Page 137 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

becomes a means of distinguishing one service from another. This feature is
especially important when there is otherwise little to distinguish the services
128 being delivered, as in fast food restaurants and airline services. In a sense, emotional
and aesthetic labour become important for service organizations that have
become McDonaldized and therefore highly standardized and homogenous.
Critics of emotional labour have sometimes argued that it has a deleterious effect
on those who are enticed to, or who feel otherwise compelled to, exhibit it in
order to fulfil their work roles because it creates a sense of personal inauthenticity.
However, the evidence for such a view is not entirely compelling; instead, it is
apparent that many people derive considerable enjoyment from acting a role.
Perhaps, as increasing numbers of workers are engaged in this kind of work, they
become more used to it and it becomes less exceptional and therefore less prob-
lematic for them. However if this were to be the case, it would mean that a
differentiation strategy based on performative labour is also becoming less excep-
tional, implying that that many organizations will begin to look for ever more
distinctive ways of delivering services building on emotional and aesthetic labour
within a customer care framework. Ultimately, then, differentiation strategies
like emotional labour can become self-defeating if the strategy itself becomes
commonplace.

Notes

1 Pine and Gilmore (1999: x). 23 Van Maanen (1991: 65).
2 Pine and Gilmore (1999: 112). 24 Raz (1999: 114–15).
3 Hochschild (1983: 7). 25 Quoted in Ellwood (1998: 17).
4 Rafaeli and Sutton (1989). 26 Bright (1987: 111).
5 Walton (1985). 27 Quoted in Lipsitz (1993: 187).
6 Peters and Waterman (1982); Peters and 28 France (1991: 22).
Austin (1985). 29 Blocklyn (1988); Eisman (1993).
7 Hamel and Prahalad (1994: 129, 134). 30 For example, see Johnson (1991).
8 For example, Legge (1995). 31 For example, Connellan (1996); Peters
9 Korczynski (2002: 62). and Waterman (1982); Zemke (1989).
10 Hochschild (1983: 4, emphases in original). 32 McGill (1989: 4).
11 Henkoff (1994). 33 Leidner (1993); Peñaloza (1999).
12 Bitner et al. (1990). 34 Koenig (1994, 1999); Van Maanen (1991).
13 Solomon (1998). 35 Van Maanen (1991).
14 du Gay and Salaman (1992); Legge (1995); 36 Raz (1999: 103).
Sturdy (2001). 37 Zibart (1997).
15 Sorkin (1992: 228). 38 Rosenthal et al. (1997).
16 Eisner (1999: 228). 39 Quoted in Watts (1997: 172).
17 Wiley (1999–2000: 54). 40 Hollister (1940: 697).
18 Disney Institute (2001: 30). 41 Hochschild (1983).
19 Disney Institute (2001: 61). 42 Bellas (1999).
20 Disney Institute (2001: 85). 43 Findlay (1992: 101).
21 Disney Institute (2001: 87). 44 Quoted in Taylor and Tyler (2000: 87).
22 Disney Institute (2001: 86). 45 Quoted in Linstead (1995: 197).