This bibliography shows how the Disney Company truly treats its employees.

Disney is known as being one of the premier companies in the world. Disney is

known to treat its front line employees fairly and the employees truly love working

there. This will show members of the hospitality industry and anyone interested in the

Disney Company the inside look into how Disney Parks, more specifically Walt

Disney World with a few examples from Disneyland and parks overseas treat their

employees, how they train them, and the misconception there is to the public that

many do not realize. The goal is not to put Disney down, but to acknowledge that if

you want to work there and move up in the company, the employee will have to go

through rigid labor in the beginning of their careers and are given the short end of the

stick every time. These citations are from many different sources. In this conversation

there are academic journals by former Disney executives and historians, interviews of

past front line cast members, articles and reports by former cast members and many

people interested in the company. These journals are all from the past twenty years,

beginning with the Michael Eisner era in the 1990s to present day Bob Iger era. This

can be considered the golden age of Disney Parks with rapid growth in labor and

revenue.

Boje, David M. "Stories of the Storytelling Organization: A Postmodern Analysis of

Disney as Tamara-Land." Academy of Management Journal, 5 Aug. 1995. Web. 12

Mar. 2013.

David Boje, management professor at New Mexico State University, studied in his

article how Disney is constructed eternally and how cast members play an integral

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part in how the parks run everyday. Without them they are nothing. However, Boje

points out that the cast members get the raw end of the stick because of the poor pay

and extra benefits that full time management gets and he feels that is the one major

flaw of the company. Treating the front line employees better may generate more

revenue for the company. Disney gets by this tactic because they promote from

within, which gives Disney a leeway in giving sub-par benefits to first line workers

because they try to sell that to the employees when training and working with them

that they can get promoted and receive higher pay. This relates to the main

conversation on how Disney treats cast members because it shows that Disney does

not need to change anything to their philosophy because they are making money and

it is obviously working, even though they should work on it in order to keep a good

turnover rate.

Bryman, Alan. Disney and his Worlds. Routledge, 1995. 64-77. Print.

Alan Bryman, professor of Organizational and Social Research at the University of

Leicester, discusses that once Walt Disney passed away, the Disney parks lost some

of their magic. Bryman said that not only did theming and imagination decreased, but

the employees guest satisfaction declined as well. Disney was someone everyone

wanted to work for. The employees wanted to put forth their best efforts and service

in order to receive compliments from Walt himself. Once he died, the company was

in tailspin. There only solution was to cut costs on many projects such as cutting

spending on the training. The argument here is that customer service lessened and it

proved that many people did not come back to visit as much as they did before

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Disney died. The company’s lack of training did not pay dividends and Bryman said

that it did not take until Michael Eisner, a charismatic leader like Walt Disney, to

come in and revert the culture back to where it once was. The funds for training the

employees came back and the employees not only were trained better but customer

service was through the roof. This article fits into the whole conversation because it

shows how when Walt Disney died, the company decided that a good way to save

money was to cut spending on training, but that was a mistake, they put employees on

the backburner in which Michael Eisner soon discovered. Once he fixed it everything

improved immensely.

Bryman, Alan. "The Disneyization of Society." The Sociological Review 47.1 (1999):

25-47. Print.

Alan Bryman, professor of Organizational and Social Research at the University of

Leicester also the contributor of the last annotation, discusses in his book how Disney

has created a multi-dimensional employee. At Disney Parks does not only provide

service, but they are an entertainer. Disney wants their employees to create “a

magical experience for everyone” (Bryman, 22). However, this has put a lot of

pressure on the cast members. It is like they have to put on theatrical event when they

are out on stage. It is very difficult to keep that high level of emotion in the hot

Florida sun for hours on end dealing with thousands of guests each day while also

being monitored closely. They want higher pay because of this, but Disney does not

budge at all. Since they are a union it can cause some problems in the future, but the

Disney has the upper hand because they do not need you as much as you need them.

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They can move on they can hire more employees thus putting the employees in a

bind. Disney knows how to do it well while saving a lot of money by not over paying

in their minds their workers. This fits into the conversation at hand because in this

article it shows that the employees are multifaceted and compared to other companies

that you usually only do a certain job, these employees do more than just operate a

ride or hand out popcorn, they are performers and they feel like they are not getting

respected by not receiving correct pension.

Disney Cast Members. "Working in Disney World: Behind the Magic." Lets Talk Disney

Behind the Magic, 5 Mar. 2009. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.

This article is a compilation of many different cast members who have worked at both

Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Therefore, some of these cast members were

fired so their views on Disney may be skewed, but it was a very good to read about

their personal experiences at the park and what they had to say about how they were

treated by Disney. The conclusions were they were given terrible hours, treated

poorly compared to the work they do, and the training was summarized as

“brainwashing.” They all say that nobody says anything because it is Disney. If it

were not for them Florida and every tourist destination would be different. They

shaped everything in what it is today. Like previously mentioned this comes from a

group of people who most got laid off so their views are definitely skewed, but it

relates to the main conversation because it gives a great in depth look from primary

sources on how they, the cast members were treated by the Disney Company.

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Fastenberg, Dan. "Disney Uses 'Electronic Whip' To Push Employee Performance." AOL

Jobs. AOL, 19 Oct. 2011. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.

Dan Fastenberg, TIMES Magazine journalist, interviewed many hotel resort cast

members at the Disneyland Resort and Fastneberg discovered through his multiple

interviews of Disney either retired cast members or cast members that have moved on

that Disney uses monitors as scoreboards to show how each employee does compared

to each other. The scoreboard consists of how they clean, guest service, and other task

orientated jobs. The employees do not like it at all because they feel they are being

judged and controlled by Disney. Only about 18% of the employees praised the

scoreboards. Still, Fastenberg says that many companies view Disney as having one

of the best working cultures in the world and a lot of big name hotel companies take

this scoreboard technique and use it in their training. This article is included in the

whole conversation because Fastenberg gets information straight from cast members

that have worked for Disney and it also gives a view why nothing is done about it.

Garcia, Jason. "Walt Disney World Cast Members Can Relax a Bit about Their Look."

Orlando Sentinel. 14 June 2010. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

Jason Garcia, head theme park writer for the Orlando Sentinel, discusses the once

strict dress code to recently changing to a more lenient dress code. "There's a guest

expectation of what they expect to see with our cast members," said Vinny Pagliuca,

director of creative costuming and cosmetology for Walt Disney Entertainment. For

the longest time employees had to be clean-shaven, normal looking hair, no makeup,

and they even had to buy underwear from Disney! They now have changed this.

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Employees can grow facial hair, wear makeup, and even wear their own underwear.

The strict dress code decision came from Walt because he wanted to distinguish

himself from everyone else. It may have been fine in the 1950s and 60s but it’s the

21st century people are not sharing underwear anymore. Employees were not given

any freedom, which now they have with addition to these updated guidelines. They

can wear un-tucked bowling shirts, open toed shoes, it’s more freedom then ever

before and more with the times though Pagliuca stated, “There's still an expectation

of a clean, Disney look." This adds to the whole conversation because it can be noted

that Disney employees were essentially treated like clones, everyone dressed the

same. It is good to see they did change their outlook though and maybe with changes

like that they are willing to make even more changes in the future with other

employee concerns and problems.

Kober, Jeff. "Are Disney Cast Members Mousetrapped?" Magic of Business by Jeff

Kober. Mouse Planet, 9 Dec. 2010. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.

Jeff Kober is president of Performance Journeys and CEO of World Class

Benchmarking; he is a thought leader on best-in-business practices at the Walt Disney

Company. He wrote "The Wonderful World of Customer Service at Disney." Kober

discusses in this article that he feels that when you work for the Disney parks,

especially the Walt Disney Parks, the company owns you, and you feel

“mousetrapped” which leads employees trying to be perfect at all times and not

questioning the higher authorities. He said that they could not make their own

decisions anymore without critique from management and the quality of the

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employees have declined. In a study he did which surveyed the employees view on

working there 81% of them stated they are treated poorly. Now he may be saying this

because he was apart of the Disney training back in the 80s and 90s when for the

most part the employees were highly trained and well recognized so his outlook may

be skewed. Also, his study only included a very small portion of employees so those

number could be skewed. Kober’s article relates to the whole conversation because he

brings on a light that Disney may use a scare tactic now to make sure their employees

are up to their standards of excellence. It may not be the correct way how to treat an

employee, but it sure does work.

Perlin, Ross. "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom." Guernica / A Magazine of Art &

Politics. 1 May 2011. Web. 14 Mar. 2013.

Ross Perlin, linguist, writer, and graduate from Stanford University and University of

Cambridge, goes in depth about the internship program of Disney. 70% of the

employees at Disney World are in the internship program. That is a lot of employees

considering there are 63,000 employed. The program gives housing to all interns and

pays them. However, the pay is below minimum wage and goes straight to the

housing so they are not making much. In addition, hours are long, your life is work,

and you are not guaranteed a job once you leave the program. It has been reported

that about 20-30% of the interns actually dropout, which is a very large number.

Disney is all in on the intern program because it is so cheap. They do not pay interns

anything compared to a regular employee and many wonder how it keeps going. The

interns pay it right back to them. Many colleges and universities are involved because

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they can cater to all majors and Disney is such a good company to put on a resume

and even though the complaints come in from every intern they all love it because

they are in Walt Disney World. This is part of the main conversation because this

brings in the internship portion of the workforce at the Disney Parks. Since the

internship is so huge in the theme park company they get away with low wages and

ways to really treat them like slaves.

Prevot, Arnaud. "THE MARKETING OF AMERICANA: PROMOTING THE WALT

DISNEY COMPANY AND HARLEY DAVIDSON MOTORS IN THE FRENCH

MARKET."

Consortium Journal of Hospitality & Tourism 15.2 (2011): 35-45. Print.

Arnaud Prevot, former executive at Disneyland Paris and Harley Davidson Motor

Company, discusses in this journal how both Disney Parks and Harley, American

companies, promote to the foreign crowd in order to get them to work for their

companies. Prevot discusses that when working at Disneyland Paris surprisingly they

would not look for employees in the Paris area, but more throughout Europe and

other parts of France. About 73-76% of the employees working at Disneyland Paris

were not from the area. Disney figured that even though a lot of people in Paris would

visit, a large majority of the people would be from other parts of France and other

European nations. Thus they wanted a European feel to the park. The problem with

that is though there were not many foreigners visiting the park as expected. Only

about 30% were visitors outside of France and the surrounding countries. Therefore,

the majority of the people who visit Disneyland Paris are French, usually coming

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from Paris and the areas around it. Prevot now says that it was a mistake to move

outside of the Paris realm of people because it cost a lot of money bringing them in.

Disney had to scale back on other things and employees got fired. How they treated

their employees are what some say unjust and unfair thank to their mistakes.

Shortsleeve, Kevin. "The Wonderful World of the Depression: Disney, Despotism, and

the 1930s. Or, Why Disney Scares Us." Project MUSE - The Wonderful World of the

Depression: Disney, Despotism, and the 1930s. Or, Why Disney Scares Us. The Lion

and the Unicorn, 30 Jan. 2004. Web. 12 Mar. 2013.

Kevin Shortsleeve received his doctorate at the University of Oxford and is a child’s

author and created a public radio program about children’s culture. In this article

Shortsleeve discusses that during the time Walt passed away to the mid-80s when

Michael Eisner took over, employees were in fear of Disney management because

Walt’s style of leading was similar to a dictator. Management enforced rules in a

strict way, such as making sure no employees were to talk to each other while “on

stage.” Shortsleeve observes that though the cast members were doing well and

offered above and beyond guest service they needed to seem more relaxed because

they looked stressed. When Eisner came in he changed the culture of Disney and the

employees were allowed to communicate with each other. The results were extremely

positive employees were going to even greater heights to make a guests day. This

conversation is included because it showed that Disney could change the way they

train their employees in a totally different way and still get the same results from

them, maybe even better results.

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Smoodin, Eric Loren. "Disney and the Corporate Agenda." Disney Discourse: Producing

the Magic Kingdom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.

Erick Smoodin, America film history professor at University of California, writes

about how the Disney Company goes to Spain and Portugal to recruit future

employees for the parks in order for them help managers at the parks communicate

properly with the Spanish, Mexican, Portuguese, and Brazilian workers they have.

Smoodin discovers that when the employees they hire are hired, they are told they are

there to enhance the guest experience in the park to the Latin and Hispanic guests as

well by hiring them, as creative consultants to different areas where their skill based

sets from their own country would be beneficial to the park. However, most of the

foreign workers actually just end up working for maintenance, park services, or food

and beverage service. Therefore, Smoodin believes that Disney is undermining

Hispanic foreign workers to get them to come over for cheaper costs then Americans.

Disney never lies to them, but they create a sense that what they will be doing is

much better than what they are actually doing, which in most cases is cleaning toilets.

This relates back to my discussion on how employees are treated in Disney because it

shows a different perspective from the traditional American view how Disney truly

treats its employees.

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Wallace, Mike. Mickey Mouse History and Other Essays on American Memory.

Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1996. Print.

Mike Wallace, American historian and director of Gotham Center for New York City

History, examines that when MGM Studios, now Disney’s Hollywood Studios first

opened their doors back in 1989 they hurried up to open the park to beat Universal

Studios. They did and Wallace remembers that hiring employees for the park was

pretty difficult and that when they did open they were not trained to Disney standards.

They were more focused on revenue and beating out Universal. During their opening

year Disney discovered that guests were not enjoying themselves as much as they

were in the other two parks and through research it was shown that they were lacking

on guest service. In a study by Disney research, only 68% of guests thought they

received average to above average guest service, which is directed right to the

employees and how the lack of training must probably caused this occurrence. A year

later after they trained up their employees the park was doing extremely well. They

did the same study and it was 87% of the guests were receiving above average guest

service. This relates to the discussion on hand on how Disney treats its employees

because if Disney put time into training from the beginning and opened a little later

they would have one not have to put money back into training and still would have

opened before Universal because they opened up a year after they opened.

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