International Entrepreneurship Case Study: The Walt Disney Company

This report provides an in-depth analysis of The Walt Disney Company's international entrepreneurship, focusing on the life and career of Walt Disney. The report begins with a profile of the company, including its age, size, industry sector, main offerings, and market coverage. It then delves into a demographic profile of Walt Disney, including his age, education, prior work experience, and personal interests. The report also examines Walt Disney's motivations for starting the business, the support he received, the startup barriers he faced, and how he overcame them. It also discusses the challenges the company currently faces. The report further explores the company's future plans, including how the business has changed and grown, future ambitions, and the secrets of their success. Finally, it offers advice for potential entrepreneurs based on Walt Disney's experiences. The analysis uses information from various sources to provide a comprehensive overview of Disney's entrepreneurial journey and its impact on the entertainment industry.

International Entrepreneurship Records
Company: The Walt Disney Company Entrepreneur: Walt Disney Researcher:
Location: Worldwide
Website: thewaltdisneycompany.com
Profile of Firm
REF
.
Description Response
1.1 Company Age 93 years old (started in 1923)
1.2 Size(no. of employees/sales
turnover)
18000 employees in 2014 with gross revenue of
52465 million USD in 2015
1.3 Industry sector
Main offerings (try and get on-line
brochures, materials etc.)
Mass media Entertainment focused upon
theatre, radio, music, publishing, and online
media.
1.4 Main Markets
Domestic/International B2B B2C
International coverage and B2B as well as B2C
market
1.5 If international. no. of markets
Percentage of sales as exports
$52.47bn gross revenue in the year 2015
Demographic profile of Entrepreneur
Ref. Description Response
2.1 Age, gender, education. marital
status
Walt Disney was born in 1901 and died in
1966 at the age of 65 years. In 1925, Walt
married one of his first employees, Lillian
Bounds, in Lewiston and later they blessed
with two daughters. His wife was also died in
the year 1966.
2.2 Prior work experience
Worked for/owned another business?
Initially he wanted to make career in
commercial art and soon it lead to experiments
in animation. Walt started making short
animated films for local businesses. Prior to
the age of 22, he headed towards Hollywood to
start a new business (Carter & Jones-Evans,
2012).
2.3 Personal interests, specialist training,
etc.
Walt Disney was a creator, an imaginative, and
aesthetic person. He is known as the most
fertile and unique imaginative person. After so
many years of his death, people continue to
grasp his ideas and creations.
2.4 Other relevant/interesting Walt Disney attended McKinley High School

1ntormation in Chicago where he divided his attention
between drawing and photography. In 1918,
He was rejected from the military services and
therefore he spent a year driving an ambulance
and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. Walt
later worked a summer job with the railroad,
selling newspapers, popcorn, and sodas to
travellers.
Motivation to start business
Ref. DESCRIPTION RESPONSE
3.1 What factors motivated entrepreneur
to start up
The main factors that are required in
entrepreneurs are risk taking capacities, self-
beliefs, self-confidence, initial capital,
innovative and creative ideas. Generally
entrepreneurs likes independent life. They do
not want any kind of interference in their life.
When Walt was 7 years old, he used to sell
small sketches and drawings to the neighbours.
Walt was creative from his childhood (Evers,
Cunningham and Hoholm, 2014)
. His optimism came from his unique ability to
see the entire picture. He loved history and his
mission was to make the life more enjoyable
and fun.
3.2 What levels of support did he get
from:
Family & friends, Spouse,
Government agencies, Financial
institutions (banks etc.)
Walt got support from his family, teachers,
spouse, children and teachers. His sister helped
him in creating enduring art forms. His father
was a quite strict person but his mother and
brother has supported him in initial stage of his
life. His school teacher helped him to become a
bold person (Burns, 2014). He used to tell
stories to his classmates on invitation of his
school teacher. Walt and his brother Roy started
pooling their resources and borrowed a sum of
$750 in set up a shop at their uncle’s garage.
3.3 What start-up barriers did they face? In beginning, they did not have proper
resources to start their business. Walt and his
brother Roy took a loan of $750 to set up a shop
at their uncle’s garage. The early flop of The
Alice Comedies inoculated Walt against fear of
failure. In beginning they failed to attract
customers from commercials.
3.4 How d1d they overcome these He was creative, confident and independent

barriers? person from the childhood. His Enthusiasm and
self-belief helped in overcoming those barriers.
They have pooled the available resources and
ensured maximum utilization of those available
resources (Cunningham and Hoholm 2014).
That was the reason behind they have started a
shop at their uncle’s garage at just $750. He has
worked for a summer job with the railroad,
selling newspapers, popcorn, and sodas to
travellers to earn money and provide financial
support to the family.
3.5 What challenges do they currently
face?
The main challenge that the entrepreneurs face
is of survival. As they are the new players in the
market, their competitors always pull
themselves and not want to see them at the top
of the market. Entrepreneurs requires new and
creative ideas at a daily basis (Gabrielsson and
Kirpalani 2012). Government policies, tax
liabilities and other political interference are
also the major challenges for start-ups.
Future Plans
Ref. DESCRIPTION RESPONSE
4.1 How has business changed/grown There are so much change in business
environment now a days as compare to the past.
The internal business environment is affected
due to inefficiency of the employees. These
changes needs to be adopted for encouraging
innovations, see new opportunities, improve
attitudes and staying current. For example if the
objective of the organisation changes for
expansion the product line in the new market, if
will affect their business operations.
4.2 What future plans do they have for
the business Expand/maintain/divest
The entrepreneurs must have to focus on future
plans. They can only expand their business by
coming up with new innovative and creative
ideas on a regular basis. If they think they are
performing well enough, they can expand their
business. If they think they are not performing
as per the standard, they can also divest their
business. The objective of the business
organisation is directly related to the
performance by their employees and acceptance
of their ideas in the market.

4.3 What future ambitions do they have
for themselves
Entrepreneurs needs to have future ambitions in
their life. It can be related to create monopoly
of their business in the market. It can only be
done by their differentiated skills from the
competitors. It can be possible only when they
have a clear goals and aims in their mind. The
entrepreneurs’ needs to be future oriented. They
know exactly what situation they will face in
the future and they takes decisions accordingly.
4.4 What do they consider to be the
secret/s of their success
Entrepreneurs likes challenges and able to face
those challenges in a simple and effective
manner. They develop these skills in their life
by gaining knowledge or observing the people.
Entrepreneurs may not have prior idea of
becoming an entrepreneur, it may came in any
stage of the life cycle. In the case of Walt
Disney, he did have a clear and big picture in
the mind. He worked hard towards it and
succeed in his life. All these qualities are the
secret of success for any entrepreneur.
4.5 What advice would they give other
potential entrepreneurs
The potential entrepreneurs’ needs to have a
higher level of patience and do not tends to lose
hope in any case. The life of an entrepreneur is
full of challenges most of the time. They are
risk takers and loves facing challenges. They
need to generate new ideas and creative things
in daily life. If they want to succeed in future
they need to work on present conditions.
PART A
Background
Walt Disney was a succcessful and renowed Americal actor and animator who introdused
the world to creativity of animation through some famous vartoon characters. He was born in
1901 and lived a successful life of 65 years and died in the year 1966. In 1925, he married to
Lillian Bounds who was his emplyee, in Lewiston and had 2 daugtters. Initially Walt wanted to
make career in commercial art and soon it lead to experiments in animation. Walt started making
short animated films for local businesses. Prior to the age of 22, he headed towards Hollywood to
start a new business (Carter & Jones-Evans, 2012). Earlier his idea didn’t get succeed but later
his enthusiasm and faith took himself straight to the top of Hollywood society. Walt Disney was
a creator, an imaginative, and aesthetic person. He is known as the most fertile and unique

imaginative person. After so many years of his death, people continue to grasp his ideas and
creations. Walt Disney attended McKinley High School in Chicago where he divided his
attention between drawing and photography. In 1918, He was rejected from the military services
and therefore he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. Walt
later worked a summer job with the railroad, selling newspapers, popcorn, and sodas to
travellers.
Motivation
Motivation is an urge of an individual to perfrom better in oredr to attain high success
and growth within the market. The basic understanding of motivational aspects could be attained
by through Maslow hierarchy of need theory. The stated theory focuses on five major factors
which helps in effectively attaining the business growth and success within the market. The
major hierarchies of needs mentioned by the author are:
 Basic needs
 Safety needs
 Need for love and belongingness
 Self esteem needs
 Self actualization needs
As per the theory the fulfillment of one level of needs leads to the requiremnt of the other. It
basically mention every aspect of human motivation for an individual. Physialogoical needs of
an individual demands for food, shelter and clothes. Safety needs demands social and phyical
safeyty of a person. Social needs demands love and belongingness for an individual. Self esteem
needs is the ego and esteem needs of a person. Here an individual seeks well defeined means of
developing a psotion within an economy. Self actualizzation needs finally focuses on the need of
personal growth and development.
The base to attain the physiologoical needs of Walt disney was attained at an earcly age.
The main factors that are required in entrepreneurs are risk taking capacities, self-beliefs, self-
confidence, initial capital, innovative and creative ideas. Generally entrepreneurs likes
independent life. They do not want any kind of interference in their life. When Walt was 7 years

old, he used to sell drawings to the neighbours. Walt was creative from his childhood (Evers,
Cunningham and Hoholm, 2014) . His foresigntedness and long term vision made him optimistic
and aspirant in the life. He loved history and his mission was to make the life more enjoyable
and fun.
In beginning, they did not have proper resources to start their business. Walt and his
brother Roy took a loan of $750 to start up his fiorst venture in his uncle’s property. In beginning
they failed to attract customers from commercials. He was creative, confident and independent
person from the childhood. His Enthusiasm and self-belief helped in overcoming those barriers.
They have pooled the available resources and ensured maximum utilization of those available
resources (Cunningham and Hoholm 2014). That was the reason behind they have started a shop
at their uncle’s garage at just $750. He undertook valriou employemnt opportunities such as
summer job with the railroad, newspapers distribution, popcorn and sodas selling to travellers to
earn money and provide financial support to the family.
The main challenge that the entrepreneurs face is of survival. As they are the new players
in the market, their competitors always pull themselves and not want to see them at the top of the
market. Entrepreneurs requires new and creative ideas at a daily basis (Gabrielsson and Kirpalani
2012). If they are unable to doing it so, the people will not accept their old ideas regularly.
Entrepreneurs needs to adopt technical changes in order to survive in this competitive
environment. They need to implement their plan as soon as they make. They need to be
competitive all the time and need to have a look at their competitors’ strategies as well. Political
and legal environment may also affect the new businesses. Government policies, tax liabilities
and other political interference are also the major challenges for start-ups. The over all analysis
clearly defines a significant aspects of motivaltional aspects which was attained by Walt Disney
in this comeptitive market. Both his intrinsic and extrinsic aspects helped him to attain high
growth and success within the economy.
Family influence
Walt got support from his family, teachers, spouse, children and teachers. His sister
helped him in creating enduring art forms. His father was a quite strict person but his mother and
brother has supported him in initial stage of his life. His school teacher helped him to become a
bold person (Burns, 2014). He used to tell stories to his classmates on invitation of his school

teacher. Walt and his brother Roy started pooling their resources and borrowed a sum of $750 in
startin up a venture in his uncle’s garage. The support and influence of the family helped him in
attaining high grpwth and development aspects within the market. Hisfamily contributed morally
and finanacially in the development of his growth.
Effectuation theory
There are so much change in business environment now a days as compare to the past.
The pattern, working styles at workplace, organisational culture and structure has been changed
as compare to the past. The main reason behind these changes is change in technologies and
mind set of the people. In order to grow the business in the future businesses requires to adopt
these changes (Daft, 2009). In past the businesses are moreover people oriented but now a days
the organisations are depends upon the machineries. The internal business environment is
affected due to inefficiency of the employees. These changes needs to be adopted for
encouraging innovations, see new opportunities, improve attitudes and staying current. In many
cases business operations changes according to the change in their objective. If objective of the
business changes, it will impact the whole of the business organisation. For example if the
objective of the organisation changes for expansion the product line in the new market, if will
affect their business operations. The technology, government policies and other factors
influences the objectives of any business organisation.
The entrepreneurs must have to focus on future plans. They can expand, maintain or
divest their business. They need to have objectives, missions and vision of their business. They
are required to work as per their objectives. Entrepreneurs needs to have a big picture in their
mind that what they need to do and how to do. These future plans will help them in facing the
challenges in the future. The future plan may be related to business expansion or maintain the
operations of the business (Daft, 2009). They can only expand their business by coming up with
new innovative and creative ideas on a regular basis. If they think they are performing well
enough, they can expand their business. If they think they are not performing as per the standard,
they can also divest their business. The objective of the business organisation is directly related
to the performance by their employees and acceptance of their ideas in the market.
Entrepreneurs needs to have future ambitions in their life. It can be related to create
monopoly of their business in the market. It can only be done by their differentiated skills from

the competitors. They can be able to secure the top position in the market by their skills of
thinking different creative and innovative from their competitors. It needs to be adoptable by the
general public. They will be able to cover more market by regularly thinking different and new.
Their ambitions may be related to expand their business in near future. It can be possible only
when they have a clear goals and aims in their mind. The entrepreneurs’ needs to be future
oriented. They know exactly what situation they will face in the future and they takes decisions
accordingly.
The entrepreneurs have inbuilt uniqueness. They are generally self-confident, risk takers,
independent persons. They believe that whatever they are doing, is correct. They do not want any
interference from any side in their business operations. Entrepreneurs likes challenges and able
to face those challenges in a simple and effective manner. There are many researches in field of
entrepreneurship, which suggests that entrepreneurs are born not made. There are many cases
that exemplify that they got these skills in inheritance. Some entrepreneurs got these from their
mothers and some of them got these skills from their fathers and grandfathers. Some researches
in the same field argues that entrepreneurs are made rather than born. They develop these skills
in their life by gaining knowledge or observing the people. Entrepreneurs may not have prior
idea of becoming an entrepreneur, it may came in any stage of the life cycle. In the case of Walt
Disney, he did have a clear and big picture in the mind. He worked hard towards it and succeed
in his life. Earlier he was a shy and different kind of person but his objective in life was to enjoy
every moment of the life. All these qualities are the secret of success for any entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur will always give a positive advice to a future entrepreneur. The advice
will surely related to hard work and keeping patience all the time. The potential entrepreneurs’
needs to have a higher level of patience and do not tends to lose hope in any case. The life of an
entrepreneur is full of challenges most of the time. They are risk takers and loves facing
challenges. A potential entrepreneur requires a lot of self-confidence and self-belief.
Entrepreneurs always advices that if you start any work, finish it in the time. An entrepreneur
needs to have a clear vision in his life. They needs to take decisions confidently without any
hesitation. They need to generate new ideas and creative things in daily life. If they want to
succeed in future they need to work on present conditions.

Summary
The overall evaluation of the analysis reflects that Walt Disney was one of the successful
and renowned entreprneur of America. The personal and motiovational factors effectively
motivated and influenced him towards the propects of success and growth. The evaluation of the
analysis reflects that the company has created a significant development aspects in the
competiotive environement. The focused vision and hard work helped the entreprenuer to attain
high success and grpwth aspects within the economy. Also it was evaluated that the business
development and growth aspects of the business was influenced through creativity and long tern
vision of the business.
PART B
"International Entrepreneurship, Born Global and International New Ventures"
Introduction to the concept
Researches have evaluated a simple trend on start up business where business is initiated
at a small level and is developed to a higher level with acceptance and growth. Howvere global
entrprenuership is the concept which focuses on enahncing the business in such a manner which
helps in attaining high and subsequesnt growth and development aspects. These businesses are
globally established which creates a high growth and development aspects within the market.
Entrepreneurship is willingness to develop manage and organize a new business venture that
involves amount of risk taking in it. A simple example of entrepreneurship is starting a new
business venture. In past few years many researches were carried out in the field of “born global”
firms. These firms internationalize their business activities from the beginning. It was found that
many businesses go global in a slow way by reducing the uncertainties of risk and gradually
acquire a broader market area. Author raises a point that the failure in innovation related models
account for rise in international new ventures that the firm started slowly and skip many stages of
internationalization. Despite of absence in experimental knowledge international new ventures
have successfully internationalized. The needs or the choice of international new ventures can be
doing business globally. Many researches were carried through that how firms going through
with a fast pace towards internationalization, where the knowledge of customers and markets
come from, entrepreneur’s and managers and previous international experience.

Entrepreneur and global entrepreneurship
The early internationalization of the firms led the author to explore the various aspects. It
is argued by many authors that the issues cited above concerned with establishment of global
firms have analysed by many intellectuals, yet there is a need of review so that rise in number of
such firms can be examined. The author has also focused on deficiency of some abstract models
that can explain the correlation and causal mechanisms for the born global firms. Due to the
need of higher economy of scale, marketing and productions and some other areas firms go
globally. Advanced technologies and globalisation allowed firms to start internationalization in
the beginning of their life. Grunewald, and Baron, (2002) has explained that there are several
factors such as development in the field of production due to growth in technologies, growth in
conveyance system, communication and uprising number of blended industries make it simple to
interpret the system of globalist market for everyone. The firms cannot operate smoothly in
international environment if they have lack of available resources, untrained business
professionals, lower global networks, lack of knowledge of international market. French, (2011)
has critically evaluated that there are several companies that have drawn the attention of some
researchers since their origination due to their internationalization. It is also predicted that this
number will keep on increasing. It has been analysed that “ Some organisations are ambitious
and they look for attainment of competitive advantage in market since their establishment by
using available resources and transacting goods in many countries. ”. The author has said that
born global firms have their capabilities and competencies to achieve their global goals. The first
international entrepreneurship perspective underscores brokering, value creation, resource
stretching or leveraging, and seeking the opportunity through a risk seeking behavior, proactive
and combination of innovative. The author has identified four essential elements to define the
international new ventures. These elements are Internationalization of several proceedings,
benefit of operating in international market and a control over movement of resources. Another
author has add some points in it he said the management team of an organisation and political
and economic industrial conditions also plays a significant role in it. The business environment
and entrepreneur as building blocks also fostering further development of these born global
firms. Advanced technologies, flexibility and speed of response to the firm affects these firms.
The early globalization depends on specific issues of the industries such as high technology or
knowledge intensive sectors. The features of domestic market also plays an important role in

internationalization of new ventures. Entry in a global market is correlated to the internal
capabilities of the organisation. Author said that there are several factors such as pace of
technology, government rules and regulations and other trade barriers also became the reason for
internationalization of new ventures. Another distinguishing trait of born global entrepreneurs is
the networking propensity. The new global ventures requires good relationship with the potential
customers. These firms lag behind in having sufficient resource which makes it difficult to keep
check on owned assets and organisations forced to embrace alternative methods of franchising,
licensing etc. to attain their objectives. It is essential to know the past history and experience
which has given a directive path for a new research. Thus this path of research leads in
connecting the globalised business with development of entrepreneur's features. Eyal and Roth,
(2011) has defined that “the disclosure, lawmaking, effective use of opportunities - across
international borders - to create future commodities and services” connected to “…a collection
of innovative, proactive and risk-taking behavior that goes beyond national borders and is
supposed to make value in business ventures”. According to this point of view, this research
analyze how teaching, past experience and communication system of the entrepreneurs and their
henchman impacted the company, regarding the marketplace’ and different categories’
knowledge, collected from earlier international education. Concept of motivation at international
level, propensity of innovation, market orientation and risk attitude positively influences the
advancement with the help of early Internationalization of new company which is in growth
stage and their adverse impact is seen in the later stages. Along with this the learning took place
at international level and the networking positively influences INV growth in the overall stages.
The author has highlighted overall importance of Traid model which highlights the capabilities
of the entrepreneur. This model supports in knowing the capabilities of large number of
individuals along with organization which develops the bottom line and they are the real
fundamental capabilities.
In this case the author has focused on the evidence of the born global phenomenon
through an in depth research. Densten, (2008) has described five dimensions of international
entrepreneurship capabilities (IEC). The first is International networking capabilities (INC),
Second is International marketing capabilities (IMC), Third is innovation and risk taking
capabilities (IRC), and the last one is International experience (IE). All these dimensions
describe the reason why new firms go globally. The current report has showcased an evidential

report in context to define the role of international entrepreneueship capability (IEC) which is
based on the company named Born Global (BG). It is basically conducted via reviewing the
performances by studying the means of international entrepreneurship literature that has together
outlined some other affilated means of its liable abilities and dimensions. It has further
explicated a potent relationship among the identified traits of IEC along with redefining the level
of international performances (IP) in BG.