Impact of Evolution of Microsoft Corporate Culture - Case Study Example

Impact of Evolution of Corporate Culture: A Case of Microsoft Corporate culture is an aspect of an organization that is greatly influenced by the leadership of the organization. According to Mowat (3), corporate culture could be described as the shared beliefs, values, and behaviors in an organization that are used to guide activities in the organization. The culture is expected to change with changes in leadership strategies that come when a new business leader gets in control. Microsoft Corporation has experienced such changes in its leadership when Bill Gates retired from the CEO position and Steve Ballmer became the new CEO. This paper analyzes the changes in Microsoft’s corporate culture due to this change in leadership and how its impact on the financial performance of the company. Bill Gates was a brilliant business leader when he cofounded Microsoft. This is because the company became one of the greatest companies of the time in terms of revenues and employment levels. However, he was a hot-tempered person with parceled-out praise (Boston par. 1). These two personalities greatly influenced his leadership in the organization. One of the influences that his personality influenced in the organization was the corporate culture. The organizational culture became one in which the people behind the high performance of the organization are not credited. During his time as the CEO, he used to bear all the credits for the new inventions of the company and high performance of the company. Culture of fear among Microsoft employees was dominant during the tenure of Bill Gates as the CEO. Employees in this organization used to be afraid of Bill Gates’ steps because of his temper. As a result, they worked with fear of doing something that might annoy their CEO. This retarded the innovativeness of the organization. Moreover, during Bill Gates time as the CEO, the company used to value its products more than it valued the individuals and the process used to produce those products. This resulted to a culture of undertaking activities because of being required to do so by the management of the organization. As a result, employees were not doing their best in terms of performance. After Bill Gates retirement, the company acquired a new face under the leadership of Steve Ballmer. Since Steve Ballmer was not a co-founder of the organization, inventions began to be credited on the employees of the organization. This made every employee involved in the invention of a new technology innovated by the organization to be proud of the invention. Moreover, Steve Ballmer was not as hot tempered as Bill Gates was in his management. As a result, he could accept disappointments from employees as long as the disappointments come in an effort to provide innovations in the company. This eliminated the culture of fear and introduced a culture of self-confidence among the employees. The three key aspects of corporate culture of Microsoft changed greatly with the change in leadership. These key aspects were organizational behavior, beliefs, and values. Most of the values changed positive. However, there were some inconspicuous negative changes in the culture of Microsoft when Ballmer took charge as the CEO. The negative changes were like giving very little attention to innovation of new technology. Positive changes experienced on these aspects of corporate culture were large and conspicuous. This is because the new leader that took charge had new leadership qualities different from those of the previous leader. Moreover, he had learnt the weakness of the previous leader and had an objective of collecting those weaknesses. Organizational behavior is greatly shaped by the leadership in the company. This kind of behavior encompasses how employees behave towards each other and how they behave when within the organization. During the tenure of Bill Gates as the CEO, employees used to carry themselves with fear when within the organization. This was because of the temperament of their CEO. Moreover, they used to be afraid of their colleagues especially those in senior positions. This is different in the tenure of Steve Ballmer as the CEO. In this tenure, employees no longer carry themselves with fear of their CEO. Moreover, they do not fear their colleagues even those in senior positions. Therefore, this aspect of corporate culture has changed greatly in Microsoft Corporation with retirement of Bill Gates and appointment of Steve Ballmer as the CEO. Organizational beliefs in Microsoft are another key aspect of corporate culture that changed greatly with the changes in leadership. During the tenure of Bill Gates, much focus was made on achieving the desires of the customers while failing to consider the employees and other stakeholders (Hayes 1). This made the company’s effort to be focused on introduction of software to address the need of customers. The tenure of Steve Ballmer as the CEO has a slightly different major believe. After the appointment of Steve Ballmer as the CEO, Microsoft started to believe in the goodness of every stakeholder involved in the production of innovation. Innovations in this company are currently undertaken with an aim of improving the well-being of the customers as well as that of the stakeholders and the employees. Values of the organization are the other aspect of corporate culture of Microsoft that has changed greatly since the retirement of Bill Gates. Currently, the organization values global diversity and inclusion in its workforce (Microsoft par. 1). This is because it believes that this is the greatest tool for improving performance of their business. Due to this value, the company employs people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds. Moreover, it does not discriminate the disabled persons as long as they have the required qualities to work in the organization. This is very different from the way it was during the tenure of Bill Gates as the CEO. In this tenure, Microsoft did not consider global diversity in recruiting their employees. Neither did the company consider the people with disabilities when filling its vacant positions. Changes in the corporate culture of Microsoft have greatly influenced the financial performance of this company. The changes in organizational behavior resulted to eradication of fear among employees and introduction of self-confidence. Self-confidence promoted the innovativeness of employees their respective roles. Moreover, it promoted teamwork among the employees of this corporation. This is because the employees stopped fearing each other thus working together as a team. As a result, the productivity of these employees was greatly enhanced leading to increased overall productivity of the organization. This resulted to an improved financial performance of this information technology company. The financial performance of Microsoft Corporation was also greatly affected by changes in the beliefs of the organization. The changes in the leadership changed the focus of the company from addressing the desires of the customers to benefiting the customers, employees, and other stakeholders. This focus made the organization to start considering the views of other parties like stakeholders in decision-making. This resulted to making of better decisions that improved the financial performance of the company. Moreover, the focus on wellbeing of the employees assisted the organization in improving the welfare of its workers. As a result, the workers became more motivated thus more productive. This increased the financial performance of the company in different sectors of its operation. The values of global diversity and inclusion in the workforce have also played a very great role in improving the financial performance of the Microsoft Corporation. These values were introduced when Bill Gates retired from being the CEO and Steve Ballmer was appointed in his place. Global diversity and inclusion in the workforce has enabled the organization to gain a pool of competent employees. This has enhanced the performance of the company in terms of productivity by increasing the quality and quantity of products produced by the company. This enables the company to become more profitable thus improving its financial performance. The leadership of Microsoft Corporation changed greatly with the retirement of Bill Gates and appointment of Steve Ballmer as the CEO. This resulted to the changes in this organization’s corporate. The aspects of corporate culture that changed conspicuously were the organizational behavior, beliefs, and values. Changes in these aspects of corporate culture resulted to a very great impact in the organization though improved employee performance and the decision-making. Moreover, it also resulted to some negative impacts like a reduced focus on customer satisfaction. However, the positive impacts outweigh the negative impacts that resulted from this change in leadership of Microsoft. This makes us to conclude that it is always advisable for the companies to change their leadership in an effort to improve their corporate culture. References Hayes, Frank. “Remaking Microsoft.” Computerworld 17 July 2000: 90. Print. Microsoft Corporation. A Vision and Strategy for the Future. < http://www.microsoft.com/about/diversity/en/us/vision.aspx >. 21 September 2012. Mowat, Joanne. Corporate Culture. Morristown, NJ: The Herridge Group, 2002. Print. Boston. Microsoft Corp. 2.0: A Kinder Corporate Culture. < http://articles.boston.com/2004-08-15/business/29201496_1_microsoft-corp-bill-gates-technologists>. 21 September 2012. Read More