Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Walt Disney Company-Disneyland Paris

ETH/316

July 9, 2014

Dubbed “the happiest place on earth” The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries and affiliates, is the leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise (The Walt Disney Company, 2014). Throughout the body of this paper I will delve more into the wonderful world of Disney while defining some cultural issues within Disneyland Paris. I will prepare an analysis of the ethical and social responsibility issues that The Walt Disney Company must deal with as result of being a global organization. The reader will learn about the ethical perspectives in the global organization. Lastly, I will compare these ethical perspectives across cultures involved in The Walt Disney Company.

There is a saying that a company should act globally but think locally, and be culturally aware because it is the lack of cultural awareness that causes businesses to fail. When Disney decided to build and open a theme park and resorts in Paris there were several things that they failed to recognize prior to opening and soon errors of their lack of strategic planning where brought to light. There were many cultural issues that Disney did not consider prior to opening theme parks in Paris, but what stands out the most is the misunderstanding of French labor laws and violation of French labor law. A major failure of Disney’s HR management was the lack of understanding of the differences between the US and the French labor laws. In the United States for example, given the cyclicality and seasonality of the attendance at the park, US workers were scheduled based on the day of the week and time of the year, which provided US management with high degree of flexibility and economy in staffing the park to meet high degree of visitor demand. French labor laws, however, did not provide this kind of flexibility (Keegan, 2002). In Orlando, Cast Members were accustomed to...