Spotlight on the culture at GOOGLE and Organizational Effectiveness. Application Assign. 10

Application Assignment Week 10

Application Assignment Week 10

     For this week's application assignment on Organizational Culture I will Spotlight Google as an example of a powerful organization that has made efforts to weave a strong  and cohesive cultural  fabric throughout  the corporation. Google strives to create an organizational environment that promotes interaction and employees to connect with each other. “We strive to maintain the open culture often associated with start ups, in which everyone is a hands-on contributor and feels comfortable sharing ideas and opinions. In our weekly all-hands (“TGIF”) meetings—not to mention over email or in the cafe—Googlers ask questions directly to Larry, Sergey and other execs about any number of company issues” (Google.com) Google celebrates and all inclusive approach to its employees and hires people from “all walks of life” and believes that their diverse workforce is key into to their ever-increasing profit margins.   “At Google, being yourself is a job requirement. When we encourage Googlers to express themselves, we really mean it. In fact, we count on it. Intellectual curiosity and diverse perspectives drive our policies, our work environment, our perks and our profits.”

     This description of Google’s culture reminded me of the culture of NASA in the multimedia case study “Columbia’s Final Mission” that like NASA,  Google puts a considerable amount of emphasis on teamwork, exchange of ideas and innovation. Innovation has been key to keeping both organizations at the forefront of their industries. NASA, because of their resilience and determination to collaborate at an international level to explore space, and  develop new technology ; and for Google  to be the trailblazers of Internet search , and to help individuals and business of all sizes claim placement and gain exposure on the Internet.

      The Denison and  Mishra reading exemplify empirical evidence that Organizational culture is linked to organizational effectiveness. “ These findings help support one of the basic premises of many culture researchers: That the cultures of organizations have an important influence on effectiveness.”(Denison & Mishra 1995) The results in the study concluded that employee satisfaction and overall performance were influence the organizational culture and that the actual; profits that were influenced by organizational culture was finite. I believe that employee satisfaction and performance are indeed important factors to look at when examining organizational effectiveness, and while profits and stock prices are important to a organization's percieved success, it is not everything. The Denison & Mishra reading seeks to quantify this mystery around organizational success and  organizational culture and find this to stand true in terms of employee performance  and satisfaction. But I also think it undermines cultuaral power of individuls and how much culture can really inluence how an employee performs and therefore how much profit can be attained. If people are enthusiastic about thier jobs , doesnt that make  them want to do more for the organization they work for--increasing thier organization's success, exposure, and bottomline. Corporations such as Google that invest in thier employees well being  that corporations have high employee satisfaction rates and high profits---are they an exception to Denison and Mishra's Study?

References:

Bohmer, R., Edmonson, A., and Roberto, M. (2004) Columbia's Final Mission DVD Overview and Technical Specifications

Denison, D.R. & Mishra, A.K. (1995) Toward a theory of organizational culture and effectiveness.Organization Science, 6, 204-223.

Google.com. (n.d.) Retrieved From: http://www.google.com/diversity/culture.html and http://www.google.com/about/company/facts/culture/