The Google Corp

Jazmin Regalado

South Texas College

ORGL-4341-VF1-Management Theory I

Dr. Esmeralda Adame

September 28, 2022

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Abstract

In this paper it will talk about Google Corporation's organizational structure, culture, leadership

styles, controls, and decision making styles. Google Corporation leadership owners, Sergey Brin

and Larry Page, have a unique leadership style that makes employees happy to be at work which

leads to attracting more employees and a higher success rate in the company. The research below

will go more into depth on each aspect of the company.

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The Google Corp

Overview

The video provided an overview of the Google corporation in France, reporting that

Fortune magazine named this company the best place to work four years ago, and that does not

go unnoticed. Only 1 million applications come in every year to fill positions. (Business

Revolution. 2022). At first, Google corp. management wondered if they needed managers

because they dislike being ordered around, but Google Corp has some of the best engineers in

their field. In an engineering culture, management gets extraordinarily little credit, particularly in

IT development, where the work is very autonomous, solitary, but where your peers are best

equipped to judge it. It involves elevated levels of expertise, and at a time Larry and Sergey said,

“can we do without management?” (Business Revolution. 2022). This question led to a lot of

research and investigation into whether they needed managers, which took Google three years to

answer. In the end, they spared managers, realizing that managers have a significant impact on

the satisfaction, morale, and results of their teams. A lot fewer managers work at Google than at

other corporations, and the company gives its employees as much freedom as they can. Each

week, Google gives its employees a day to do something unrelated to their daily work that they

wish to be a part of, just to enjoy or create something, and that's how Google Earth came about,

50% of Google's innovations are derived from it (Business Revolution 2022). The research that

was conducted will go over organizational structure, controls, organizational culture, leadership

styles, and decision making styles.

Organizational Structure
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There are two categories of organizational structure, vertical, also known as 'tall', and

horizontal, also known as 'flat', which describe the configuration of departments, authority, and

jobs within a company. (Smithson. 2022.). Google has a cross functional organization structure

that contains in the term flatness, a company limits its hierarchy and instead has vertical and

productive communication that allows managers to interact well with their teams and groups. In

addition to innovation, openness, and hands-oneness, Google's structure is connected to the

company's organizational culture. With this type of organizational structure employees feel to

share their opinion and ideas among each other and even with management. (Smithson. 2022.).

Employee ideas are encouraged because it opens the doors for the company to grow. Hands-on

experiments and projects are also highly encouraged since they allow the employees to express

themselves and be creative. In addition to taking care of its employees and encouraging more

people to apply, Google also recently created advertisements to appeal to people with disabilities.

In contrast, many traditional job-opportunity websites are not designed to accommodate people

with disabilities. There is information on accommodations for employees and candidates on the

new Google site, as well as a step-by-step explanation of the hiring process. There is also a list of

resources from Lime Connect, a nonprofit that connects college students, professionals, and

professionals with disabilities with jobs, internships, and scholarships. The site also contains

stories of Google employees with disabilities. (Google Ramps Up Hiring. 2021.)

Controls

The principles of management are categorized into four parts, planning, organizing,

leading, and controlling, better known as the P-O-L-C framework. Several high-tech businesses,

such as Google, rely heavily on clan control to be successful. (Ketchen. 2014). Clan control is
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often used heavily in settings where creativity is vital, such as in high-tech companies. It relies

on shared traditions, expectations, values, and norms to lead people to work toward the good of

their organization. Employees are allowed to spend 20% of their work week working on their

own innovative projects in these companies. Output is hard to dictate, and many rules are not

appropriate. (Ketchen. 2014). In addition to an 'ideas mailing list' for employees to submit ideas

and comment on others' ideas, Google executives routinely meet with employees two to three

times a week to discuss their ideas. Several innovations have resulted from these informal

meetings, including personalized home pages and Google News. CEO Guy Laurence unveiled

his plan to revitalize growth at Rogers Communications in 2014 as part of his plan to improve

the performance of struggling organizations. To improve customer service, all the 10,400 staff

will be consolidated into a single unit reporting to him as part of the reorganization. (Ketchen.

2014). Considering enterprise users to be a growth story, Rogers has split out consumers from

enterprise users to improve customer service.

Leadership Styles

Throughout Google’s history, the company utilizes normative control and laissez-faire

policy. In an experiment, the company hired several intelligent engineers and allowed them to

oversee managing and controlling themselves. As the values and beliefs of the company served

as the main guidelines, the highly skilled workers were able to maximize their ability. To achieve

a positive outcome, Google encourages their employees to think innovatively. (Tran. 2017).

Recruiting employees who meet adequate requirements and providing them with an environment

free of supervision to help them develop their abilities is the company's policy. Moreover,

internal information is shared widely among employees, as trust is built amongst all employees.
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Without trust, Google would not be able to delegate control to workers at various levels. It is

believed that impressive output is achieved from normative control. (Tran. 2017). Depending on

the order of projects to be undertaken, workers will be able to accomplish the tasks in their own,

most suitable way with satisfactory results. It is Page's passion for technology that led him to

collaborate with other engineers to create a venerable force in the technology sector. Having

fostered a healthy work environment at Google, he treated employees like family and led the

company to the top of an incredibly competitive field. It sparked an internal search at Google to

determine what qualities and traits make a great leader. After analyzing reams of data from

performance reviews, surveys, feedback, and interviews, the statisticians produced eight key

qualities, ranked from most important to least. (Murray. 2011). You need to be a good coach,

empower your team, do not micromanage, demonstrate interest in the success and well-being of

your team, be productive and results-oriented, be a good communicator and listen to your team,

support your employees in their career development, have an unobstructed vision and strategy,

and have technical skills to advise the team. (Murray. 2011).

Decision Making Styles

In addition to its culture, Google's decision making is influenced by a trio. At Google,

decisions are made in teams, and even management of the company is a triad: Larry Page and

Sergey Brin appointed Eric Schmidt to serve as CEO, and they are leading the company by

consensus. In other words, this is not a company where decisions are made by the senior person

in charge and then implemented top down. (Denne. 2017). The employees often try to persuade

each other using rational reasoning and data and work in several small teams to solve problems.

According to Eric Schmidt, gut feeling has an insignificant impact on company decisions: “We
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run the company by questions, not by answers, so we have formulated 30 questions so far to

answer in the strategy process.” (Denne. 2017). You ask it as a question, rather than pithy.

Having an answer generates conversation, and out of the conversation comes innovation.

Innovation is not something you wake up one day and say, 'I want to innovate?' You get a better

innovative culture if you ask it as a question.

Strategic Human Resource Management

As part of Google's global HR function, they have created a People Analytics Department

that helps them make HR decisions using data. One question Google wanted to have an answer

to was: Do managers matter? It has been a question Google has been grappling with since its

inception, with its founders questioning the role of managers. At some point, they got rid of all

managers and made everyone an individual contributor, but that did not work, so managers came

back. A human resources team member ranks the company's overall culture at 86/100, a 7%

higher score than the average overall culture score provided by the entire company, while the

Communications department scores 87/100, the Design department scores 82/100, and the

Marketing department scores 81/100. (GHR. 2022). The human resources department at Google

directly affects the work environment, employees rate the Google work environment an A- and

are extremely happy at the company. Operating HR is clearly a specialized field at Google. They

constantly experiment and innovate to find the best way to satisfy employees and to help them

work effectively, and all their decisions are based on the collected and processed data. Google

pays attention to how its employees work and helps them correct mistakes, and it uses data to

evaluate staff and to help them improve their work efficiency. The company would be more
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interested in determining what caused the problem and how to fix it quickly as well as efficiently

rather than pointing out the damage and blaming a person.

Conclusion

In the paper, we recognize that employees who give their best efforts and align their

behavior with organizational goals often describe their loyalty to the organization as being due to

their "connection." For businesses to succeed, culture and subculture are crucial for achieving

smooth operations. Google's achievements show how they clarify the methods they use to assess

an organization's culture effectively; they build good relationships with their shareholders,

partners, followers, customers, and newcomers; a leader plays a significant role in fostering

organizational culture. (GHR. 2022). The core factors of a connection culture that fit these

human needs are voice, value, and vision. To get the set mission, Google has adopted a culture of

value for its employees. In order to solve problems, the employees often use rational reasoning

and data to persuade each other. Gut feeling has little impact on how decisions are made. Eric

Schmidt, CEO of the company, says: "We run the company by asking questions, not by giving

answers. In the strategy process, we have so far formulated 30 questions to answer." (GHR.2022)
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References

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of-google/

Google Ramps Up Hiring of People With Disabilities. (2021, January 1). ASHA Leader,
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Google Human Resources | comparably. (n.d.). Retrieved September 28, 2022, from
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Ketchen, D. (2014, September 12). Creating Organizational Control Systems. Mastering

Strategic Management 1st Canadian Edition. Retrieved September 25, 2022, from
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Murray, S. P. (2011, March 15). The 8 most important qualities of leadership at google.
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Tran, S.K. GOOGLE: a reflection of culture, leader, and management. Int J Corporate
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YouTube. (2022). Why We Need A Management Revolution. YouTube. Retrieved

September 10, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWUkVdwm5LQ.