Evaluating Effects of Organizational Culture on Walt Disney Workforce - Essay Example

Evaluating effects of Organizational Culture on the WALT DISNEY Workforce

Walt Disney’s workforce is one of the success stories of effective organizational culture. Walt Disney dreamt of founding an entertainment hub in the world and believed that “it requires people to make the dream a reality” (Sparks, 2007). Hence, he implemented a comprehensive strategy and established Disney Institute in 1986 to ensure that every employee undergoes proper training. Training of employees gradually became a unique trait of its organizational culture, and several other companies have adopted Disney’s methods and achieved great success, for example, “Toys R Us, Siemens Medical, and Price Waterhouse Coopers” (Sparks, 2007). At Walt Disney Inc. there has always been an open and organized environment where even the new trainees are treated as an integral part of the organization.

The training involves rehearsing at Disney’s parks and resorts on ways to delight customers, and every personnel is required to abide by the cleanliness, alertness, and responsiveness standards of the company. The beneficial aspect of these training techniques is that “the ever-smiling Disney theme park employee has become a stereotype of modern culture now” (Bryman, 1999). Employees need to follow a definite pattern as every new entrant is required to understand the organization's rules through a video, and other significant rules are conveyed such as they cannot dress inappropriately while on duty or undergo tattooing, excessive jewelry, and makeup are also prohibited (Sacra, 2003).

Another important aspect of Disney’s organizational culture is that the team invests a lot of effort in adapting and adjusting to changing cultural requirements for ensuring complete customer satisfaction, For instance, in 1983 Tokyo Disneyland was inaugurated in Japan, and it became an instant hit among Japanese since the organization had adjusted American cultural norms with their traditional requirements (Meyer, 2008). However, Euro Disney could not measure up to similar success because it predominantly portrayed European culture which the Japanese could not comprehend (Meyer 2008). That is how Walt Disney Inc. learned from its own mistakes and integrated a thorough and successful package in terms of organizational culture, and thus, today it has created a brand name that guarantees matchless services and full-on entertainment. Read More