Differences between Disneylands in the United States and France - Case Study Example

Euro Disneyland Executive Summary Culture in most cases, is a foundation of divergence than of synergy. Cultural dissimilarity is an annoyance at greatest and often a distance. For people working in cross cultural business, it has been amazing how different people behave and operate. Human being tend to have an instinct that people are the same but this is not true as different cultures behave differently in any given situation at the same time. This has called for proper understanding of people’s cultures before handling them. Many scientists have been able to come up with different manner unto which we can be able to differentiate cultures. According to Hofstede, he has categorised cultural differences into four dimensions namely; power distance, individualism, masculinity and uncertainty avoidance. At the same time, Trompenaars had his research of which was able to differentiate cultures using five categories as will be discussed in the text. Therefore, the paper aims at discussing the main differences that emerges between United States and France in relation to Euro Disneyland case study. Power distance In this dimension, Hofstede categorise cultural differences as per the level at which the less fortune people within the community accept that power is distributed unfairly. It tends to reflect inequality from down to up suggesting that community’s degree of inequality is endorsed by followers as well as leaders (Guffey, Rogin, & Rhodes, 2009, pp327-335)). Power and inequality are tremendously essential evidence of any community and any individual with some global experience will be conscious that 'all communities are unequal, but the degree of inequality differs. United States is known to have low power distances whereas France has higher power distance. This brought confusion at Euro Disneyland when Disney nominated an American to be in the front line supervisory position, resulting to disagreement at the company as the American could not communicate in French. Individualism This is the level at which people within one community relate to one another. France tends to have higher individualism level than that of United States. As much as both countries embrace group work and close relation, French people tend to possess high individualism culture. The strict dressing code imposed at Euro Disneyland by the American executive from Disney obligated all workers to have short hair. This reflected the squeaky clean American values offending traditions in French. As a result of this, many of the French workers with highly individualistic rejected the work offered to them at Euro Disneyland. Masculinity This is the manner at which one culture distributes duties between genders. Cultures can be either masculine or feminine in such a manner that, in feminine country, women have the same caring values as men whereas in masculine countries, in such culture, there is the presence of competition and assertive resulting to wide gap between the men and women. Some of masculine features include; power, individual achievements, materialism, strength, assertiveness, self-centeredness (Melkman, & Trotman, 2005 pp12-27). In relation to the Euro Disneyland case study, it is evident that, France owns low masculine form of culture, thus emphasising on quality of life and care for others other than achievements in life. This is contrary to United States where they have high masculine culture thus focusing on material possessions, success and money. In relation to the case study, Euro Disney adapted high masculine type of culture other than focusing on French culture that call for friendly atmosphere, environmental conservation, cooperation, freedom to workers and group decision that would have assisted them in bringing up the company in a positing way. Uncertainty avoidance index This is the level at which people in any culture feel endangered by uncertainty, it can also be referred to the level at which people search for truth. It gives the degree at which people within a given culture feel secure in unstructured circumstances. United States is known to have low uncertainty avoidance compared to that in France (Marcus, Gould, 2000, pp32-46). With adoption of American culture into Euro Disneyland parks with less allowances of French culture in 1992, it resulted to many French people to feel highly ambiguous thus reducing the percentage of visitors to Euro Disneyland. United States and France Cultural Differences Basing On Trompenaars’ Research Reflecting on Trompenaars’ research, the paper was able to come up with five main cultural differences between France and the United States. Neutral vs. Emotional In a neutral culture, people’s emotions are usually controlled. Individuals do not show off their emotions to the public. To this reason, we can not judge out that France or United States possess neutral cultures. On the other hand, emotional culture is one which individuals’ emotions or feelings are expressed in public or freely. At this stage, we can then say that both France and United States have emotional type of culture (Trompenaars, & Hampden, 1998, pp29-31). This was justified at the news conference prior to the park’s opening when protesters pelted Walt Disney Company CEO, Michael Eisner, with rotten eggs. None the less, the two nations are not high emotion nations Universalism vs. Particularism Particularistic nations concentrate more on relationships than on rules governing them. Because of this, ideas and actions are not exercised uniformly at every station, they look at the relationship that they have with people at the given station. Reflecting on Disneyland Company, France tends to possess particularistic type of culture as they were able to reduce their price for French people so as to increase the percentage of French people visiting the place. Universalistic nation concentrates more on set rules than on relationships. This gives them the opportunity to practice same ideas and actions everywhere (Henderson, & Atkinson, 2003, pp222-231). Therefore, it is evident that United States possesses this form of culture. It has been to this reason that the United States multinationals have continually assumed relationships in a foreign culture. Specific vs. Diffuse A nation with specific culture demonstrates a strong disconnection between private life and work (Trompenaars, & Hampden, 1998, pp29-31). This is evident in United States where men are not allowed to work at the same place with their wives. Contrary to this, diffuse culture, example that of France connects work and private life closely but with powerful protection. This is evident in the case study when Miller, married the daughter to his boss. Internal vs. External This is people’s ability to know who is answerable to their destiny. With internalistic culture, individuals take charge of their destiny to an extent of believing they are reliable to whatever happens to them (Trompenaars, & Hampden, 1998, pp29-31). A good example of this is in the United States. Contrary to this is the externalistic culture whereby people believes they have no responsibility to their destiny; such cultures tend to adapt to external circumstances quite easily e.g. France. Time orientation This is the manner to which people use time and how flexible they are to time. Having sequential type of culture in United States, individuals tend to perform one duty at a time; they observe appointments very strictly with a strong favourite for following plans. On the other hand, France has synchronous culture allowing them to multitask at any given time, in such a way that, they can perform more than one duty at one time. To add on that, their appointments are not as fixed as those in United States thus can be altered at any given time (Henderson, & Atkinson, 2003, pp222-231). Mistakes made by the Company In managing Euro Disneyland operations, the company made some mistakes. These included; the management had wrong self-assessment that resulted to false decision in the management thus poor result at the Euro Disneyland. The company used the same management to operate mistakes at Walt Disney and Euro Disneyland without considering the fact that the two companies are in different location with different cultures. This resulted to wrong solutions at Euro Disneyland resulting to poor performance. Having the wrong management team, they too came up with wrong method in which Euro Disneyland could be operated. With experience from Walt Disney Company, they allocated few staff on Monday as it was their light day for guest and many staff on Friday as their heavy day. This resulted to less staff on Monday with overflow of workers on Friday as the two companies could not operate under the same schedule due to distance between them. To add on that, there were different views from employees concerning conditions of employments offered to them. On opening of Euro Disneyland, executive estimated 13% labour cost of their revenues. This exerted more pressure on the management to seek for more funds from banks, resulting to 24% in 1992 and 40% in 1993 thus increasing the debt of Euro Disneyland Lessons Leant By the Company on How To Deal With Diversity Having looked at Walt Disney Company’s venture into France, it will offer other organizations ways in which they can manage diversity in their relevant firms. They will be able to learn that different location have different culture and thus, they have to come up with better strategy that fit the place in order to enhance better working conditions at the organization thus excellent performance (Strazzabosco, 1996, pp37-53) . Basing on Walt Disney CEO experience with rotten eggs, the company should be able to learn that they have to learn on how to incorporate specific culture whereby, they resolve conflicts within organization by focusing on one goal. This will make employees feel the sense of fairness at the organization. While doing this, the company should be able to work through dissimilarities to resolve disagreement. Allow the conflicted individuals to hear one another and feel heard. Tools such as non-violent communication and mediation may be used (Guffey, Rogin, & Rhodes, 2009, pp327-233). This makes the two parties see each other as workmates thus allowing them to work jointly to attain appropriate solution. Having workers from different cultures, the company has to deal with different individual perspectives from diverse cultures. They do not have to centralize their way of thinking to one culture because different cultures tend to pose different customs. References Dainton, M. & Zelley, E. (2005) Applying Communication Theory for professional life SAGE pp75-83 Erlenkamp, D. (2007) Managing International Teams And Workforce Diversity GRIN Verlag pg 9-17 Gooderham, P. & Nordhaug, O. (2003) International management cross boundary challenges Wiley-Blackwell pp140-147 Guffey, M., Rogin, P. & Rhodes, K. (2009) Business Communication 3rd Ed Cengage Learning pp 327-341 Henderson, J. & Atkinson, d. (2003) Managing care in context Routledge pp 222-231 Marcus, A. & Gould, E. (2000) Crosscurrents cultural dimensions vol. 7 ACM New York pp 32-46 Melkman, A. & Trotman, J. (2005) Training International Managers Gower Publishing Ltd pp 12-27 Philip, H. & Moran R. (1991) Managing Cultural Differences Gulf Publishing Houston pp 97-117 Strazzabosco, J. (1996) High performance through dealing with diversity the Rosen Publishing Group pp 37-53 Thompson, M., Ellis, R. & Wildavsky, A. (1990) Cultural Theory Boulder Westview Press pp37-49 Trompenaars, A. & Hampden, C (1998) Riding The Waves Of Culture Understanding Cultural Diversity In Global Business 2nd Ed McGraw Hill pp 29-35 Trompenaars, F. & Woolliams, P. (2003) Business across cultures vol. 1 culture for business series University Of Michigan Capstone pp 310-323 Read More