The success and failure of a company depends on a variety of different reasons. This evidently lays emphasis on the fact that a company’s overall fate can be determined through the number of practices it undertakes both internally as well as externally. The following paper evidently strives to present a comparative study between Google and Yahoo. This essentially elaborates the fact that the paper will present the organizational structure and culture of both companies. In addition to this, the paper also strives to discuss the mode of communication that has been adopted by both organizations. The paper will also elaborate the leadership as well as the management style of both organizations. In addition to this, the following paper will also explain how the organizational culture, structure and management style relates to the success and the failure of both organizations. The paper will also present the HR strategic planning, recruitment and selection strategy of both the companies. Finally, the paper will also propose certain recommendations based on the OBHR concepts.
In regards to Google, the company follows a team based organizational structure which is also known as a matrix structure. This evidently lays emphasis on the fact that at Google, the employees are split into teams where they report to multiple number of leaders. This means that the members of the team do not only report to their team leader but also report to their department head in order to conduct their daily functioning (Holbeche, 2019). However, in regards to Yahoo, the company mainly follows a functional organizational structure. This is one of the most common organizational structures and is mostly followed in tech companies. A functional organizational structure mainly includes different departments that have been created on the basis of different areas of expertise.
On the other hand, in terms of organizational culture, Google follows a flat organizational structure. This means that Google believes in encouraging its workforce to have an opinion. It is imperative to know that a flat organizational structure enables employees from all levels of the company to communicate freely with one another. However, in terms of Yahoo, the company follows a hierarchical organizational culture (Kawiana et al, 2018). This means that the company believes in a structured and controlled work culture within the office.
In regards to Google, the company follows a wide range of communication tools as their mode of communication. This evidently lays emphasis on the fact that since the company follows a matrix structure of organization, it also practices a free and open relationship with its workforce. This means that the employees at Google have the freedom to approach and speak to anybody working in the company irrespective of their rank (Fesharaki, 2021). On the other hand, in regards to Yahoo, the company follows a rigid and structured mode of communication. This means that the company believes in following a structured hierarchical process in regards to communication. In comparison, this suggests that while the employees at Google have the freedom to communicate, the employees at Yahoo have to go through a structural process so that they can communicate their message to those above them (Mo?teanu, 2020).
In terms of Google, the company follows a distributed style of leadership. This means that the company believes in shared management. This also lays emphasis on the fact that in regards to management the company follows a democratic style of conducting business. This also brings to light the fact that at Google the company believes in providing equal rights to its workforce (Felipe et al, 2017). This is why in accordance to its leadership style the company strives to enable its employees with an opinion and a choice in regards to every major decision. On the other hand, Yahoo as a company follows a transformation and a transactional leadership style. This evidently lays emphasis on the fact that the company believes in encouraging its workforce to enhance their performance through the implementation of rewards and punishment. This further elaborates the fact that while Google believes in a free and fair mode of management within their company, Yahoo follows a more direct and incentivized mode of functioning (Liebowitz & Beckman, 2020).
The company’s culture, structure, and management styles affect their success and failures. In the case of Google, their HR constantly experiments and improves the management and culture by providing a good working environment, freedom and flexibility for employees, and work that is meaningful. The success of Google is the consequence of their non-stop cultural and subcultural development. Their culture is collaborative in nature and allows a decentralized workforce having integrated units who work together to come up with effective solutions to any emergent problems (Isac et al., 2021). The Google employees follow a strict hierarchy and have well-defined responsibilities and roles. The sales people do not have to follow any hierarchies but they do follow a culture that is competitive.
On the contrary, the organizational culture of Yahoo is bureaucratic in nature as well as also displays the basic characteristics of a role culture where the employees are delegated responsibilities and roles based on their specialization and expertise. This organizational structure and culture limit the ability of the management to take fast and informed decisions. Yahoo’s failure also resulted from their fragmentation of their cohesiveness as several of the employees does not have any supportive framework due to which various projects are dropped off at the initial stage (Stone et al., 2016, May). The main reasons for Yahoo’s failure involve their aged-old business structure as well as human factors. The leadership of Yahoo has also changed five times which contributed to their downfall.
The strategic planning of HR includes setting up the various processes as well as understanding and allocating the right resources and investments so that the market dynamics are not affected adversely. The office locations and workplaces of Google are constructed over sprawling spaces that provides space for innovation and creativity of the employees, at the same time ensuring that the management is able to study, acknowledge, and possibly work on the ideas of the employees. The chief HR philosophy is hiring the correct people and the median age of the employees are 27 years which makes it the youngest workforce within the industry. Keeping this in mind, the turnover rates and retention data of Google provides clear evidences of the success they are able to achieve on a daily basis as they are able to retain, attract and motivate the most difficult generation which is the generation Y (cyber generation) (Xenikou, 2022). Google’s external events reflect their excellent practices and awareness about recruitment and internal culture, which they strive to maintain as a collaborative, open culture. The talent management of Google’s HR includes training and development activities and planning. Google offers huge opportunities in this sector. Google offers professional development chances which include simple skills like presentation to complex leadership. They also provide free language lessons owing to their inclusive workplace practices and to enhance intercultural communication. Google also offers separate growth opportunities to their league of engineers.
The HR strategic planning mainly includes divisional alignment of strategic capabilities and skills, creating long-term visions in alignment with organizational strategic goals and market-driven forces, conducting gap analysis to formulate clear and specific strategies or objectives. Strategies also include effective strategies and tools for the retention and development of employees. The strategies also include an authentic environment for work and building the loyalty of employees through benefit schemes and attractive bonus structures (Stevens, Xie & Peng, 2016). They also provide various talent management opportunities for their people. The primary limitations of Yahoo’s HR strategies lie in their lack of attention towards employee assistance and their development programs. The company has no such employee assistance program or educational and training benefits which is the reason for their failure.
Few recommendations for Google and Yahoo based on the analysis and OBHR concepts include the following;
Conclusion
Therefore, to summarize the information and data presented above the success of Google is basically owed to their human resource department strategies, operations, organizational culture, leadership style, hierarchy, structure, values and so on. On the contrary, the similar factors are responsible for the downfall of Yahoo. Therefore, it is clear that organizational culture, structure, and management strategies are crucial for determining the direction of the company.
References
Felipe, C. M., Roldán, J. L., & Leal-Rodríguez, A. L. (2017). Impact of organizational culture values on organizational agility. Sustainability, 9(12), 2354.
Fesharaki, F. (2021). Memetic mapping and genealogy of Google’s organizational culture. International Journal of Organizational Analysis.
Holbeche, L. S. (2019). Shifts in organizational culture when implementing agility. Journal of Creating Value, 5(2), 124-138.
Isac, N., Dobrin, C., Raphalalani, L. P., & Sonko, M. (2021). Does Organizational Culture Influence Job Satisfaction? A Comparative Analysis of Two Multinational Companies. Revista de Management Comparat International, 22(2), 138-157.
Kawiana, I. G. P., Dewi, L. K. C., Martini, L. K. B., & Suardana, I. B. R. (2018). The influence of organizational culture, employee satisfaction, personality, and organizational commitment towards employee performance. International research journal of management, IT and social sciences, 5(3), 35-45.
Liebowitz, J., & Beckman, T. (2020). Knowledge organizations: What every manager should know. CRC press.
Mo?teanu, N. R. (2020). Challenges for Organizational Structure and design as a result of digitalization and cybersecurity. The Business & Management Review, 11(1), 278-286.
Pi?at, M. (2016, March). How organizational culture influences building a learning organization. In Forum Scientiae Oeconomia (Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 83-92).
Stevens, C. E., Xie, E., & Peng, M. W. (2016). Toward a legitimacy?based view of political risk: The case of Google and Yahoo in China. Strategic management journal, 37(5), 945-963.
Stone, M., Bentley, F., White, B., & Shebanek, M. (2016, May). Embedding user understanding in the corporate culture: Ux research and accessibility at yahoo. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 823-832).
Trautman, L. J., & Ormerod, P. C. (2016). Corporate directors’ and officers’ cybersecurity standard of care: The Yahoo data breach. Am. UL Rev., 66, 1231.
Xenikou, A. (2022). Leadership and organizational culture. In Handbook of Research Methods for Organisational Culture. Edward Elgar Publishing.
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