An Ethical Organizational Communication of Google - Coursework Example

An Ethical Organizational Communication Analysis of Google An Ethical Organizational Communication Analysis of Google Introduction Google is an American transnational company that specializes in services and products relating to the internet. Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded the company in September 1998 and it is located in Mountain View, California at a famous building known as the Googleplex. It is The company’s business involves web-based emailing through the Gmail platform, internet search through the Google search engine, social networking through Google Plus, video sharing by offering You-tube, online mapping using Google Maps, office productivity using Google drive, software production, cloud computing and advertising services such as Adsense and Adwords. Google is one of the most popular and highly admired companies in the world owing to its corporate culture, vast innovation, employee satisfaction and customer service (Google, 2014). The company is oriented towards youth empowerment and it tends to favor ability over experience. It has a unique corporate culture where the employees dress casually, ride bikes and scooters around the premises, engage in recreational activities such as sports and have special rooms for taking short naps aimed at improving creativity and productivity. The company is unique in every aspect and the executives attempt to preserve a small company feel (Medaille, 2010). How Google aligns personal, professional, and organizational aspirations and behaviors Google is able to align personal, professional and organizational aspirations and behaviors by employing a unique organizational culture. The company ensures that the employees abide by Google organizational culture, which revolves around the company’s mission statement. Google’s mission statement is to "to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful" (Google, 2014). The company’s goals are entwined with the employees’ aspirations, therefore, providing a comfortable environment that promotes creativity among the employees. The employees are able to interact freely through the enhancement of communication by allowing them to take free hardware such as laptops and phones from the company’s stores. The employees are able to rest and play different games within the company, as it provides facilities that promote these activities. It also offers a flexible work schedule that allows them to work during at own time, thus promoting self-policing. This enables them to integrate the company’s goals and their goals, thus working hard toward their goals. Google also emphasizes on teamwork. A team leader who inspires the team members to achieve their goals heads each department in the company through proper communication channels (Google, 2014). The employees use many forms of communication from face to face meetings, video calls, emails and other technologically oriented ways of communication. The company has been able to align personal, professional and organizational goals using this unique organizational culture (Medaille, 2010). How Google builds trust among organizational stakeholders Google engages its stakeholders in a variety of activities that help in building trust with its stakeholders. Google has a wide range of stakeholders ranging from the shareholders, users, advertisers, employees and developers. The company has more than one billion users and it promotes trust with them by providing quality products and services. Google ensures that that its services are relevant to the users and the products are well engineered to suit the user’s needs. Therefore, the users have developed a form of trust with Google’s products, as they serve them suitably in their day-to-day operations. Google has developed trust with the investors by helping them earn a lot of money every financial year. Google has employed competent staff, who are able to maintain the financial success garnered by the company. This translates to high profits, which are shared among the shareholders. Google provides numerous benefits to its employees. The company also ensures that the employees work in a conducive environment, which promotes motivation and increases job satisfaction. Google has been recognized severally, as the best company to work for in the world. The fact that the company provides different amenities and work flexibility enables Google to build trust with its employees. Google’s main stakeholders are the advertisers, as they provide the company’ income. Google has developed several advertising technologies that are used in enhancing advertisements. The company ensures that the advertisements are viewed by a large number of people, therefore, making a positive impact on the advertisers. Google continues to develop new advertisement technologies to improve marketing, therefore, building trust with the advertisers (Google, 2014). How well Google encourages participation and involvement in decision-making Google encourages participation and involvement in decision-making by encouraging the employees and customers to give feedback. The company ensures that its employees are actively involved in the decision-making process by participating in the data used in improving the company (Scott, 2008). The decision-making process in Google follows a bottom-up approach where the views of the employees are considered in the management of the company. Customers are also allowed to provide feedback, which is considered when implementing policies and developing new products and services. Communication is essential in the decision-making process. The customers are able to leave responses on the company’s website and blogs. The employees use different platforms such as emails, hangouts and video calls to communicate with the managers. These communication channels enable the customers and the employees to make important contributions in the company’s management (Google, 2014). How well Google establishes appropriately transparent structures, policies, and procedures Google is a company that advocates for transparency in its dealings, policies and procedures. The company provides all its information on its website and produces numerous reports that detail transactions in the company. However, some regulatory groups such as Transparency International indicate that Google has not been transparent in its financial dealings in foreign countries (Information Age, 2012). The group indicates that Google may try to evade paying taxes by failing to indicate some financial transactions in some countries. However, Google tries to highlight its financial records in its websites, therefore, indicating a level of transparency in its dealings (Scott, 2008). How Google handles accountability in anticipating and responding to ethical crises Google tries to handle the ethical issues concerning privacy and property rights with urgency and importance but many issues tend to hinder the company from obtaining success. Firstly, different governments may hinder the company’s efforts of making information private. Secondly, some Google products and services infringe upon the privacy and property rights of some individuals. Take the example of Google Books. The service infringes on copyright issues when the public accesses a certain book. However, the company tries to seek f the authors’ permission to display the book. An individual may also be able to look up the details concerning a certain individual without his or her consent. Google may be able to pull down one’s information when he or she requests for the service. Altogether, Google is not sufficiently capable of handling different ethical issues emanating from its business’ nature (Medaille, 2010). How Google encourages efforts to identify and respond to ethical dilemmas Google encourages concerned individuals to respond to ethical dilemmas by providing various sections where they can report the issues. Google is concerned with the users’ privacy or other ethical issues that they may need to addressed. The company provides certain links, where the user may report ethical issues that need to be covered. This shows that Google cares about the users by encouraging them to point out the areas that need to be changed. In the work environment, the company ensures that the employees are comfortable and in case of any ethical dilemmas, they are required to report to the relevant authorities (Scott, 2008). Recommendations Google needs to make significant improvements especially in the numerous fields concerning ethical issues. The company needs to implement strict measures concerning privacy and copyright issues. Google also needs to ensure that the information provided by the users is not given to third parties such as governments. In some countries like China and Syria, Google has been subject to controversy, as the governments ask for censorship. The company should ensure that human rights and freedoms are not infringed by denying the citizens some form of information. The company has also been under criticism for lack of transparency in its financial transactions. This means that the company needs to provide its financial records in a transparent manner, therefore, avoiding negative criticism from some lobby groups (Jurevicius, 2013). References Google. (n.d.). Google Company. Google. Retrieved http://www.google.com/about/company/ Information Age. (2012, May 10). Amazon and Google rated least transparent tech giants | Information Age. Retrieved http://www.information-age.com/it-management/skills-training-and-leadership/2111928/amazon-and-google-rated-least-transparent-tech-giants Jurevicius, O. (2013, March 10). SWOT analysis of Google. Google SWOT analysis 2013. Retrieved http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/swot-analyses/google-swot-analysis.html Medaille, A. (2010). A Review of “The Google Way: How One Company Is Revolutionizing Management as We Know It”. Journal of Web Librarianship, 4(1), 102-103. Scott, V. A. (2008). Google. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Read More