response to the specialized nature of ESP and EPP in preparing English major students for immediate workplace demands, the prioritization of competences for international MICE professionals in the study was characterized by a synthesis of requisite language, knowledge and skills determined by real world experts. Results of the study would function as a point of departure for subsequent studies on selection of workforce, design and implementation of competence-based professional training for the purpose of internationalizing the MICE industry in Taiwan and other nonEnglish speaking countries.

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