Is the management of copyrighted contents the real magic of The Walt Disney Company?

For nearly a century now, The Walt Disney Company has pursued one of the most ambitious and noble dreams: create a magical world in which all dreams can come true, a kingdom delivering aspiration by means of entertainment. No one would deny that magic is very deeply anchored into the universe of Disney. But where does this magic come from? What is the real magic of The Walt Disney Company? This question has gained more and more interest in the business world because of the tremendous development that the company has experienced recently. Indeed, Disney’s exceptional business performance over the last decade has put the firm in second position of the entertainment industry and fifty-third in the Fortune 500 list of 2015. For this reason, many people have attempted to crack the case of Disney’s magic. Among them, Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson states that the real magic of Disney resides in the philosophy of its founder: “I dream, I test my dreams against my beliefs, I dare to take risks, and I execute my vision to make those dreams come true: Dream, Believe, Dare, Do”. The originality of this thesis is that it takes a different approach than the ones of the existing literature to find the true source of Disney’s success. In this respect, this thesis assumes that Disney is in the business of creating, exploiting and valuing copyrighted contents of quality, such as fictional characters and stories, and that the management of these copyrighted contents represents the real magic of the company. The methodology used to test this assumption encompasses both quantitative and qualitative analyses to assess Disney’s competency with regards to the management of its of copyrighted contents. More precisely, the methodology analyses this competency by referring to three necessary capabilities that the company should demonstrate in order to be considered as truly competent in the management of its copyrighted contents. These capabilities are respectively the capability to create an adequate portfolio of copyrighted contents, the capability to exploit the full potential from this portfolio, and the capability to obtain a higher performance from the exploitation of this portfolio than others. The results of these analyses indicate that Disney possesses these three capabilities and, hence, can be considered as truly competent in the management of its copyrighted contents. These results suggest that the management of copyrighted contents may very well be the real magic of The Walt Disney Company.Master [120] en Ingénieur de gestion, Université catholique de Louvain, 201