UC Irvine

The relationship between people and labor is often described as a transactional one, and the workplace is a space that hosts these relationships. However, although reciprocal, people experience this relationship in different ways. Albert O. Hirschman (1970) says that when employees are fed up with their workplace, they can either exit (i.e., quit) or they can voice their grievance (i.e., express their grievance in the hope of change). While Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty model is intended to be applied to declining organizations, the conceptual model may also be applied to the vast pool of “bad” employment that has developed since the mid-1970s. The experience economy is at the cutting edge of the service sector, driven by the sale of unique experiences. It embodies several contemporary trends in postindustrial societies today, such as growing inequality, experiential consumption, and service work. This prospectus focuses on the individuals employed at Disneyland Resorts in Anaheim, California, and their experiences navigating a subsector of the broader service economy. Disney theme parks host a plethora of low-wage workers. Treating Disneyland theme parks as a case study, what are the ways in which workers in the experience economy respond to the diminishing quality of employment? Using qualitative approaches to advance our understanding of the mechanisms and social processes contributing to workplace inequality at Disneyland, I will capture workers' responses by observing retention, commitment, and voice.