Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Disney 1
Disney 1
Disney
Stewart Zambrano
OGL 345-Module 3
April 2, 2023
2
Disney
After reading chapter 3, I decided to speak on The Walt Disney Company, they were
ranked number 53 in the fortune 500 list off 2022 ("World’s Most Admired Companies,”2022).
Walt Disney founded Disney on October 16, 1923, in Los Angeles California, “Walt Disney
signs a contract with M. J. Winkler to produce a series of Alice Comedies. The year marks the
start of The Walt Disney Company, first known as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio”
(“Disney 1923,”2023). In over a hundred years The Walt Disney Company has grown from
theme parks on different ends of the earth including Paris, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Florida, China
and California with a total of twelve parks, Disney has also made classic movies like Dumbo,
Robin Hood, Lion King and many others as they have become an international phenomenon.
The Walt Disney Company continues to grow and expand as they now own Pixar, Marvel
Studios, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation, and Searchlight Pictures
aside from where they started with Walt Disney Pictures and Walt Disney Animation Studios.
The mission of The Walt Disney Company is “to entertain, inform and inspire people
around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands,
creative minds and innovative technologies that make ours the world’s premier entertainment
company.” (“About Disney,”2023). Chapter three spoke on how many Western businesses tend
to use the offshoring strategy, “manufacturing and assembly operation to overseas locations,
particularly to locations in the developing world” (Fryer, 2015, p. 116). Allegations against The
Walt Disney Company have surfaced accusing them of “paying slave wages overseas to
employees who manufacture toys that sell at a very high margin in the United States”
offshoring. What is most interesting is that Disney’s seven core values include honesty, integrity,
respect, courage, openness, diversity and balance (“Disney Leadership,”2010) but they seem to
sometimes contradict themselves, this remind me of the formula of the end in itself that means
“we must not simply use people to achieve some objective that we desire; we must also value
The Walt Disney Company is known for its anti-union stance but a Disney world service
workers does exist, “the six unions that make up the service trades Council Union had been
demanding a starting minimum wage jump to at least $18 an hour in the first year of the contract,
up from the starting minimum wage of $15 an hour won in the previous contract” (“Disney
World Unions Vote Down Offer Covering 45,000 Workers,” 2023), I personally would have
thought they would be interested in using the formula of universal acceptance. The reason I
would think The Walt Disney Company would use the formula of universal acceptance is
because inflation has caused groceries, rent and other everyday items to go up in price, “Thus
morality consists in the relation of all action to the making of laws” (Fryer, 2015, p. 110), if they
want to keep workers happy knowing everything around them is changing it should be universal
especially since they are allegedly offshoring in Central America and Asia. I believe that using
Kant’s moral philosophy would benefit Disney, “anyone who takes morality to be something and
not merely a chimerical idea without truth” (Fryer, 2015, p. 90). The workers are human and
made for a company so big like Disney. The part that becomes tricky for Disney is if they were
fair to all their employees and paid good wages how much profit would decrease because of the
increase in wages, this would also affect the shareholders and even stakeholders because it can
possibly mean the theme park ticket would spike up in price. This is why Offshoring is so big
with western society, even using reason to make decisions becomes difficult, would you sacrifice
getting into a deeper debt to make it more fair for employees or pay off everything that is owed
by sacrificing wages. What I have realized is unfortunately in life and in Disney you cannot work
off sentiment and it must be off reason, Otis acted off sentiment in the example versus Sofia
reasoned with herself to figure out what was more important (Fryer, 2015, p. 92). When I think
about how Disney makes their decisions, I believe it is off reason than sentiment, this can be a
good and bad quality at the same time but like Kant said, “each of us should be free to apply our
own reason in order to identify right and wrong” (Fryer, 2015, p. 123).
I decided to learn about Disney because I would love to work with them someday, I do
love the mission statement of storytelling, inspiring, informing and entertaining. Since a child
The Walt Disney Company has made a difference in my life but after seeing some of the
allegations it leaves me to think they try to keep some of their actions in the dark because “if you
don’t want to read about it in the New York Times you shouldn’t be doing it” (Fryer, 2015, p.
123). Disney has come a long way in the last hundred years and I am sure it will not stop
anytime soon, we will continue to see movies, clothes, video games, theme parks and many other
innovating things with Disney and hopefully I find a project management position with them.
References
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/history/1923-2/#:~:text=Walt%20Disney%20signs%20a
%20contract,the%20Disney%20Brothers%20Cartoon%20Studio.
https://www.whittingtonassociates.com/2010/02/disney-leadership/
Disney World Unions Vote Down Offer Covering 45,000 Workers, (2023)
https://www.voanews.com/a/disney-world-unions-vote-down-offer-covering-45-000-workers-/
6948150.html#:~:text=Disney%20World%20service%20workers%20who,won%20in%20the
%20previous%20contract.
https://www.bononilawgroup.com/resources/articles/employment-practices-at-walt-disney-
company/#:~:text=Allegations%20range%20from%20discrimination%20to,margin%20in
%20the%20United%20States.
Fryer, M. (20150. Ethics Theory. SAGE
https://asu.instructure.com/courses/148770/external_tools/322700
https://fortune.com/company/disney/worlds-most-admired-companies/