Strategic Management

Fall 2020; Lecture 12; 09 December

Associate Professor Nazlee Siddiqui
North South University
 Agenda

§ Organisational Architecture
§ Organisational Culture and Leadership
Organisational Architecture
The totality of a firm’s organisational arrangements, including:
A formal organisational structure consisting of location of decision
making (centralised versus decentralised), the sub-units of the
organisation (functional or production or business units) and
establishment of integrating mechanisms to coordinate the
activities of subunits.

Organisational processes cover manners in which decisions are

made and work is performed within the organisation.

Organisational culture, consisting of norms and value systems

(the three levels as per Schein’s culture triangle) that are shared
among the employees of an organisation.
Organisational Architecture

Controls and Incentives, which include the metrics to measure the

performance of subunits and make judgements and how well
managers are running them. Part of this component is also the
devices used to encourage desired employee behaviour.

People, comprising of employees of an organisation, as well as the

strategy used to recruit, compensate, motivate, and retain those
individuals. Moreover, refers to employees’ skills, values, and
orientation.

Explain the organisational architecture of Google, as per the opening case situation in Chapter 12 of
the textbook.
Different types of organisational structure
Functional structure

Divisional structure
Divisional structure continued
Types of organisational structure
Matrix structure

Source: https://www.slideshare.net/kshipra007/unit-4-strategy-implementation
Summary of the Google case
In April, 2011, Larry Page, one of the founders of Google had to take few
strategic decisions.
Eric Schmidt was the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011. During his time, the
organisation had a functional structure: an engineering function and a
product management function. The engineering function was responsible for
creating, building and maintaining Google’s products. The product
management function was responsible selling Google’s offerings and
advertising services. There were two main exceptions to this structure: Youtube
and Android.
Engineers were empowered to form teams who would innovate products, by
securing funding for their innovation that ended with a presentation in front of
Google cofounders (Larry Page and Sergey Brin).

Problem: There was lack of accountability of products once they had been developed. No one
was really responsible for taking products and making them into standalone business. Red tape also
existed in approval of new products.
Organisational architecture on Google
case study (Chapter 12):

Structure Structure
From Centralised, Functional to Semi-Decentralised,
business unit based (for example, Search, Advertising,
Youtube, Commerce(Google Apps). The senior VPs
(SVPs) reporting to Larry page was the integrating
mechanism.
Control & People Processes
Processes Incentives (Human
Capital)
Organisational performance is recognised by business
units, with each SVPs having complete accountability
for their products/services.
Culture: Information management for innovation
Culture
Control and Incentives: The successful launch of
innovation, people survey.
People: Employees capable for data management,
research and technical skills are valued.
Strategic Leadership and
Organisational Culture
Leadership
A combination of leader’s EI, style of leadership, morale and ethics and
involvement with all levels of culture.

Leadership theories
Trait theories of leadership: Theories that consider personal qualities and
characteristics that differentiate leaders from non-leaders.

People who like being around others and are able to assert themselves
(extraverted), are disciplined and able to keep commitments they make
(conscientiousness), and are creative and flexible (openness) have
advantages to be leaders. On the other hand, narcissistic personality can
have negative impact on effective leadership.
 Leadership continued.
Behavioural theories: Theories proposing that specific behaviours
differentiates leaders from non-leaders.

Consideration of job relationships characterised by mutual trust,

respect for subordinate ideas/feelings.

Example of leadership behaviours:

Building trust, Mentoring/Motivating, Being grounded in ethics and
integrity and Making effective decisions for goal achievement
Strategic leadership

Culture is a system of shared meaning held by members that

distinguishes the organisation from other organisation.
Strategic Leadership and culture is intertwined as a leader is
expected to be involved with all levels of culture.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6LU
g-siJVs

What kind of leadership and culture did

the video portray?
Ethics Presentation
 Marking criteria of class discussion
Have you answered the question, covering relevant content
clarifying the theory (2.5 marks)
explaining the organisation’s vision and specific examples of
practices in line with the theory ( 4.0 marks)
Presentation style
The slides are having intext citation and a reference list (0.5 marks)
Style of message delivery is interesting to the audience (1 marks)
Time management (1 mark)
Answered questions from the lecturer/class appropriately (1 mark)
Questions posed to the class are relevant to the topic
 Referencing in APA format

Source: https://libguides.murdoch.edu.au/APA/home
Source: https://libguides.murdoch.edu.au/APA/home