Analyzing Management Principles in the Movie The Founder

This report provides a comprehensive review of the movie 'The Founder,' examining its portrayal of management principles, leadership styles, and entrepreneurial strategies. The report begins with an introduction to international businesses and then delves into the movie's plot, focusing on Ray Kroc's role in scaling McDonald's. It highlights themes of innovation, ambition, and betrayal, as well as the relationships between key characters. The analysis covers the organizational aspects of McDonald's, including its customer service and ethical considerations. The report also explores how the film can be used as an instructional tool for aspiring managers, emphasizing negotiation, innovation, adaptability, and the importance of avoiding inflexible business practices. Finally, the report concludes by summarizing the movie's valuable insights into the business world and management theories.

Management and
Managing in an
International Context

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION
International Businesses are the ones whose manufacturing units are located all around
the globe but they provide goods and services domestically in the traditional markets. In other
words, it can be explained as a professional relationship shared between two or more than two
countries who enjoys the commodities manufactured by the international businesses. These
businesses deal in all kinds of sectors and aims to provide such goods and services which helps
in resolving the issues of the individuals (Hernandez-Pozasand Carreon-Flores,2019). These
businesses are supposed to deal with different demographics along with varying traditions and
beliefs, which needs to be properly understood before targeting a certain group of people.
International businesses do possess a strong and effective R&D team which very strategically
analysis the trends and the needs of individuals according to their demographics and works
towards creating a solution for the same. This file gives review about the movie 'The Founder
(Puga, 2020).
MAIN BODY
The movie The Founder is written by Robert Siegel and directed by John Lee Hancock.
Initially the movie starred about the hardships of Ray Kroc a milkshake machine salesman and
then the movie showcase how Ray Kroc scale McDonald’s through innovation into one of the
biggest restaurant in the world. This movie also depicts betrayal and how Ray take over
McDonald's brand from Mc brothers (Shetty, Singh and Kharatmol,2021). The central theme and
scope of the movie is it depicts celebration of innovation, creativity, ambition and
entrepreneurship with age of greed, broken promises and betrayal.
The movie The Founder depicts the relationship between Ray Kroc and Mac Brothers
named as Maurice Mac and Richard Dick. Ray suggest the brothers to open franchise of their
business but the brothers hesitated to tell that they have already tried it but failed. Initially the
relationship shown between Ray and the brothers were good and Ray was leading the franchise
efforts based on strict contract. But after getting success the relationships did not remain same as
Ray gets financial difficulties due to limitation in his contract. Ray incorporates a new company
without the approval of Mc brothers. Later the brothers were forced to take off their own name
from their originally incorporated business.
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The organisation portrayed in the movie is McDonald's a walk in restaurant which
provide high quality food, quick services, disposable packaging, good management, pocket
friendly and a homely atmosphere. The organisation is good and provide good customer services
and solve customer problems easily and effectively.
In the movie it is portrayed that the employees in the organisation work with strong
ethics, but Ray who was leading the franchise business did not work ethically and deceives the
Mac Brothers by renaming the franchise as Mc Donald's Corporation and also demands to
release him from the contract. The movie also suggests that Ray Kroc is a good leader as his
vision was clear, he was optimistic and determined, and was enthusiastic.
The movie The Founder does not use satire or comedy to make fun of aspects of
management as it is a biographical drama. Generally, no comedy and humour is used in
biographical drama, these movies are usually based on real life stories.
If I used the film The founder as an instruction manual, I would have tried to become a
lenient manager who is open to new ideas and is persistent. I would try to become innovative and
would try to solve customer problems effectively, I will find right partners and will adopt a new
working culture, would also rely on expert advices and would carefully negotiate agreements and
contracts and will avoid handshake deal.
The relevance of the film The Founder can be used in the field of management as the
movies describes the role of various factors in effective and smooth management (Back And
et.al.2018). Some of these factors has been enacted in the movie and these are discussed below -
 The management should clearly negotiate agreements and contracts. As it was depicted in
the movie initially Ray agreed to a contract that states that all business decisions will be
taken according to Mc Donald brothers but after wards instead of giving them written
deal on sharing 1% equity he provides them hand shake deal which lead the Mc Brothers
into trouble as they were unable to prove their handshake deal and were denied to paid
any royalty from McDonald's corporation.
 The management must also try to look for new innovative ideas instead of sticking to any
one single idea. Mc Donald brothers focused only on selling few items such as burger,
drinks and fries, whereas Ray took the opportunity of scaling the business and also add
various variants in the business.
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 The management should be prone to change and should try to apply new and fresh
perspectives, such as Ray Kroc converted his food business into real estate business by
dealing with McDonald's brother on selling their business and franchise.
 The management should try to become more flexible as Ray found McDonald brothers
inflexible and not adaptable to new business ideas and opportunities so Ray took the
advantage and take over the McDonalds from its original originators.
CONCLUSION
This file gives review on the movie The Founder. This movie is a biographical drama
which depicts the life of a milkshake salesman who met two brother's named Mac and Dick who
were running a food chain named as McDonald and then Ray lead the franchise model and then
take over the business from its original owners. In short this movie depicts how a small food
business is scaled into recognised and profitable business with innovation and creativity and
efficient use of management skills. The movie gives useful perception about business world and
management theories.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Back, M.A. And et.al., 2018. Field of management and control strategies. Cyst nematodes,
pp.305-336.
Hernandez-Pozas, O. and Carreon-Flores, H., 2019. Teaching international business using virtual
reality. Journal of Teaching in International Business, 30(2), pp.196-212.
Puga, C., 2020. The Founder (2018). Film Matters, 11(1), pp.193-195.
Shetty, C. Khan, Singh, T. and Kharatmol, K., 2021, July. Movie review In 2021 6th
International Conference on Communication and Electronics Systems (ICCES) (pp.
1109-1113). IEEE. .
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