This 20 page paper presents a case study of the Walt Disney Company, analyzing the strategic management of the company. The paper begins with a brief introduction to strategic management. It then provides an overview of the Disney Company, including some of its subsidiary companies. The next section presents selected fiscal data, including revenues, return on equity, return on investments and data regarding stock performance, composition of revenue and composition of net income. The section on recent activities discusses acquisitions, expansions, the acquisition of sports teams and now, the selling of those teams. Problems and challenges the company is facing is the next section followed by two strategic analyses: SWOT and Porter's Five-Force Analysis. The Discussion is the last section where the writer offers opinions and conclusions based on the research. Data included. 1 table included. Bibliography lists 17 sources.
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p. 281). Because the definition is vague, it includes models that are so diverse as to be the opposite of each other. Harrison and Pelletier said that strategic decisions are
the most important decisions that top executives make (1997). These are the decisions that deal with the long-term health of the company (Harrison and Pelletier, 1997). Because these decisions are
so significant to the company, they must be made by the members of the top management team (Harrison and Pelletier, 1997). These investigators also reported that strategic decisions are most
often linked in such a way that they form a pattern which unifies and directs the entire organization (Harrison and Pelletier, 1997). Mintzberg, identified no fewer than 10 different
schools of thought regarding strategy formation and five definitions of strategy: plan, perspective, position, pattern, and ploy (Calori, 1998; Levy, Alvesson and Willmott, 2002). Other investigators have divided the discipline
of strategic management into three primary approaches: 1.) rational models; 2.) socio-political models; and 3.) strategy as discourse (Calori, 1998). Mintzberg also asserted there were three prescriptive schools included in
strategic models: 1.) the design school promoted by Learned -- the SWOT analysis is a design strategy ; 2.) the planning school described by Ansoff who designed a very formalized
and complicated process for the elaboration of strategic plans; and 3.) the positioning school described by Porter who designed procedures to analyze competitors in order to gain and sustain the
companys competitive advantage (Calori, 1998). Levy, Alvesson and Willmott note that approaches to strategic management are anchored by the works of Henry Mintzberg and Michael Porter (2002). Strategic management emerges
from complex organizational processes and it is intended to lead the company to a healthier state of being and to overcome the competition. Based on this brief literature review of
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