Eurodisney With Great Expectations of 11 Million

EuroDisney

With great expectations of 11 million visitors the first year and exceptional profits anticipated from concessions, entertainment, hotels and sports, the Walt Disney Company imperviously launched EuroDisney in April, 1992. Despite the fact there had been two previous attempts at mega-parks in France, each priced at $150M or more and launched in the years 1987 and 1991 that failed, Disney charged on against cultural and economic warning sights. Analyzing this case from the context of the four functions of management including planning, organizing, leading and controlling, the factors that led to the initial difficult launch period and eventual acceptance by the French is explained.

Planning at EuroDisney Takes on an Unfortunate Ethnocentric Perspective

Instead of realizing that the primary factors behind the success of other parks located in foreign nations was in large part due to managers from those nations running them, Disney executives ignore this point and plunge into managing the EuroDisney project primarily with Americans. The planning aspect of any project this large needs to take into account cultural factors and be extremely sensitive to them. The Disney executives however were blinded by ethnocentrism -- or thinking that just because their best practices in the United State worked for the massive park in Orlando and Anaheim, it would work outside of Paris. A better approach would have been to use the Hofstede Model of Cultural Dimensions to fully appreciate just how different the U.S. And French cultures are (Hofstede, McCrae, 2004). Figure 1 is a comparison of the cultures based on the interactive Hofstede Model on his website. To see the model, please follow the hyperlink under the image. Immediately it is clear the French have a much higher sensitivity to Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI). This very high figure for France shows that this is a nation that takes its culture and history very seriously, does not necessarily like change for its own sake or for excitement, and resists any threats to its status quo. The many changes that the American-based management team put in during the planning phase of EuroDisney, from prohibiting alcohol initially to showing only American rides and characters, was easily seen by even the most open-minded French person as an insult to their culture.

Figure 1: Analysis of the American and French Cultures using the Hofstede Cultural Dimensions Model

Source: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_dimensions.php?culture1=95&culture2=33#compare

Organizing -- What Went Right in Japan Went Wrong in Europe

Within the organizing function of management, Disney executives quickly fell into the trap of thinking their approaches in the U.S. would be best globally and scale perfectly into France. In fact the opposite was the case. The Power Distance Index (PDI) variations of the Hofstede Model provide a glimpse into how the organization function at EuroDisney could have been handled better. The PDI score for the U.S. In just 40, which means that the citizens see themselves as being more decentralized and egalitarian in how they work, capable of making their own decisions. American like flexibility and freedom to do their jobs as they want. France on the other had has a score of 68 on the PDI, which indicates a culture that greatly values a hierarchical structure and chain of command. It also connotes that those doing the managing are also French -- a point that Disney missed from studying their previous foreign park successes. If Disney had used the Hofstede Model they would have quickly realized that the lessons learned from foreign and domestic successes weren't so much from the financial strategies but the cultural ones.

Leading and Controlling: Lessons From the Land of the Rugged Individualists

The American cultural score for Individualism (IDV) is 91, the highest of any country measured by Hofstede in his cultural dimensions model (Hofstede, McCrae, 2004). This says Americans are more likely to consider how job decisions affect themselves and immediate families and immediately take action to ensure those they are responsible for are taken care of. It also means that American employees are accustomed to defining their own agendas as well, yet will work with an employer who has strict rules providing they earn the chance to be individualistic. For the French worker, the need for caring for others in addition to ones' immediate family is critical. There is a much more egalitarian or shared context for French workers as a result.