Organizational Culture Within Google.Com

Organizational Culture within Google.com

Linda Simms

Upper Iowa University

Abstract

Google’s success is linked to the effectiveness of its organizational structure and organizational culture in supporting excellence in innovation. The company’s organizational structure is not conventional. Google’s organizational culture is also not typical because it emphasizes change and direct social links within the firm. Theory suggests that a strong alignment between a firm’s organizational structure and its organizational culture can lead to higher chances of success. This benefit is manifested in the case of Google’s businesses that continue to expand and prosper. In this paper I will explain Schein’s three levels of culture with assumptions and beliefs along with how Google’s generic subcultures are designed.

Google has a short history which makes it kind of difficult to really identify the cultural organization of leadership within the company compared to other more established companies. Google has many things within their culture and organizational leadership cultures that stand out from other companies. These range from the artifacts to the subcultures which make Google stand out from other companies.

Google’s artifacts are very prevalent in many parts of their culture. When an employee first begins their employment with Google they are subjected to wearing a colorful beanie which says “Noogler” on it until they reach their first Friday all hand meeting. While this may seem silly, it is actually a way to help integrate the new employee into the culture which Google operates in (Schoenen, 2015).

Other artifacts at Google locations consist of cafes which offer free healthy food to employees, snack and drink stations located throughout the facilities, gyms, child care, and even ping pong tables and arcades. While these may not seem like traditional artifacts in a cultural and organizational leadership ideal, they in fact are for Google. In having the healthy food and snacks as well as the child care Google believes that they are able to have the employees be more productive in their work. Google believes that a happy and healthy employee is in fact a productive employee. Google also understands that employees sometimes need to take a break from concentrating on the task at hand, which is why they have the arcades, ping pong tables, and gyms. In allowing employees to completely remove themselves from the task at hand they are then more productive when they return to the task.

Another artifact of the Google culture and organizational leadership is the lack of single person cubicles and offices. In having the employees in cubicles with up to four people in each Google believes that it fosters teamwork and creativity. If the employees were in a single person office or cubicle they would not have the access to the other employees to be able to brainstorm ideas back and forth outside of meetings and creativity and production could be greatly impacted.

The one Google artifact that every user of the search engine is able to see is the Google logo on the webpage. Google is constantly updating their logo on the webpage to reflect different things ranging from holidays to celebrations to anniversaries of a tragedy. In the fact that Google is constantly changing the logo on the website it can cause people to go to www.Google.com just to be able to see what the logo of the day is. If you click on the Google logo on the website it will give you a quick description of what the logo is symbolizing on a particular day.

The espoused beliefs and underlying assumptions at Google are much more difficult to decipher. The reason being is that Google fosters an environment and culture of creativity and innovation from all of their employees. Changes to the way that something runs at Google don’t just come from the upper management levels. Google holds meetings every Friday where all employees are encouraged to give ideas. Each idea is evaluated by the peers in the meetings as well as the managers, and if it is something which could be deemed useful and successful then a plan to implement the change will be made. In allowing employees to suggest changes and implementing ideas which the employees provided it makes the employees feel more important to the company and fosters long term employment.

Current and former employees influence the company’s culture in some fashion whether that is a policy or an advertising idea. While Google encourages creative ty and innovation, they will also stand by tried and true strategies which have made the company as successful as they are today.

One of Google’s most important espoused values is to strive to be the best company to work for. In 2015 Google was rated by Forbes magazine as the #1 best place to work. Google has a history of being named one of the best places to work, having been placed in the Fortune 100 best companies list, with five of those mentions as the number one place to work (Chatman, 2015).