Intercultural Competencies: Environmental Scan and Analysis of Google Inc.

Intercultural Competencies: Environmental Scan and Analysis of Google Inc.

Introduction

In contemporary times, we live in an environment, which is culturally diverse. A lot of skills and attributes are required to enable a person to cope up with intercultural competencies. A cross-cultural company involves some degree of expertise in strategic thinking, appropriate behavior, and intercultural motivation to be tolerant and understanding towards the people; they are dealing with in such contexts. This study focuses on Google Inc. as the selected organization for research because the company is advancing its leadership in information technology, and the driving force is the culture of the organization. In this organization, culture is used to refer to its customs, traditions, and other behavioral ideologies that entirely influence the behaviors of the employees. Through this study, new companies can understand the need to prioritize their cultural aspects. Besides, companies can also focus on building an immense working culture.

Google Inc. Organizational Context

            The goggle corporate culture has been selected for this research because of its global outreach. The company’s structure is selected to connect the efficiency of the employees’ innovative ideas and organizational culture. In 2009, the managers of the Google company were disturbed when they realized the low employee satisfaction rate while the company registered w high turnover. This prompted a survey that was conducted to find out the course of the problem. It emerged that for a company to become better, it needs to address the concerns of the employees and appoint leaders who can cultivate the staff through effective communication channels and conduct the necessary training. In response, the company started to provide benefits such as free meals and facilities such as dry cleaning.

Furthermore, the company started providing maternity leaves for eighteen months, with a hundred percent payment in addition to offering financial support for any employee adopting a child. Google initiated the provision of tangible social amenities to its members to make the best corporate culture among the employees. The employees of this company are free to unleash their abilities and creativity. The flexible nature of the culture also gave them a significant amount of productivity. There is a direct line between the employees’ happiness and the level of their productivity (Smith, 2019). Google offers new employees an opportunity to access experts in every technological field and ensures that the kind of employees that they hire is not only experts but also human beings. The organization’s culture also gives importance to the freedom and openness of the employees to encourage them to share their knowledge and enhance innovations freely..

Considerable Findings and Information

            In an article that was released by Melissa Harrell and Lauren Barbato, they talked about a project initiated by Google called “Project Oxygen.” The project aimed at understanding the behaviors of the highest performing managers. The research identified some eight common behaviors that were incorporators into the company’s management team, and the result was splendid. There was a significant improvement in different areas such as the turnover, satisfaction and better performance. Some of the behaviors that made the employees evolve to be more productive included team empowerment, good coach, the ability to show concern for the well-being of the employees. The managers were also advised to be good communicators; they should support the development of the employees’ careers and should have a clear vision for the team and also be very active when it comes to making decisions that impacts on the company.

Sang Kim Tran published a journal that brings out the way culture and subculture is viewed at Google Company. and elaborates the company’s positive impact on its employees. However, Kim Tran also presents some of the challenges of this company (Tran). Regarding the company’s culture, Tran observed that the HR director constantly experiments and innovates a better and more effective way to satisfy the employees. Furthermore, sales managers maintain strong relationships with external parties. The culture of Google as an organization is vastly is not the same as others because it gives the employee freedom of their culture (Smith, 2019)

According to Martin, Google is the best company to stand for since employees enjoy recreational activities, car wash, and many other benefits. The secret for Google’s success is the work environment and its unique cultural rules. The employers of this company also help the workers correct their mistakes without blaming them. The organization gives the employees’ free will to experiment in their workplace. Nevertheless, clients work has to be sent and confirm whether it is a good and practical idea.

An environmental analysis done by Rachel Gillett provided stimulating information. This analysis offers that Google and its employees’ do not directly produce products or give services to their customers. Google’s approach is to be a holding company that helps in improving and delivering great products to consumers continuously (Gillett). To hire talented people, the company makes sure that potential employees can work voluntarily and are enthusiastic. The CEO of the company realized that distinctive cultures dramatically influence performance up to forty percent. Therefore, Google creates a unique corporate culture by attracting students from reputable universities around the world (Tran,2017)

Creativity and innovation increases in an organization that builds its working environment. From Afghanistan to America, Google has succeeded in making offices that are individually designed and not duplicated.

Outlines of the Research and Some Outstanding Questions

A successful organization depends on the capacity and ability of its employees. The firm also needs to have excellent leaders that can manage the employees and their talents. In the early days, Google had a flat structure that included a few hundred employees, and most of them were engineers and technicians. Furthermore, these hundreds of employees had four managers, and it was challenging for the managers to take care of every worker. Therefore, Google had to do some research to make the organization much better. The Oxygen Project done by Google is an efficient plan, and it gives immense importance to the impact between employee’s happiness and the company’s financial growth (Harrell and Barbato, 2018 )

This research gives new companies and entrepreneurs an idea of how culture influences behaviors. The importance Google assigns to their employees will make other organizations to analyze the cultural aspects of that place, the worker’s behavior, and their way of working (Tran,2017) Nevertheless, it does take a lot of time for a new company to change the culture since both leaders and subordinate have to use much of their time on learning and evaluating the results. Google’s eight good behaviors of managers are also, and many organizations are now using it. Furthermore, this research also helps in understanding the difference between leaders and managers. To be a good leader, the person has to give a clear strategic vision to their employees. A leader’s behavior influences the company’s culture and subculture and function as a whole (Smith, 2019)

Many good attributes of Google can help us in starting a new business and make the employees happy. However, many questions are not answered in the research. Some of the challenges that Google is facing is that employees have been raising concerns about ethics. The workers say that Google is in collaborating with the US army to develop artificial intelligence. The company is being scrutinized, and the employees are resigning because of these issues. Furthermore, privacy scandals have also been increasing in which people accuse employees to read their Gmail accounts. Thousands of workers of Google are also protesting the Organization across Asia, North America, and Europe to oppose racism, sexism, and executive power in their workplace (Alton, Armstrong & Carveli, 2015)

In these problematic situations, the leaders of this company need to encourage and organize open events for both employees and customers to give them opportunities to interact and talk about their problems. Furthermore, Google should not create a barrier between the leaders and the workers. This way, the employees will feel encouraged and share their opinions. The company also needs to increase diversity and improve the treatment of women and minorities (Tran, 2017)

View Points, Objectives, and Why Does it Matter?

The research done also gives a point of view of culture and subculture at company. The objective of this research was to link the difference between an organization’s culture, leadership, and company’s performance. The analysis and findings of this paper can help new companies or entrepreneurs to have a better relationship with their employees.

Why is Google different from other Companies?

From the information we know, every group or organizations has its own culture that gives the attention to the efficiency and productivity (Smith,2019) A global company such as Google Inc. gives its employees great perks. The workers get healthcare packages; free delicious food every day, free massages, the company also pays for a gym membership, and every year people get full paid ski trips in their country. Furthermore, Google has an army of resources and technologies that can be used by the entire employee. It is challenging other companies to give so many benefits and compensations. For example, Organizations such as Amazon and Apple are well established, but it does not provide its employees with excellent benefits and the workplace and environment are not that good.

Global Leadership in Google

There is a moral goal in the mission statement of Google, and it is highly impossible for others to achieve. The company’s leaders also guide their employee’s and give them enough trust to work in a comfortable environment. Furthermore, Google has a creative, fun, and, culturally rich organization that offers its employees to support, experiment, and innovate (Gillett).

Intercultural Challenges and how to resolve them

Google has had a lot of success all around the world, but there are some potential challenges that the company can face shortly. Reports show that the CEO of Facebook is planning to implement a search engine (Bok,2009). The company will develop this search engine by collaborating with Microsoft. This can affect Google, since people may prefer to search directly from Facebook. In this case, Google should increase and boost its apps such as Google+ and Path, since this will give customers a benefit.

Another challenge that Google can face is its diversification. The company has ensured that it retains its customers by creating new markets. Nevertheless, it is getting complicated to keep control of products like Cloud, Google glass, artificial intelligence, computer engines, android, wedding planners, and many more (Bok,2009) . Therefore, it is necessary that the company hire smart and creative people that can maintain and control these product lines.

Conclusion

Since 1998, Google has had fantastic growth, and the organization has made a lot of success. The company takes immense care of its employees after it made the connection between managers and employees. The reason for Google’s victory is its unique workplace, cultural environment, and taking good care of the workers.  This research also recognized that there is a crucial role between the organization’s culture and its achievements. Google’s way of treating its employees have made a lot of new companies know more about its employees and their culture and the ways they can make them content. Furthermore, if a conflict occurs in an organization, it is necessary to organize open events for employees and listen to their problems. The leaders should be more approachable and have a harmonious relationship with their workers because it can be tough for companies to solve the issues if the employees are scared to express their concerns.

This paper has also reflected upon culture, subculture, and its importance. Organizational culture is a crucial factor. Since Google is operated all around the world, therefore, it attracts labors from various countries. Such verity can be difficult for firms, and it is necessary to build and maintain the cultural aspects and make the employees perform well (Tran,2017). It is important to realize that office culture is the key to create an organizations future. Furthermore, it is always necessary to experiment and innovate, but it does not have to be a burden. It is essential for leaders and employees lend a hand to each other to realize the productivity and creativity in the organization.

Work Cited

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Bok, D. (2009). The SAGE handbook of intercultural competence. Sage.

Gillett, R. (5). reasons Google is the best place to work in America and no other company can touch it. Business Insider.

Harrell, M., & Barbato, L. (2018). Great managers still matter: the evolution of Google’s Project Oxygen. re: Work.

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Tran, S. K. (2017). GOOGLE: a reflection of culture, leader, and management. International Journal of Corporate Social Responsibility, 2(1), 10.

Westerman, G., Soule, D. L., & Eswaran, A. (2019). Building Digital-Ready Culture in Traditional Organizations. MIT Sloan Management Review, 60(4), 59-68.