Working for a Mouse

Abstract

At Disney, a quality experience for the consumer is not necessarily mutual for the employee. Disney employees are struggling to find their identities in a company that discourages individualism. This is because Disney institutes a tight element of control over its employees behavior and identity. Arlie 9 Martinez, Michelle. p. 57. Hochschild is concerned with the institutional control of emotions as a commodity. In her book, The Managed Heart, she takes a hard look at the ramifications of this control which she refers to as "emotion management". She analyses and tests the role which emotion management plays in our everyday life and in the corporate structure. What I hope to achieve in this paper is to try and define "Real Disney". I found that this distinctive way of life provides a different experience for the Disney Employee than those in similar service oriented front line jobs. By applying Hochschild's ideas to the Disney employee, I hope to clarify the company's philosophy as well as the employees responses to it. In the process, I will continue to test the usefulness of the term emotion management in the corporate world.