Course Project- Disney and Pixar- The Change Analysis- Images of Change HRM587- Managing Organizational Change DeVry University, Keller Graduate School of Management July 2014 The Change Analysis- Images of Change Disney used the character of Mickey Mouse and others to create movies that customers enjoyed like “Beauty and the Beast” while Pixar was producing made up animated characters to create films like “Cars” and “Wall-E”. Disney was creating animated movies but struggling to generate the amount of money Pixar was making on producing only one movie a year. Disney wanted to grow in creating more animated movies and decided to buy out Pixar in 2006 for $7.4 million dollars. (Barnes, 2008) According to Disney’s CEO Robert …show more content…
The companies worked towards a culture that was more in line with team learning. Pixar had previously operated under the premise where people were given the full chance to be creative and use their ideas in order to learn from their success or failures. Disney allowed for creativity however was more micromanaged. This new cultural shift for Disney to let go of some of the control was a hard thing to do for them. Disney had initially lost some of the people with this shift in their culture mainly with those who failed to adapt to this new free-spirited environment. With Disney’s regimented culture they followed more of a top down approach within their work environment. This approach initially during the merger hindered the learning approach that Disney Pixar was trying to create. Some employees at Pixar initially had issues with the cultural clash of a free-spirited environment and the rigid environment Disney operated with causing problems with retaining the talent at Pixar. Despite these cultural clashes and differences Disney Pixar was able to pull their new-shared vision in a direction that allowed for cross-organizational collaboration and for a new culture that worked for both companies. The three images of change, which we will analyze in terms of the Disney Pixar merger, are the director, coach and interpreter images. The director image of change
Disney’s long-run success is mainly due to creating value through diversification. Their corporate strategies (primarily under CEO Eisner) include three dimensions: horizontal and geographic expansion as well as vertical integration. Disney is a prime example of how to achieve long-run success through the choices of business, the choice of how many activities to undertake, the choice of how many businesses to be in, the choice of how to manage a portfolio of businesses and the choice of how to create synergies between those businesses (3, p.191-221). All these choices and decisions are
Managing conflict for organizations is very important in maintaining business relationships, especially ones that are profitable like that of Disney-Pixar. At the helm of the Walt Disney Company during the begging and end of these feuds was Michael Eisner and Bob Iger. Even though Michael Eisner is the one responsible for the conflict with Disney and Pixar, he should be equally responsible for trying to fix the damaged relationship. When trying to manage conflict there are several approaches that can be taken to resolve the conflict at hand: dominating, accommodating, problem solving, avoiding and compromising.
A long time ago Disney company turned into some kind of Hollywood «machine» of making animation hits with the same parttern and also they missed the moment when computer animation has become much more interesting in the audience of animated cartoons. Pixar is representing some kind of new wave (especially, on the technological side) in the cartoon field . Also, they are succesful. Teir «Toy Story» and «Finding Nemo» were real hits:
Introduction: The Walt Disney Company is on the threshold of a new era. Michael Eisner has stepped down from his position as CEO and turned over the reigns to Robert Iger. A lot of turmoil has been brewing through the company over the last four years; many people are hoping that this change in leadership will put Disney back on the road to success. Issues began around mid-2002; when declining earnings, fleeing shareholders, and
Its large size gives Disney several advantages, such as a large budget and a large human resource base. Internally, Disney follows a top-down approach, where managers tend to impose the culture, and bureaucracy is considered large with 185,000 employees in 2016 (Forbes, 2016). The decision making lies at top management level, giving the company a hierarchical structure. In the creative world Disney is known to make movies based on profitability, rather than quality of animation and image. Pixar’s core competence is their technological 3D success in computer animation. When looking at the staff at Pixar , it can be seen that they are very technically educated and have a lot of in-house creativity. This is the reason for their high level of innovation. Furthermore, they focus on quality instead of sales figures. Internally, Pixar uses the bottom-up approach, where input of employees is highly valued, and Pixar offers a very communicative and open working environment.
Pixar is a company that has ties to other major corporations in our American culture. Pixar Animation Studios started as a part of the Lucas film computer group, which is owned by George Lucas the creator of Star Wars. However, after receiving funding from Steve Jobs the division became its own corporation in 1986. After that Disney purchased Pixar, which allowed Steve Jobs to become a shareholder in Disney also. With these changes due to the ownership of the corporation an analysis of managerial economics is overdue. What follows is an evaluate how Pixar attains balance between culture, rewards, and boundaries, what is Pixar’s organizational structure and why they have the structure they have, how Pixar’s leadership helps to create an ethical organization, how Pixar’s innovation helps the organization to accomplish its goals, how emotional intelligence helps the leadership guide the company, and how Pixar has overcome barriers to change. Pixar’s history has presented the firm with challenges and the firm has managed to overcome those challenges, anyone who plans to one day own their own business should look at the company and understand how the firm accomplished their tasks despite the presented challenges. The merger with Disney resulted in some problems for Pixar, but the merger was pursued for a reason. By merging, both firm have the potential to save time and money; there is also the potential to learn from each other.
In addition, by having access to the Pixar brand and its characters, they would help to supplement Disney’s existing characters across its different businesses like theme parks, merchandise, and television, which provide more sales opportunities. Despite the dilution of Disney’s earnings per share, it is for the short-term. The acquisition fills a crucial strategic gap for Disney and can create long-term value for its shareholders. As such, Pixar is a “near perfect strategic fit” for Disney and hence should be acquired by Disney to remain competitive.
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This study examines how leadership, teamwork, and organizational learning can contribute in making mergers and acquisitions work. Our intention is to identify critical factors and practices needed for merger success. Our research is part of an ongoing project, and builds on previous analysis of merger success/failure in such organizations as Standard Oil, Exxon Mobile, and Time Warner-AOL. In this paper, we turn our attention to the recent merger of Pixar and Disney. In our view, the Disney-Pixar case seems to be a good example of a successful merger in progress. This is demonstrated very clearly by recent box office successes such as Academy Award
In this paper, we will explore the magical experience of Walt Disney Company through the structure and symbolic frames based on the Bolman and Deal?s individual lens. The structural frame focuses on the architecture of an organization and other features like: rules, regulations, goals, policies, roles, tasks, job designs, job descriptions, technology, chain of command, vertical and horizontal coordinating mechanisms, assessment and reward systems, and many more (Bolman, L., & Deal, T. 2013). The symbolic frame focuses on the culture, meaning, metaphor, ritual, ceremony, stories, heroes and inspiration of the organization (Bolman, L., & Deal, T. 2013). On this analysis I will also explain the organization?s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that impact the leadership, partners, employees and community internally and externally.
Disney has become a marketing goliath and the #1 entertainment company in the US. They have been able to develop a creativity-driven philosophy that over time was tempered by financial responsibility and that benefitted from powerful synergies between its divisions. From the very beginning, Disney has been synonymous with innovation within the children’s entertainment industry, from their introduction of animations with synchronized audio, full-length animated feature films and then later into theme parks and on-ice and Broadway shows. One important element of Disney’s success was the extent to which they integrated and expanded into different
Pixar Animation Studios was founded in 1979, initially specializing in producing state of the art computer hardware (Carlson, 2003). In 1990, due to poor product sales the company diversified from its core business and began producing computer animated commercials for outside companies. Success came for Pixar after the production of its first computer animated film ‘Toy story’ in 1995 (Hutton and Baute, 2007). Since then, Pixar has made many innovative animated feature films, with well known ones including - A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille and WALL-E, six of which are in the top grossing animated
1) What is the Disney Difference and how will it affect the company’s corporate, competitive and functional strategies?
Known to be one of the largest producers of multi-media content, Walt Disney and Pixar greatly impacted the entertainment industry with the use of three-dimensional generated content. It quickly gained popularity with the release of its animated movies and especially got the attention of children from their sequels. With the growing popularity, the competition in the media industry began to increase. Disney was then faced with a difficult decision regarding its relationship with Pixar on whether they should acquire or not acquire the company.
This paper will analyse a recent period of strategic change at The Walt Disney Company which began in 2005 with the appointment of current CEO Robert Iger. The company began to experience halted growth during the late 1990s. The former CEO Michael Eisner had been successful himself in the late 1980s in changing the company during what is known as the Disney