The Impact of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers on the McDonaldization of America

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The Impact of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers on the McDonaldization of America

The way that Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers does business and markets it's product to consumers is due to the change in our society to where the consumer wants the biggest, fastest, and best product they can get for their money. This change in society can be attributed to a process known as McDonaldization. Although McDonaldization can be applied to many other parts of our society, this paper will focus on its impact on Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers. My belief is that the process of McDonaldization, where the ideology of McDonald's has come to dominate the world, has caused Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers to emulate McDonald's style of running a franchised restaurant chain in terms of efficiency, calculability, and control. However, since McDonald's has become the epitome of "fast-food" in our society, Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers has had to change their focus to giving the consumer a higher quality product in a relatively fast amount of time. So, Wendy's still caters to a McDonaldized society in terms of giving them a meal as fast as possible but making quality their number one priority to give people a viable option from McDonald's. In addition, I have used my girlfriend who manages at Wendy's and observations I gathered while at McDonald's as further information for this paper.

First, before I discuss the impact of McDonaldization on Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers, I will define what McDonaldization is. McDonaldization is the process by which the principles of fast-food restaurants are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society, as well as, of the rest of the world. (Ritzer 1998,Page 1) George ...

... middle of paper ...

...ry serious potential downside that could have an effect on everyone.

Bibliography:

Alfino, Mark, Caputo, S. John and Wynyard, Robin. ( 1998). McDonalization Revisited: Critical Essays on Consumer Culture. HF 5415.32.M395. Praeger Publishers.

Bacharach, B. Samuel and Lawler, J. Edward. (1984) The Sociology of Organizations. HM 131.R46. Jai Press Inc.

Kellner, Douglas. (1998). Theorizing/Resisting McDonaldization: A Multiperspectivist Approach. http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/kell30.htm

McIndoctrination: Selling the Big Mac Lifestyle. http://www.interlog.com/~mattei/mcessay.html

Newman, M., David (1997). Exploring The Architecture of Everyday Life. Pine Forge Press.

Ritzer, George. (1998). The McDonaldization of Society. Sage Publications.

Ritzer, George. (1998). The McDonaldization Thesis. HM 131.R589. SAGE Publications.

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