There was a cultural conflict between the French employees and other workers. The cultural clashes caused the company to experience huge losses. The cultural differences were experienced when some of the French employees felt that being an entrepreneur was better than working with the company.
For instance, Robert Fitzpatrick felt that being an entrepreneur is better than working at the company. He quit the job as the chairperson and started a consulting company. He had the desire to be an entrepreneur. This indicates that the company did not have motivational strategies to encourage employees to work (Zweifel, 2003).
The EuroDisneyland experienced financial problems. The firm incurred losses during its first year of inception. However, Philippe Bourguignon was optimistic that the company would improve its performance. In 1992, the company experienced a loss of FFr18mm. The number of French visitors was 25%, and this performance was lower than the expected performance of 50%.
The decline in the number of French visitors was caused by cultural conflicts. The company failed to incorporate the French culture in the organizational structure. “When Disney built its EuroDisney theme park in Paris, it triggered a visceral hate campaign among the Paris intelligentsia, and angry French people boycotted EuroDisney en masse” (Zweifel, 2003, p. 25).
This indicates that the management team failed to understand and respect the French culture, and this caused a mass boycott. The employees boycotted the company because it never considered the cultural aspects of the French, but applied the American culture. The violation of cultural aspects caused the company to incur a lot of losses.
The company also experienced negative publicity since it was introduced in the country. The image of a company is very important because customers and potential employees are attracted to a company that has a good public image. The employees of the EuroDisneyland were not motivated to work with the company because the public image was not good. A good public image attracts professional employees (Mohin, 2012).
The recruitment process was ridiculed because the job applicants were screened. This process was not accepted in France. In addition, the company did not serve the local foods.
The strategy to exclude the French cultural aspects created a bad image, and it took a long time to get a good image. The company had to employ a French president, who introduced new strategies. The company regained its image after incorporating the French cultural aspects (Zweifel, 2013).
The company was in a dilemma about how to finance the second phase of development. The company had incurred a lot of losses such that implementing the second phase was a big challenge. The company also incurred a lot of debts in 1993. Even though the company performed poorly, Michael Eisner, the chief executive officer, was optimistic that the company would overcome the challenges.
The CEO said that the company had taken the greatest risk to venture in France, and it had to be successful. Michael Eisner is a leader who has the skills to motivate employees. A leader is a person with a vision and influence over the subordinates to achieve the goals of a company.
Michael was optimistic that the company would be successful despite the negative performance experienced during the initial stages. This shows the vision that Michael had about the success of the company. He influenced the employees to follow the vision in order to achieve the goals of the company (Zweifel, 2013).
References
Mohin, T. J. (2012). Changing business from the inside out: A Treehugger’s guide to working in corporations. Sheffield: Greenleaf.
Zweifel, T. D. (2003). Culture clash: Managing the global high-performance team. New York, N.Y: SelectBooks.
Zweifel, T. D. (2013). Culture clash 2: Leading the global high-performance team. New York, N.Y: SelectBooks.