The Walt Disney Company was established in the year 1923 by two brothers: Roy Disney and Walt Disney. The company started from a very humble beginning as a cartoon studio, but later ventured deeply into the entertainment industry by introducing its own films such as the animated films.
Today this company has many affiliate companies and also sells consumer products such as clothes and electronics. Moreover, Walt Disney Company has improved its productivity because of good organizational culture that is practiced by employees and stakeholders of the organization.
Disney encouraged people to participate in the civil war by producing pieces that expressed the theme of fighting during the First World War. Victory Through Air Power and Education for Death are among the films that were used to spread awareness during the civil war. However, Walt Disney died in 1966, and five years later his brother also passed on. Their death was a big blow to the company, but fortunately the people who were left in charge of the company had been trained by the two brothers, and thus they were able to follow their legacy (Neal, 2007).
The success of Walt Disney Company is owed to its strong emphasis on values and work ethics. The company’s values include innovation, quality, community, storytelling, optimism, and decency. The values are part of Disney’s core mission of “providing quality entertainment for people around the world” (Disney, n.d, para. 2).
The company has an established code of ethics that must be observed by all employees regardless of their location or duty. The company is committed to the wellness of its employees and this is done by availing a favorable working environment where there are adequate and efficient channels of communication between the employees and the administrators.
In addition, Neal (2009) outlines that the company strives to produce goods and services of the best quality which is essential to meeting its customers’ needs. The items and services offered by Disney are regularly vetted to make sure they are safe. The success of quality is attributed to efficient communication between the customers and the company; customers provide feedback on Disney’s products to help the company in improving product quality.
Cohesion is also encouraged at Walt Disney, which makes it possible for employees to team up in achieving organizational goals. The teams at Walt Disney are comprised of people from various backgrounds and it is this diversity that guarantees excellence due to the difference in skills and abilities.
Likewise, the company is recognized as an equal opportunity employer because it does not discriminate against race, gender or any other matter. Furthermore, if an employee has to be fired there are established procedures that are to be followed to retain the integrity of the company and the employee (Neal, 2007).
Similarly, the company boasts of many achievements one of them being the setting up of Disney parks which are used as parents and children amusement parks. The company has won various trophies in the past such as the academy award, which was accorded to The Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs films.
Moreover, the company has managed to buy most companies in the entertainment industry and some of them include Marvel Entertainment and ABC. In this light, Miner (2007) suggests that when the espoused values of an organization align with its enacted values, the company is able to increase its productivity. Disney’s achievements show that the company’s values are appreciated by its employees and the target market because it fulfils their expectations.
Despite all these achievements Walt Disney has encountered a lot of resistance from people who argued that some of its films had sexually explicit content. The Catholic Church in the US has been discouraging its followers from purchasing products made by Walt Disney because of the company’s stand on homosexuality. Even though the two brothers are long dead, the company has continued to thrive day after day because of good organizational culture.
References
Disney. (n.d). The Walt Disney Company and Affiliated Companies – Culture. Retrieved from https://jobs.disneycareers.com/
Miner, J. (2007).Organizational Behavior: From Theory to Practice. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.
Neal, G. (2007).Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. New York: Random House.