Strategy Formation at Disney Under Michael Eisner
Carolina Pedreros
MGT 3830
Extra Credit
Strategy formation at Disney under Michael Eisner
Walt Disney was a real visionary in term of animations. He developed his capability to select new ways to invent special cartoons, with a "Disney's prestige" that was going to be the most famous brand in terms of family entertainment. Since Walt Disney's death in 1966, The Walt Disney Company had barely survived appropriation attempts by other corporations. Its shareholders Sid Bass and Roy E. Disney brought on Michael Eisner and Frank Wells to maximize the company’s assets. Disney Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner had a path of triumphs and challenges in the Company but in his last years as chairman and CEO two main problems prevail. First Disney's standing for fragile authority and second, disputes among the top positions of the organization. Whereas it is challenging to determine which originated first, each of these disputes continued during his reign and his management style became a problem to Disney growth and by removing him from his power position was the only way to recover.
His management Style can be explained by the power school, which focuses on strategy formation as a process of negotiation between power positions within the company and/or between the company and its external stakeholders. Politics therefore became a synonym with the utilization of power in other than just simply economic ways. Two types of power describe Eisner strategy in Disney, Micro Power dealt with the politics within the organization and Macro Power referred to the use of power by the organization (Mintzberg 235). Strategy formation under Eisner was shaped by power and politics, the strategy that resulted from such a process became emergent throughout the whole company. Under Micro Power the strategy was his firm’s knowledge and his ability to grow by controlling the decision making process, which later led to direct confrontation between top rank positions. However, under Macro
MGT 3830
Extra Credit
Strategy formation at Disney under Michael Eisner
Walt Disney was a real visionary in term of animations. He developed his capability to select new ways to invent special cartoons, with a "Disney's prestige" that was going to be the most famous brand in terms of family entertainment. Since Walt Disney's death in 1966, The Walt Disney Company had barely survived appropriation attempts by other corporations. Its shareholders Sid Bass and Roy E. Disney brought on Michael Eisner and Frank Wells to maximize the company’s assets. Disney Chairman and CEO Michael Eisner had a path of triumphs and challenges in the Company but in his last years as chairman and CEO two main problems prevail. First Disney's standing for fragile authority and second, disputes among the top positions of the organization. Whereas it is challenging to determine which originated first, each of these disputes continued during his reign and his management style became a problem to Disney growth and by removing him from his power position was the only way to recover.
His management Style can be explained by the power school, which focuses on strategy formation as a process of negotiation between power positions within the company and/or between the company and its external stakeholders. Politics therefore became a synonym with the utilization of power in other than just simply economic ways. Two types of power describe Eisner strategy in Disney, Micro Power dealt with the politics within the organization and Macro Power referred to the use of power by the organization (Mintzberg 235). Strategy formation under Eisner was shaped by power and politics, the strategy that resulted from such a process became emergent throughout the whole company. Under Micro Power the strategy was his firm’s knowledge and his ability to grow by controlling the decision making process, which later led to direct confrontation between top rank positions. However, under Macro