ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND CHANGE

Organizational Culture and Change

Organizational Culture and Change

Introduction

Google, an American multinational organization, changed the way people search and access information. The founders Brin and Larry's vision turned the company into a necessity around the world. The unique cultural framework and practices of the company brought the success and competitive edge to Google. It is way ahead from Microsoft and Yahoo in expansion product innovation. This essay discusses the relation Google's culture to its success. It also highlights the challenges which Google may face due to these cultural characteristics.

Discussion

Google's Culture Using the OCP Typology

To determine the values which characterize an organization's culture, the researchers have proposed several cultural typologies. Organizational culture profile is one of them. Seven distinct values represent this typology: Innovative cultures, Aggressive cultures, Outcome-Oriented Cultures, Stable Cultures, People-Oriented Cultures, Team-Oriented Cultures, and Detail-Oriented Cultures.

Google is characterized as:

Innovative culture.

Outcome oriented culture.

People oriented Culture.

Team oriented culture.

These features as a while make Google a democratic and open organization. The focus is on the achievement of outcomes through innovation and employee considerations. The small teams achieve a greater room for the decision making and individual projects. These characteristics form Google's success being a rich cultured organization.

Factors Responsible for the Specific Culture that Exists in Google

Employee Satisfaction

Google has a unique work environment where employees enjoy various facilities including free gourmet food, sushi and espresso bars, gym, shower facility, and on site health facilities. Google is truly an employee friendly place, where the people are able to reduce the work stress and perform their work through motivation and involvement. The competitive advantage to Google is that, the employees satisfied with their jobs since they feel they're treated well and taken care of. They feel they work at an extraordinary place, which is way different from working anywhere else.

Risk Taking and Innovative Behavior

Google encourages innovative and risk taking behavior. The mistakes are considered as the opportunity to learn. One of the significant philosophies of Google is to adapt to the changes quickly. Deciding and then implementing the decisions is way better than being cautious at goggle. This is why Google outshined Microsoft and Yahoo. On the other hand, to promote creativity, the employees are motivated to spend some time working on individual projects. That empowers them o more decision making authority and realization of self responsibility. The experimental behavior is one of the key factors that enabled Google to implement its expansion strategy into a new field outside search engine business.

Team Work

At Google, the decisions are made in teams. To promote the team work, the employees work together in an open office environment, which enables more discussion and brainstorming sessions. Unlike the traditional approaches, the decision at Google translates from the lower to the senior management. All the suggestions and solutions to the problems follow statistics instead of gut feeling. This environment helps obtaining flawless data, free from assumptions.

Is Google's Culture or Success Responsible for the Performance?

Google's culture is responsible for its ...