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Introduction
Current Vision and Value Statements
The company’s vision is to ensure that its corporate social responsibility accommodates different viewpoints and interests on the part of its shareholders, employees, business partners, associates, guests, as well as viewers and consumers.
The company seeks to cooperate with local stakeholders and regulators in developing solutions that demonstrate the company’s willingness to learn from its collaboration with others. The company’s value statements for its responsibility programs include cooperation with all its partners and the use of a result-oriented approach that is practical, thoughtful, and humane (The Walt Disney Company, 2008).
Current Programs Related to the Three Spheres and the Environment
In the civil sphere, the company is promoting transparency and collaborative working conditions for its firms around the globe to prevent worker abuses, gender discrimination, and child labor. Walt Disney is also sustaining minority inclusion in its work programs. In the economic sphere, the company has donated to different causes and organizations as part of its citizenship program.
It is also collaborating with governments to provide sustainable ways of practicing its corporate governance responsibilities like paying taxes and reporting its earnings. On the economic sphere, the company has sustained a corporate culture of creativity and collaboration for delivery of consumer benefits.
In the environmental agenda, the company is implementing a responsible supply chain management program to make sure that all Disney-branded products are visible throughout their manufacturing process to prevent harmful practices (Disney Citizenship, 2014).
Recent Events Related to Current Programs
In March 2015, Disney donated 1 million dollars to UNCF for investment in emerging leaders as part of its corporate citizenship program that is responsible for implementing CSR objectives of the company (Morndijan, 2015). In 2013, the company was named as a leader in corporate social responsibility practices. The company was recognized for putting CSR in its business model for the recognition of its tremendous responsibility that it has for its community, given the millions of visitors to its parks annually.
Reported Stakeholder View of Programs and Actions of the Company
Disney was awarded the best company implementing a citizenship program after 50% of its consumers surveyed answered that they saw the company in a positive way. The interviewees noted that the company is a good corporate citizen that supports good causes and goes out of its way to protect the environment (Smith, 2013).
Economic Employee Relations
Disneyland is responsible for giving visitors great tales and experiences. It relies on its employees for the delivery of the experience, but the relationship with employees has not been always rosy. In 2011, the company suffered a public relations challenge, where there were two worker suicides in its establishment in France because of humiliating treatment at work (Linchfield, 2011).
The company is quick to correct the problems with employee relationships. It currently focuses its human resources on talent acquisition, learning, and development, as well as employee benefits. Besides, the company’s internal communication to employees constantly highlights the frequent business initiatives for assisting employees achieve their potential.
It also has work-life balance programs, encourages employees to take on volunteering opportunities, and follows business conduct and ethical practices in employment relations (The Walt Disney Company, 2015a).
Corporate Culture
Disney’s corporate culture shows commitment to governance policies and practices, which allow the company to be responsive to all stakeholder interest in harmonious ways. The company insists on treating employees as partners in its production and delivery of value to customers. As a result, it calls the employees cast members, irrespective of where the employees are working.
Investor Relations
Disney is a public listed company with a high stock price that has been growing steadily in the past few years. In the past five years, the company had a solid performance to the delight of investors. Thus, Disney has been able to reward investors with high earnings per share, as well as giving them an opportunity to cash in their investments.
The company promises additional investment for its creative content to use technology to harness other opportunities. Its net income for 2015 was $8.4 billion, while its earnings per share increased from 15% to reach $4.90 (The Walt Disney Company, 2015b).
Suppliers
The creation of customer experiences requires certain merchandise in stock at all times, which makes Disney reliant on its suppliers. Disney has often had to carry varied merchandise and service different aspects of its theme parks, even those that are unpopular. Overall, the company has been working with suppliers who are considered to have high integrity.
It has a few suppliers where it can forge strong relationships. In the last few years, the company has steadily reduced suppliers to retain a manageable number because the choices in its supply chain affect the company’s overall execution of its customer service strategy (Supply Chain Quarterly, 2012).
The Plans and Programs to Implement to Address Issues within the Economic Sphere
The plan will include sensitization of employees about their role in sustaining a good corporate culture. It will include the development of alternative channels for expression of employee voice other than unions so that employees have more than one way of feeling represented. The company will also promote its supply chain management initiatives to identify additional good practices that can be implemented as supplier codes, such as forbidding particular materials from being used because of their associated environmental harm.
Political
Regulatory structures
The company is committed to obeying anti-trust laws and other laws affecting its business in the United States and any other jurisdiction. It advises its employees to pursue its code of conduct that works against illegal and unethical practices of business to avoid being on the wrong side of regulatory bodies.
Adherence to government regulations
Embracing standards of business conduct as part of its business can help Disney avoid turning into a monopoly or abusing its privileges in any other way that would not be suitable for its survival in regulated environments.
Relations to government entities
The company runs like a private entity. It is a domestic company in the United States and a foreign company in other jurisdictions. Disney also has some partnerships with other companies for the development of some of its theme parks. These arrangements help the company adhere to government regulations, which include payment of taxes and appropriate disclosure of revenue. It also follows environmental laws about management of waste, compensation of labor, and relations with supply chain partners.
Plans and programs to implement in addressing issues within the political sphere
The company will cooperate with political parties and governments in all its operations globally to continue with the current practices that have sustained win-win collaborations for governments and citizens, as well as the company’s shareholders.
Civil Society
NGOs (non-governmental organizations)
Non-governmental organizations have been vocal against poor work practices at the company. In response, Disney has made progress in correcting some of the problems it is accused of causing. It has improved working conditions and stakeholder engagement. The strategy ensures that the organization can respond to problems before they become ugly public relations nightmares.
Local communities
Disney has been working with local communities through contributions, collaboration, and in-kind gifts such as allowing its employees to volunteer under the company’s citizenship banner. Many communities are also grateful for Disney’s presence because of jobs and the improvement of the overall business environment in their localities.
Customers
Disney has been very responsive to customer feedback, often using it as a basis for upgrading its services or improving coordination of its cast members. It recognizes customers as the most important stakeholders for its bottom line.
The World
Disney covers a global market with its operations in America, Europe, and Asia. Its parks and characters are famous globally, and many people associate many toys with the company. The company is responsible for maintaining a positive image of its character. It has to work proactively to encourage conservation measures for its customers all over the world. Disney is a major manufacturer of merchandise that helps people to live their experience of being with Disney characters. This works for both adults and children.
The Plans and Programs to Implement to Address Issues within the Civil Society Sphere
The company will include a framework within its citizenship program that identifies causes for its involvement as nominated by customer contributions. It will include customers in its initiatives to respond to stakeholder interests represented by NGOs, especially on good business practices and globalization. Listening to the interests of different stakeholders will help to drive the overall agenda of CSR.
Environment
Local environmental impacts
The development of Disney parks comes at a cost to the environment because it involves the destruction of local ecosystems. The company uses significant amounts of water. It also produces a lot of waste for its facilities in the course of delivering fun and excitement to its customers. The company has been working towards the reduction of water consumption and waste production. It is also seeking to have zero-carbon emissions in its offices and parks. In the future, Disney will use electricity from recycled sources only.
Global Environmental Impacts
Disney is responsible for advertising its attractions to the millions of people around the world. It is responsible for asking them to go across oceans and continents, and then travel across lands to visit its parks. As people do so, they consume fuel and lead to emissions of greenhouse gasses. They also generate a large amount of waste and other forms of pollution.
The company has been meeting its responsibilities to the environment as a way of making its products and services attractive, while strengthening its bonds with consumers. While this works well for the bottom line, it waters down the initiatives of the company towards being very responsive to environmental interests globally (Pearce, 2009).
The plans and programs to implement to address issues within the environment
The current environmental programs are working well, and the plan is to scale them upwards to involve more employees and external stakeholders. Thus, the company will be committing more resources to achieve its environmental goals of reducing its carbon footprint overall in its operations.
Media Campaign
Objectives
The objectives of the ads are to communicate the Disney brand to the largest audience globally. Besides, the objectives should be targeted to specific consumer niches to evoke a desire for experiencing the Disney either through visitation to the theme parks or through the purchase of Disney merchandise and services.
The other objective is to make effective use of the most popular channels to entice people into talking about any of the Disney constituent businesses and brands to improve the overall brand reputation in the world. The message of the ads is to convey the company’s need to change the attitude of consumers regarding waste management and ethical conduct towards others and the environment.
Media and Audience
The main target will be individuals aged 18-33 years, who represent a large segment of the company’s customer base. They also have substantial ability to make changes to their communities through action or advocacy. The target group has sufficient knowledge of technology uses for communication and is community-minded, with global perspectives being dominant in its community considerations.
The CSR campaign will be seeking to influence behavior change in a subtle way at individual levels. At a collective level, the campaign will result in a big measurable impact on the conduct of Disney stakeholders, who will have realized that as much as they need the company to be socially responsible, they also hold the power of motivating the company to do so. These initiatives are meant for customer initiative campaigns.
The target group also represents the largest segment of international tourists, with the number being more than 200 million across the world. The target group is a major consumer of Disney and other entertainment or recreational services around the world.
However, in addition to individual members, there are community groups that represent specific interests within the larger age group target. The special interest groups whose work is relevant to the Disney citizenship ideals will also be targeted for the media campaign for Disney’s CSR initiative.
Implementation
Social media ads will feature prominently in the proposed media campaign because of their potential to convert consumers into brand ambassadors for good business practices (Anselmsson & Johansson, 2007). Besides, it is simpler to use social media across country borders in comparison to television and print media, which are generally location specific.
The social media strategy will include many calls to action buttons or links placed strategically with messages asking the viewers or visitors to a particular page to take action. The requested action will mostly be to check in so that their footprint online can automatically represent their brand ambassador’s message to the rest of the social media audience in their networks.
This will be an effective way of ensuring that the popularity of Disney conservation measures soars at minimal costs because many consumers do not mind “checking-in”, given that they are already visiting a Disney theme park.
While following with the social media campaigns, the next message will be to build on the customer interaction and run environment awareness programs that call on visitors to the actual Disney locations or its virtual locations to make affirmations about environmental protection.
Creating ethical standards for consumers and asking them to adhere to these standards as part of their association with Disney will enable the company to create an avenue for promoting better management of the environment (Luu, 2012). It will include requests for people to share their photos at Disney parks doing something that helps to sustain the environment. This can include picking up trash or closing running taps to save water consumption.
Cast members or Disney employees will be responsible for taking every opportunity available to ask customers fitting the target audience to consume responsibly. The media campaign will also include messages of consuming responsibly. Disney will create reusable bags and bottles that have the message of consumers’ responsibility to encourage its customers to embrace conservation measures.
It will also offer more information using recycled papers on its social media profiles and its websites to encourage its customers to consume responsibly. Rather than just make charitable contributions, Disney will use the campaign to request its audience to name deserving causes that the company should support.
Customers will then offer suggestions and reports of their personal initiatives. The aim of the strategy will be to show other customers that personal initiatives work best when dealing with social challenges. The strategy will also show that the company is ready to support its major stakeholders in their social and environmental development endeavors.
References
Anselmsson, J., & Johansson, U. (2007). Corporate social responsibility and the positioning of grocery brands: An exploratory study of retailer and manufacturer brands at point of purchase. International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 35(10), 835-856.
Disney Citizenship. (2014). 2014 Performance Summary. Web.
Linchfield, J. (2011). The dark side of Disneyland Paris. Independent.
Luu, T. (2012). Corporate social responsibility, leadership, and brand equity in healthcare service. Social Responsibility Journal, 8(3), 347-362.
Morndijan, C. (2015). Disney donates $1 million to UNCF to invest in emerging leaders. Disney Post. Web.
Pearce, F. (2009). Greenwash: Disney’s green intentions are pure fantasy. The Guardian. Web.
Smith, J. (2013). The companies with the best CSR reputations. Forbes. Web.
Supply Chain Quarterly. (2012). Supply chain management the Disney way. CSCMP’s Supply Chain (Quarterly)(2). Web.
The Walt Disney Company. (2008). 2008 corporate responsibility report. Web.
The Walt Disney Company. (2015a). Company reports fourth quarter and full year earnings for fiscal 2015. Web.
The Walt Disney Company. (2015b). Human resources. Web.
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