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

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

Disney died. The companys 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.

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.

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.

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 its 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, its 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

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. Kobers 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

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

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 childs author and created a public radio program about childrens 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 Walts 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.

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 Disneys 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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