Pixar and Walt Disney Merger Essay Example

Pixar and Walt Disney Merger Paper NEW YORK Mickey Mouse and Nemo are now corporate cousins. Walt Disney has announced that it is buying Pixar, the animated studio led by Apple head Steve Jobs, in a deal worth $7. 4 billion. Speculation about a deal being imminent raged on Wall Street for the past few weeks. Disney has released all of Pixars films so far, but the companies current distribution deal was set to expire following the release of this summers Cars. The merger brings together Disneys historic franchise of animated characters, such as Mickey, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck, with Pixars stable of cartoon hits, including the two Toy Story films, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles. Disney and Pixar can now collaborate without the barriers that come from two different companies with two different sets of shareholders, said Jobs in a statement. Now, everyone can focus on what is most important, creating innovative stories, characters and films that delight millions of people around the world. As part of the deal, J obs will become a board member of Disney, the companies said. And John Lasseter, the highly respected creative director at Pixar who had previously worked for Disney, will rejoin the House of Mouse as chief creative officer for the companys combined animated studios and will also help oversee the design for new attractions at Disney theme parks. The addition of Pixar significantly enhances Disney animation, which is a critical creative engine for driving growth across our businesses, said Disney CEO Robert Iger in a written statement. During a conference call with analysts Tuesday, Iger said that acquisition discussions had been going on for the past several months. Jobs added that after a lot of soul searching, he came to the conclusion that it made the most sense for Pixar to align itself with Disney permanently instead of trying to distribute films on its own or sign with another movie studio partner. According to the terms of the deal, Disney (Research) will issue 2. 3 shares for each Pixar share. Based on Tuesdays closing prices, that values Pixar at $59. 78 a share, about a 4 percent premium to Pixars current stock price. Shares of Pixar (Research) fell slightly in regular trading on the Nasdaq Tuesday but gained nearly 3 percent in after-hours trading. The stock has surged more than 10 percent so far this year on takeover speculation. Disneys stock gained 1. 8 percent in regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange and was flat after-hours. Prior to the deals announcement, some Wall Street observers had speculated that Disney may be paying too much for Pixar. A source tells FORTUNE that some Disney board members also thought the price was too high. To that end, Disney chief financial officer Thomas Staggs said during the conference call that the deal would reduce Disneys earnings slightly in fiscal 2006, which ends this September, as well as fiscal 2007. We will write a custom essay sample on Pixar and Walt Disney Merger specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Pixar and Walt Disney Merger specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Pixar and Walt Disney Merger specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer He added though that Pixar should add to earnings by fiscal 2008 and that Disney was still on track to post annual double-digit percentage gains in earnings through 2008. But one hedge fund manager said that the risk of Disney losing Pixar was too great. The question isnt did Disney pay too much but how expensive would it have been for Disney if Pixar fell into someone elses hands, said Barry Ritholtz, chief investment officer with Ritholtz Capital Partners, a hedge fund that focuses on media and technology stocks. Jeffrey Logsdon, an analyst with Harris Nesbitt, agreed with that assessment. He said that Pixars success quotient justified the price of the deal. Pixar has yet to have a flop with its six animated movies. They have grossed more than $3. 2 billion worldwide, according to movie tracking research firm Box Office Mojo. Disney, however, has struggled in the computer-generated animated movie arena. Even though its most recent CG-animated film, Chicken Little performed better than many had expected at the box office, it was not as big a hit as any of the Pixar films. Robert Iger has made no secret of the fact that he wanted to get the animated business back to where it was. Its what Disney has known for but the movies they did in-house did not do as well as the ones they did with Pixar, said Michael Cuggino, a fund manager who owns about 100,000 shares of Disney in the Permanent Portfolio and Permanent Portfolio Aggressive Growth funds. Pixar has yet to announce what movies it is working on after Cars, however. It is believed that Pixars next film about a rat living in a fancy Parisian restaurant, tentatively titled Ratatouille may be released on 2007 and that a Toy Story 3 may be in the works as well. Jobs said during the conference call that nothing has been decided about future Pixar releases yet, but added that the company feels strongly about making sequels to some of its previous hits. And Iger said that announced plans for Disney-produced animated films, including the release of American Dog in 2008 and Rapunzel Unbraided in 2009, are still on track. It would have been unthinkable to imagine Disney and Pixar teaming up just a few years ago. The two companies broke off talks to extend their current distribution agreement in 2004 due to a strained relationship between Jobs and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner. But since Iger succeeded Eisner last year, he has extended an olive branch to Jobs. Disney and Apple have already announced several online programming deals during the past few months. Disney now has agreements in place to sell hit ABC prime time shows, such as Desperate Housewives and Lost, as well as content from ABC Sports and ESPN on Apples popular iTunes music and video store. Cuggino said the addition of Jobs, who will also become Disneys largest individual shareholder, to Disneys board could mean that more innovative digital deals could be in the works. Jobs is a dynamic personality who knows consumer electronics. Its an opportunity to bring some youthful energetic thinking to Disneys board. Disney, like many other large media companies, has seen its stock price stagnate during the past year as investors have flocked to more rapidly growing digital media firms such as Apple as well as search engines Google (Research) and Yahoo! Research) But Logsdon said the acquisition of Pixar could help Disney increase revenue throughout all of its business lines. So even though some may be quibbling in the short-term about how much Disney had to spend, he thinks Disney made the right move. Its a smart strategic deal, Logsdon said. The benefit in theme parks, consumer products and cable will probably make this deal look a lot smarter a year or two from now.

Analysis of Culture and Leadership Styles The WritePass Journal

Analysis of Culture and Leadership Styles 1.1 Introduction Analysis of Culture and Leadership Styles ). It is also a factor which hinders understanding of the French culture due to various contradictions in the French culture. Countries with high uncertainty avoidance, acknowledge that employs are supposed to obey their leaders without queries about their decisions and motives. However, France manifests a different channel as employees have the power to understand the operations of the organization and decline to follow an order blindly as opposed to the case in the USA. Employees in France can withhold compliance and decide that the leaders or the supervisor does not have the right to request a certain issue from the employee (Miroshnik, 2010). 1.4 French Culture using the Values Orientation Dimensions Yukl (2006) acknowledges that collectivism measures the socialization gained by an individual as part of a given group. The society believes that their livelihood is alleged to a given group considering its members and seeking support from the group. Individuals offer their products to a group in a collectivistic culture while individuals usually stand apart from a given group in an individualistic culture (Zelden, 2006). France has a mild individualistic culture (Alder, 2008). This implies that France has a consolidated collectivistic culture. Ties are very loose among workers, children and parents and among individuals. France finds it hard to manifest and respect decisions made by a certain ‘group’ but it prefers independent relationships (Adler, 2008). Femininity is a measure by which states pursue attributes linked with women such as; quality of life, social harmony and safeguarding relationships (Williams, 2009). Feminine societies are characterized to put more emphasis on such traits. Masculine societies on the other hand, adhere to manly behaviors like wealth accumulation, quality of life and they value work as opposed to embracing social pursuits. Individuals in a masculine culture gain fame by the extent to what they have while feminine culture defines individuals based on who they are and as intrinsic beings. France has a lower score in embracing masculinity but it has performed well in embracing femininity. France is ranked number six in the world economy due to its adherence to femininity virtues (Yukl, 2006). For France to prosper in its economy, it has to join the USA by setting aside the quality of life and love for harmony. In addition, individual liberties and freedom has caused France to deteriorate in economic growt h. 1.5 Leadership Style to be used in France Charisma invokes an attribution element on the subjects as they envy personal costs and sacrifices made by their leaders in accomplishing their vision. Charismatic leaders have an extraordinary influence on their subjects. Such leaders exhibit dominance, extraversion and self-confidence (Hall, 2009). Charismatic leaders use emotional appeals as opposed to authority when eliciting compliance from their followers. Charisma may be easily adaptable by the French culture as opposed to the US culture. French culture is not limited to adhering to authority despite having a collectivistic culture (Deresky, 2006). In addition, French does not change their ways due to external forces. However, French subjects may be easily influenced by a charismatic leader as they might feel that they respect and adhere to his objections freely. French followers like the fact that they are free subjects with right to act in an appealing manner. This implies that the congruence between followers and leadersâ⠂¬â„¢ vision can merge with the followers and leaders’ values (Hall, 2009). ‘France’ ‘therefore’ is an outstanding state with all these traits in congruence. 1.6 Role of Stereotypes Stereotypes play a huge role in the management of a company and a state. In the US culture, the subjects have been acclimatized to the natural rule of the land. For a long time, the Americans have shown respect to leaders who delegate authority to the juniors and grant autonomy. The Americans have been subjected to the norm rule and show much respect to risk taking and confident leaders. This has been exemplified by leaders such as John Wayne (Hall, 2009). The adoption of masculinity in US has led to its huge growth in economy. Masculinity is associated with creation and accumulation of wealth as well as value addition in someone’s life. Stereotypes in the French culture have made Mitterand and De Gaulle national heroes (William, 2009). This is based on the perceived good leadership skills such ability to build consensus and charisma. The French economy has deteriorated due to believe in femininity which is associated with love for harmony and quality of life. 1.7 Practical Advice The adoption of a single and universal leadership style is quite vital in all sectors of life such as the economic, social and cultural. Policy makers have the mandate to ensure that all individuals adhere to the national culture. Achieving the adoption of policy both at national and company level helps asses the ways in which subjects react towards decisions made. It is difficult for strict measures to be adhered to in the US both at national and organization level. This is due to the pragmatic approach adopted in the analysis of varied situations (Adler, 2008).   On the other hand, French tend to adopt philosophy in most of the decisions as well as protesting both at national and organization level. The French believe in liberty, equality and freedom. Knowledge about the importance of adopting a universal leadership style helps policy makers in transcribing other modes in devising policies. 1.8 Possible Clashes Adoption of a universal leadership style may also help in the economic ‘sector’ especially the relationship between the employees and the boss. Adoption of a transformational system may sometimes be misleading a country like France may require tactics of more than just a transformational leader to convince the subjects accept his or her decisions (William, 2009). A company based in the US may find it hard to cope with French culture as the company may face several ‘riots’ however, a company acting in unison with the anticipations of the subjects’ values and vision will prosper. More so, understanding culture and leadership helps people with diverse culture such as American adopting French standards to cope and ignore differences between cultural values (Hall, 2009). 1.9 Conclusion This paper has theoretically analysed the French culture in terms of the leadership style and culture. The study has also concluded that leadership emerges from influence. In the US, for ‘instance’ leaders propose the decisions that followers must adhere to for the country to achieve the set goals. Decision are made and at times not followed in the French culture as the followers claim that every decision must be in compliance with equality and freedom (Adler, 2008). France is therefore one of the states that ought to redefine its leadership style. The varied cultures in the two countries have forced one group to set up conditions to help express its freedom towards what is considered good as the other group has pursued what is aligned towards the perceptions of the individual. Thus, France and the USA have two varied national leadership and cultural traits. References Adler, N. (2008). International dimensions of organizational behavior, fifth edition. New York,   Ã‚  Ã‚   NY: Thomson Learning. Boehnke, K. (2012). Transformational leadership: an examination of cross-national differences   Ã‚  Ã‚   and similarities. Leadership Organization Development Journal, 24(1), 5-15. Crunden, R. M. (2008). A brief history of American culture. New York: Paragon House. Deresky, H. (2006). International management: Managing across borders and cultures. (5th   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ed.). NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Hall, E. T. (2009). Beyond culture. New York: Doubleday. Miroshnik, V. (2010). Culture and international management: A review. Journal of Management Development, 21(7), 521-544. Williams, S. D. (2009). Personality, attitude, and leader influences on divergent thinking and   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   creativity in organizations. European Journal of Innovation Management, 7(3), 187-204. Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in organizations (6th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Zelden, T. (2006). The French. London: Harvill, Harper Collins.

Economic Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Economic - Essay Example 3 2.0 Economic Rationale behind Oligopolistic Behaviour in Banking Sector 4 3.0 Implications of an Oligopolistic Banking Sector on Consumers 7 4.0 Situation with the Australian Banking Sector 9 5.0 Conclusion 9 References 10 1.0 Introduction An oligopolistic market structure is characterised by a few sellers in the market but a large number of buyers. These contending firms are highly interdependent upon each other to strengthen their market status and hence, frame schemes to facilitate the same. Some of the commonest strategies include competition on prices and quantities being marketed by the firms1. In addition to competing with their peers, the firms also assume the role of creating artificial barriers, in the form of hefty license fees, to prevent the entry of potential competitors within the industry to restrict the number of market players. Such artificial regulations might be beneficial for the existing firms in the business though the purchasers always end up at the worse si de of things as lack of ample competition reduces the degree of consumer surplus that they could have enjoyed. The present paper takes up the case of the banking sector and attempts to emphasise the implications of oligopolistic market structure on bank customers. ... king sector to build an oligopolistic market framework; there are special references to empirical evidences from different nations in this regard as well. The third section is an illustration of the implication that an oligopolistic banking sector is likely to have over the residents of a nation. The fourth section depicts the situation in Australia where nationals have been immensely protesting against the oligopolistic banking sector and finally the last section summarises the contents of the entire paper. 2.0 Economic Rationale behind Oligopolistic Behaviour in Banking Sector A few advantages based on the economics of business are the reasons why firms tend to operate as an oligopolistic market. Those very factors could be applied to the banking sector as the reasons why the industry chooses to operate under such environment. Firstly, oligopolistic market structure makes room for economies of scale which associates huge amount of profit with each operating unit, owing to reduced a verage cost of production as the diagram alongside depicts. As the diagram shows, the average cost of production falls with rise in the quantity produced, though this reduction does not continue for very high quantities. The point where the combination of cost and quantity to be produced is found to be the optimal, i.e., highest production at the lowest cost, is the chosen one by the sellers. In the above diagram, this point coincides with E1 where the quantity to be produced is Q1 and the associated average cost is the lowest at AC1. This is one of the reasons why the larger existing firms restrict new entrants from moving into the industry. The smaller firms in the industry are often acquired by the larger to clear their path towards experiencing economies of scale. This in fact had been