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Running head: SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE

Case Analysis “System Infrastructure at Google”


Yauheni Krasotski, Migle Janusaite, Mantas Matuzas, Edmantas Kazbaras
Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
Prof. Vida Skudiene
October 22, 2015
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 2

Contents

Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Situation Part...................................................................................................................................4

HR management challenges.........................................................................................................6
SWOT analysis............................................................................................................................7
The main issue of Google................................................................................................................8

Issues of the steady growth..........................................................................................................9


Work Environment, Motivation & Decision Making................................................................11
Management style......................................................................................................................12
Human recources management innovations..............................................................................12
Reflection on the applicability of theories.....................................................................................14

Article presentation........................................................................................................................16

Questions.......................................................................................................................................17

Suggestions for future solutions....................................................................................................18

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20

Works Cited...................................................................................................................................22
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 3

Introduction

The article “System Infrastructure at Google” by Linda Hill and Emily Stecker gives a

quite deep understanding of the way Google managed its system infrastructure. However, it is

also of a great value if we examine it from different perspectives. Many issues that were

highlighted by the authors deal with the culture of the company, as well as the management style

of its executives, talent acquisition and retention, etc. Nowadays, many companies struggle to

find the best way to manage their employees, and that makes the case about system infrastructure

at Google extremely helpful in providing some very useful hints. It explains what makes Google

so successful in managing the best talents in the World. Organizational behavior issues are

explained in details so that the reader can easily follow the cause-and-effect relationship between

the decisions of the executives at Google and the success of a project and of the company in

general. Another important aspect underlined by the authors is human resource management

approaches at the company.

The article provides some real-life examples how the company succeeded in managing

extremely huge number of talented and educated professionals while keeping its structure flat.

Moreover, Google managed to keep its original culture of empowering its employees, allowing

them do whatever they are best at, and not turning it into chaos. Even though the article is about

Google’s system infrastructure, the main issues discussed are related to the company’s growth

and its effect on its culture and structure, management style, leadership challenges and increasing

level of complexity of the tasks. As Google grew it faced many challenges, however, a unique

approach and the structure implemented helped to avoid many problems and laid the foundation

for further growth[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].


CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 4

Situation Part

Google was founded on the 4th of September, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. From

a garage-based company at the beginning, Google grew into the biggest and most innovative

company in the world. At the moment, Google has around 53, 600 full-time employees

worldwide. Its mission statement is: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally

accessible and useful”[ CITATION Abo15 \l 1033 ]. Initially, Google (previously BackRub) was

designed to evaluate each individual page based on its importance[ CITATION Our15 \l 1033 ]. In

2001, Google became ninth largest web site in the USA. It had around 25 million unique visitors

per month. Operating profit of the company in 2003 made up around $345 million. Major

revenues came from paid listings, moreover, the number of visitors outside the USA also

skyrocketed. In 2004 the company introduced email service Gmail, that provided one gigabyte of

storage space, much more than of the rival email services[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ]. The increasing

number of applications led to the growth of the company in general and required extremely

experienced employees, and a way to manage them that maximizes productivity of the company.

Even though it went global, Google used bottom-up way of managing their employees, giving

them freedom to innovate and keeping the structure of the company very flat. In August 2004

Google went public and issued stock. Almost at the same time new web services as Google Maps

and Google Earth were launched[ CITATION Our15 \l 1033 ]. Increasing number of new services

such as Maps, Chrome and Earth was accompanied by the development of Android operation

system and creating huge number of innovative technologies as Google Glass. The company

became enormously big and currently is going through restructuring under the new parent

company called Alphabet. The CEO of the company became Sundar Pichai, previously VP of

product at Google. The restructuring process leads to better financial transparency (especially for
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 5

the Wall Street, by providing more financial information). In addition to that, research projects

will get their own executive, which leads to closer attention to research projects[ CITATION

Gau15 \l 1033 ].

The human resource management approaches of the company are easy to understand, but

difficult to execute. There are quite a number of important points worth mentioning. First of all,

Google is an extremely huge Company, but its structure is flat. Even though, Google tries to

maintain the size of the groups small, it has a small number of middle managers. As it is noted:

“We (Google) try to have as little middle management as possible”[CITATION Hil10 \p 3 \l 1033 ].

The company was driven “from the bottom”. Its management used “bottom-up approach” of

bringing new ideas to life and introducing innovative ideas. The engineers are given as much

freedom as possible. They are given an opportunity to focus on “what they are best at –

engineering, not management”[CITATION Hil10 \p 5 \l 1033 ]. However, the idea that Google does

not want to hire additional managers just strengthens the fact, that ideas at the company are

driven from the bottom[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Another point is that managers have to manage not only a portfolio of projects, but a

portfolio of people[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ]. The problem appeared with the hierarchy of the

company – since it (the hierarchy) was not emphasized, the managers had to earn respect from

the engineers, which was possible only in case, when the managers had knowledge in both

management and technical fields. Such employees are quite hard to obtain. Google struggled in

finding such employees as well as in promoting engineers into managerial roles (since they

mostly wanted to do what they really love - engineering)[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Another issue related to management is related to the growth of the company. Since it

grew all over the globe, it became harder for managers to “know what was going on in the
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 6

company”[CITATION Hil10 \p 12 \l 1033 ]. That increased the number of meetings (reviews) within

the company to guide the management towards specific goals of the company in general. At the

reviews it was a common thing to see which teams were stuck and struggled to understand what

they were expected to do[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Despite all the challenges Google faced it had two advantages – almost unlimited

resources and wise management of its executives. The issue with promoting engineers into

managerial positions was addressed to engineers as “it is time to become a manager when the

ambitions exceed what you can accomplish alone”[CITATION Hil10 \p 18 \l 1033 ].

Google always tried to get the best employees and give them as much freedom as

possible so that they can focus of what they are best at. Moreover, Google believes that engineers

“want to program, they don’t’ want to do their laundry”[CITATION Hil10 \p 2 \l 1033 ]. Such an

approach leads to top performance and concentration on the direct task. That is partially why

Google’s employees are ten times more productive than the rest, working in similar companies.

HR management techniques implemented at Google are focused on their employees as

well as on the way to maximize their performance for the sake of the success of the company in

general. The issues that sometimes appear are just the opportunity for the company become more

efficient in using its resources.

HR management challenges

The company faces a few challenges and most of them are related to internal causes.

First, managers find it difficult to get respect from engineers. A manager has to have technical

knowledge to get respect from an engineering team. Here rises another challenge, though

external – Google struggles to find an employee with both technical and managerial knowledge.
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 7

The reason might be that engineers want to do what they like – engineering, not managerial

tasks. Going back to internal issues, another one is related to the size of the company. The

problem is that huge size of the company prevents its management from seeing clear direction in

which the company is moving. It is difficult for them to manage their employees when they have

limited information about the course of the company. Google’s management has to hold regular

meetings, where the managers can get an idea of what is going inside the company.

SWOT analysis
SWOT analysis of the company from the organizational behavior and human resource

perspectives shows that Google is doing really well. Despite some challenges, the company

managed to gain a competitive advantage – their employees a way more productive than those of

the competitors. SWOT analysis is provided below.

Strengths:

 Focusing on core activities (engineers want to program, not do their laundry)

 Bottom-up approach and flat structure (ideas come from engineers, not from the

managers, since engineers have better knowledge in programming, plus small middle

management layer)

 Flexible group structure (switching between projects is a common thing)

 Almost unlimited resources

 Freedom to innovate

 Extremely educated, experienced and productive employees.

Weaknesses:

 Unclear picture of the organizational course in some cases


CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 8

 Promotion into managerial positions issues

 Subordination issues (managers’ decisions could often be undermined by the

engineers)

 Communication issues (since the company grew globally, managers often did not

know about what was really happening at the company and could not communicate that

message to the subordinates)[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Opportunities:

 Access to the global talent pool of extremely skilled workforce (going global

opens the door for the most skilled people in the World)

 Increasing demand for brand new and cutting edge solutions may increase the

company’s portfolio of innovative projects

Threats:

 Competition for talents also grows

 Inability of the market to use products of Google (too early to the market)

 Economic downturns may slow down the pace of innovation in the industry

overall.

The main issue of Google.

In short period of time Google experienced an immediate and steady growth (see Graph

1). Company rapidly developed from a small startup to one of the biggest companies in the

world. The main issue was to manage the steady growth, not only in technology development but

also in human recourses. As from several employees, the number of new hires raised
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 9

dramatically. Bill Coughrann - key player of Google system infrastructure management - was

hired in early 2003. Number of employees has raised from 2000 to 16,805 from early 2004 to

late 2007 under his management. It is worth mentioning that: “Coughran’s ability to effectively

lead the infrastructure group was critical to Google’s success”[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Graph 1: “Google Search Growth Rate”

Note. Graph 1. Retrieved from Internet Live Stats. Copyright


internetlivestats.com[ CITATION Goo15 \l 1033 ]

Issues of the steady growth

The more Google grew, the more people needed to work on particular projects. As highly

innovative company sometimes it had to solve the same problem in various ways. There was a

possibility of multiple teams working on the same matter but exploring different ways of its

development. Allowing several teams to work on their own ideas for the same matter-

brought up the perennial question of innovation versus efficiency[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 10

Each moment Google technical challenges were becoming more complex, that created

new demands on the company’s infrastructure. Scaling the human recourses was a huge

challenge. As Google politics was only to hire the best specialists out there, company confronted

another issue – it was really hard to find the best fits for the job. Google designed and developed

a new people hiring system that allowed innovating with speed: a new hire had to speak with at

least six people ranging from manager to his potential colleague in the area he is going to work

at[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Many new employees were hired. It was more and more difficult to keep companies

structure flat. Some additional managers had to be added, however teams remained small. Small

teams where designed on purpose, as they were more productive and allowed to eliminate as

much middle management as possible. Every project team had a technical lead (TL) – chief

engineer - during a project. However, person had this role only during the particular project. The

title moved across the group when projects changed. This was due to the people management

awareness that engineers wants to engineer, though Chief engineer had to do a lot of not

engineering work, help to get decisions in case of disagreements, manage all technical aspects,

also did direct reports[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Due to the Google worldwide growth – cultural environment have changed: from family-

like very close approach it scaled to the amount that is impossible for employees to know each

other. This caused difficulties for managers to understand what was going on in the whole

company and it was a challenging task for them to connect the employees and serve as

‘organizational glue’. Moreover, engineers hired were from different backgrounds, had different

experience, varied in age and nationalities – all those differences were not an easy subject to

handle[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].


CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 11

To manage the dynamics within and in the teams was a great deal. Managers that would

be respected technically and be influential enough to direct engineers to achieve the relevant

goals, though could avoid micromanagement were required. As Google did not emphasize

hierarchy - managers not necessarily could get the direct respect from engineers. If managers

were less technical – engineers would usually undermine their decisions even though they had a

formal authority. To solve this issue, management (Coughran) was looking for highly technically

skilled engineers that could not only design Google’s most important systems, but also manage

the elite engineers or assist teams that required guidance[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Even though Google was expanding, management (Coughran) wanted to maintain the

bottom-up approach in the company. It means that engineers are encouraged to develop and

explore their ideas. The idea list software (employee post an idea, others - vote, the best idea

percolates to the top) was a right tool that allowed the good ideas of employees go up to the top

and be recognized.

Work Environment, Motivation & Decision Making

Google realized that there must be an ideal work environment offered to achieve the best

employee performance. Company understood that satisfied employees will benefit company the

most, so it created an employee-friendly internal company culture. Free food was served in a

lunchroom, Friday meetings were held as more like get-togethers at summer camps and so on

(though, it was a challenge to keep it this way as the company was expanding). Furthermore,

management believed that the employee have to do what he does the best to achieve the highest

possible performance. For instance – programmers have to program and engineers have to focus

on engineering because they are driven by this job. Even though employees loved their job -

promotions and bonuses were offered for a quality work[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 12

Different viewpoints were extremely welcome and company encouraged the employees

to think to the future and more broadly. All decisions were made according to data-based

arguments and facts – no politics or emotional influence affected the decisions so they could be

exact and efficient[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Management style

Loose approach of running the organization was preferred over micromanagement.

Google discharged structure and control as well as reduced bureaucracy to a minimal level. This

kind of system was very flexible and liquid, however, appeared to work. Loose management

allowed engineers shift the groups across the company. As the number of engineers was

increasing quickly – management (Coughran) not always new an exact number of engineers in

the group. Fortunately, Coughran collected the engineering teams that needed not someone’s

vision to follow but a context that allowed them to do their best work. So, if an engineer moved

to another group – he most likely saw an opportunity to contribute to the work he seemed he had

something to add to[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ].

Another good example of innovative management in Google was - making people feel

ownership of their job. Team’s problem was everybody’s problem. That encouraged the person

to “go and fix it”[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ]. However, it was challenging to make people feel

ownership in big groups.

Human recources management innovations

Google is a good example of how to handle the scaling of human recources while the

company is rapidly expanding. Its competence of innovating human recources managment


CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 13

during the extreme growth is tremendous. Company have used a lot of innovative ways of

managing the employees that appeared to work.

As Google was always an inconventional company - its people managing decissions

where not standard. For instance, company encouraged its employees to experiment and think

more broadly even if the experiment was unlikely to be succesfull.

Google tried to keep companys structure as flat as possible and avoided a lot of

managerial layers. This also helped to reduce bureuocracy and innovate faster. Company

implemented a gentle approach towards employees while dictatorship or hierarchy was more

common at the time. Delibarately loose comapnys management was used and appeared to work.

Unlikely a lot of other companies where the hierarchy principle was used, Google

supported bottom- up culture where the main principle is „a lot knows better than a

few“[ CITATION Hil10 \l 1033 ]. Company created more then comfortable work environment and

always focused on their employees so they could be the most productive.

New hiring system was developed at Google. It aimed to hire only the best and most

creative employees in any field. As a fact, the best employees were the most innovative ones and

also the ones that could actually handle the innovations.

However, huge comapny size, different cultural and experience background of the

employees caused difficulties in managing the employees. It was also noted that in the company

of this size it is hard to get recognition of the contribution to specific project for an employee. On

the other hand, Google as a company of this size had a lot to offer and there are more

opportunities for an employee as well.


CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 14

Google is a good example of how to handle the scaling of human recources while the

company is rapidly expanding.

Reflection on the applicability of theories

To analyze Google's case and to get a better idea what are the most important aspects of

human resources management in this company, we will use motivational theories (Maslow's

Hierarchy of Needs) and leadership theories (Transformational leadership theory, McGregor's

Theory Y).

These theories help to understand Google's philosophy on human resource management

better, this company is attracting A-type personalities, best people in their professions from

around the world. Moreover, to keep these people at Google the management of the company has

to take on specific actions and innovate human resource management so that it matches

company's vision – to be the most innovative company in the world.

According to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the main needs of any human are:

Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem, Self-Actualization[ CITATION Mas \l 1033 ].

Google's motivational system covers all of these needs. By high salaries and reward systems

Google is fully covering physical, safety and social needs. Additionally company provides

various perks on offices, free food, entertainment and similar commodities that allows company's

employees to focus on their work. Since Google's major focus is to cover higher needs such as

self-esteem and self-actualization, the company attracts smartest people around the world and

allows them to choose projects they are interested in and to create new things that change the

world.

Douglas McGregor differentiated two types of assumptions about employees’ attitudes,

these are outlined as Theory X and Theory Y. Managers of Theory X believe that employees are
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 15

lazy, without ambitions and do not enjoy working. Because of that strict control mechanism

implementation is needed. "In contrast, Theory Y paints a much more positive view of

employees’ attitudes and behaviors."[ CITATION McG \l 1033 ]. Managers of Theory Y believe that

employees are able to enjoy their work, are pro-active and want to contribute to the goals of

organization. Managers of Theory Y gives their employees autonomy to do their best work. They

tend to create more of a supportive role, maintaining working environment where employees are

allowed to take their own decisions, stay creative and innovative[ CITATION McG \l 1033 ].

From the perspective of Transformational Leadership, management tries to lead

employees by aligning their goals with leader's goals. So, employees are focused on

organizations wellbeing rather than focusing on what is best for individual employees[ CITATION

Bas \l 1033 ]. Transformational leaders use three different methods for managing their employees.

Using Contingent rewards they praise employees for their accomplishments, using Active

management by exception they leave employees to do their work without interventions, but at

the same time predicting and preventing possible problems from occurring. Third method is

Passive management by exception where manager leaves an employee to do his job and waits till

a problem arises and before coming to rescue[ CITATION Bas \l 1033 ].

Both Theory Y and Transformational Leadership are very similar because they support

the idea that the major manager’s work is to inspire employees, to show their best potential.

Managers believe in their self-motivation and self-actualization.

Regarding Google's case, management style is innovating by providing its employees

freedom to choose the projects they are most interested in, so they can focus on work that best

fits their interests and helps on self-actualization. There is very little micromanagement, as
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 16

Google prefers employees to take ownership of their work, stay creative and feel their

contribution.

Article presentation

The role of management innovativeness in modern organizations

Aim: The main purpose of this paper is to emphasize the role and importance of

management innovativeness for development of innovative working and behavior of

organization and its employees.

Problem: Differences between low and high developed organizations are also due to the

low innovativeness, i.e. the level of innovative working and behavior of all employees.

Table 1: “Conceptual model”


CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 17

Note. Table 1. Retrieved from “The role of management innovativeness in modern


organizations”,[ CITATION Ned \l 1033 ].
Potocan, The role of management innovativeness in modern organizations, 2013.

Hypotheses:

1. Looking from the perspective of increasing level of innovativeness in

organizations, institutional framework for innovativeness is adequate it is mostly

management innovativeness that creates obstacles for innovations in

organizations.

2. One of the main factors that impact management innovativeness are personal

values as a main drivers between low and high innovative management.

Relevance to Google's case:

This article is relevant to the case study of Google. Google is an example of highly

innovative company when we talk about technology but also in company’s organizational

behavior.

This company focuses on best quality of employees as it means long-term future success.

To keep these employees, management had to adjust the style of management to keep up with

rapidly changing work environment and employees expectations in IT industry.

Management in Google was adjusted to bottom-up environment in the company where

people are encouraged to produce ideas, execute them and learn from mistakes. Management’s

role in this environment is to encourage employees’ creativity not creating additional layers of

bureaucracy or restrictions.

Questions:
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 18

1. What are the main differences between low innovative companies and high innovative

companies from management perspective?

Low Innovative companies are tied by their outdates values/ethics, lacks of innovative

culture, unwillingness to take risks and invest in organizational development. While high

innovative companies are the ones that quickly adapts to new innovations, promotes

innovative thinking inside of organization, praise employees on their innovativeness and

entrepreneurship.

2. What are the main distinctions of highly innovative management?

Highly innovative management value and motivate creative employees, stimulates

creation of new ideas, accepts and adapts to changes and believes that innovativeness in

organization is critical for organizational success.

3. What are the main factors that influence innovativeness in organizations?

There are three levels of factors that can influence innovativeness in organizations:

 Unconsidered environment (International Organizations, i.e. EU, OECD, IMF, etc.);

 Socio-cultural environment (Country’s innovation policy);

 Organizational environment (Management of organization, innovative capacity in the

organization, organization’s values and goals).

Suggestions for future solutions


Google is extremely well developed company with top-notch engineers, best experts and

brain trust tech-savvy managers. Seems Google works as unbreakable chain and all the
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 19

departments, including human resource management, are refined to the perfectness. But sky is

the limit.

Even though, the article “System Infrastructure at Google” gives a brief view on how

company’s structure is made, what makes Google the most admired place to seek a job, how

managers solve problems, there are some other points worth to be mentioned in order to improve

for future development.

Richard Feloni, the journalist at “Business Insider” in his article analyses what can be

done for Google’s workers sake to bring their performances to highest level. Firstly, according to

Feloni, there should be annual switch ups between the teams. The research results of talent

development department states that “employees who had switched from the lowest quartile of

managers (those with relatively bad performance and unhappy teams) to the highest quartile of

managers (those with the best performance and happiest teams) performed better” [ CITATION

Fel15 \l 1033 ]. This switch would be a mutual benefit for both teams. The best manager would be

a role model for a weaker team and make them work better and improve efficiency, while less

skilled team members would be able to learn from the rest of stronger team’s members [ CITATION

Fel15 \l 1033 ].

The other idea of improving microclimate and teams’ efficiency would be anonymous

feedback survey. Employees anonymously rate their managers, each manager would get a report

on what he or she is doing right and on what the catch up is needed. Being anonymous would

bring confrontation risk to the minimum, because not every worker would feel convenient to

speak up about disappointment to his manager. This anonymous survey would strongly

encourage managers to start a discussion on how to lead better[ CITATION Fel15 \l 1033 ].
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 20

Google president of people operations Lazslo Bock in his book “Work Rules!” talks

about nine behaviors Google managers should be judged on:

 They give actionable feedback that helps their employees improve their performance.

 They do not micromanage by getting involved in details that should be handled at other

levels.

 They show consideration for their employees as individuals.

 They keep their team focused on its priority results/deliverables.

 They regularly share with their team relevant information from their own manager and

senior leadership.

 They have meaningful discussions about career development with each member of their

team at least once every six months.

 They communicate clear goals for their team.

 They possess the technical expertise required to effectively manage their team.

 Their employees would recommend them to their colleagues[ CITATION Fel15 \l 1033 ].

Even though if you have a plan and guideline on how to be a good leader and manager,

most companies are better at exhorting you to be a great manager, rather than telling you how to

be a great manager. Google should train managers on how to be the best in their field and reach

their goals using human resource. It is very easy to give an instruction and tell how to do it, but it

is very hard to implement innovations and execute it smoothly[ CITATION Fel15 \l 1033 ].
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 21

Conclusion

The article “Systems Infrastructure at Google” gives a quite deep understanding about

Google’s inside culture, explains the key to success in managing human resource and tells how

to build a strong leading team from brain trusted employee.

The analysis was made using scientific articles like “A theory of human motivation” by

Maslov, “Human Side of Enterprise” by McGregor and so on. They provide an explanation why

Google is so successful. Though, further analysis can be conducted, but for that purpose d

different perspective on the company should be given. Human resource is one of the major, but

not the only reason for Google to be successful.

This article proves that giving a total freedom sometimes gives unbelievable advantage,

for example letting Google’s worker do whatever they are best at, and not turning it into chaos.

The lesson is taught that every worker should be in a right place and only then they bring an

ultimate benefit to their teams and company. Innovative Google Company sometimes had to

solve the same problem in various ways. There was a possibility of multiple teams working on

the same matter but exploring different ways of its development. Allowing several teams to work

on their own ideas for the same matter- brought up the perennial question of innovation versus

efficiency. And as we can see both innovation and efficiency succeeded and won. Being versatile

in human resource management brings comparative advantage to any company.

Google started in the garage and grew into the biggest and most innovative company in

the world. At the moment, Google has around 53, 600 full-time employees worldwide and is

extremely successful because it has a clear mission and clear statement, which is: “to organize

the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” [ CITATION Abo15 \l 1033 ] .

Google never stops; they reach one goal and right away move on another goal. Other companies
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 22

stop when they meet their expectations and goals, but not Google. They even gear up to another

level start work on bigger projects.

Google pays the biggest attention to the people they hire. This company focuses on best

quality of employees as it means long-term future success. To keep these employees,

management had to adjust the style of management to keep up with rapidly changing work

environment and employees expectations in IT industry. Google is probably the best example of

how innovative company should be.

Works Cited
About Google. (2015). Retrieved 10 19, 2015, from Google.com: http://www.google.com/about/

Bass, B. (1985). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New York Free press.

Retrieved 10 17, 2015

Feloni, R. (2015, 04 23). Google's HR boss says the best managers practice these 9 habits.

Retrieved from BusinessInsider: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-on-habits-of-

best-managers-2015-4

Gaudin , S. (2015, 08). 5 Things You Need to Know about Google and Alphabet. Retrieved 10

19, 2015, from Computerworld:

http://www.computerworld.com/article/2971213/search/5-things-you-need-to-know-

about-google-and-alphabet.html

Google Search Statistics. (2015). Retrieved from Internet Live Stat:

http://www.internetlivestats.com/google-search-statistics/
CASE ANALYSIS “SYSTEM INFRASTRUCTURE AT GOOGLE” 23

Hill, L. A., & Stecker, E. (2010, August 4). System Infrastructure at Google. Harvard Business

School. Retrieved 10 11, 2015

Maslow, A. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 370–96.

McGregor, D. (1960). Human Side of Enterprise. The Management Review. Retrieved 10 17,

2015, from http://www.kean.edu/~lelovitz/docs/EDD6005/humansideofenterprise.pdf

Nedelko , Z., & Potocan, V. (2013). The Role of Management Innovativeness in Modern

Organizations. Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global

Economy.

Our history in depth. (2015, 10). Retrieved 10 19, 2015, from Google Company:

https://www.google.com/about/company/history/

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