MGT1301 Report: Analyzing Google's Organizational Structure

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Google's organizational structure, focusing on its cross-functional, team-based approach. The report details how Google's structure supports innovation, employee engagement, and effective decision-making processes. It explores the advantages of this structure, including improved insights, engaged employees, clear priorities, and open communication. The report examines how Google's structure fosters a collaborative environment where employees at all levels contribute to the decision-making process. Additionally, the report references academic and non-academic sources to support its claims and provide a detailed understanding of Google's organizational design and its impact on the company's success. The report also discusses the reasons behind Google choosing such a structure, highlighting how it aligns with the company's business model and need for constant innovation in the technology industry.

Running head: GOOGLE’S ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
GOOGLE’S ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
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Author Note

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Executive Summery
The report is prepared to identify and analyse the organisational structure of Google and the
reason behind choosing such organisational structure by the Google.
The Google have the cross – functional organisational structure and the main reason behind
this is that this organisational structure provides the equal importance to each employees and
each employee is the part of the decision making process of the firm. As well as there are
various other advantages of cross – functional organisational structure those are the reason
why Google structured its organisation is such way.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Organisation Structure...........................................................................................................3
Organizational structure of Google........................................................................................4
Reason for structuring the organisation in such way.............................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
The report titled “Google’s Organisational Structure” is prepared to outline the
organisation structure of Google. Google is the America based multinational company which
deals in the technology and internet related services and products including the online
advertisement, cloud computing, search engine and like. The company deals both hardware
and software. This is one of the big four technology company of the world long with the
Apple, Amazon and Facebook. The company was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin is
1998 in California (Google 2019). Later on Google become one of the leading subsidiary of
Conglomerate Company called Alphabet Inc. and still the firm is working under the umbrella
of the Alphabet Inc. The core business of the Google is the search engine apart from the
company reported the massive growth by offering the several services. Some important
service offered by Google are Google Docs, Gmail, Google map, YouTube, Google Chrome
and various other. The company also produces the various hardware products like Nexus,
Google Pixel, Google Home, Google Fiber and various. This report is aimed to identify and
analyse the organizational structure of the Google and try to explain why the organization is
structured in such way.
Discussion
Organisation Structure
Before going to identify the organisational structure of Google it is important to
understand that what the organisational structure means. Hence, the organisational structure
is a system, which outlines way in which any activity of the firm is performed to achieve the
business goal (Winnubst 2017). Here, the activities refers to the responsibilities, rule and
roles of the different department, sections or the employees of the firm. The organisational
structure of any firm also determine the way in which the information will flow among the

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different levels of the firm. Having a proper organisational structure in the firm helps the firm
to be more focused, effective and productive.
Organizational structure of Google
The organizational structure of Google is one of the fundamental factor behind the
success of the company is its technology business. The organizational structure of the firm is
the anatomy and arrangement of the various business component of the firm mainly in terms
of resources and processes (Ahmady, Mehrpour and Nikooravesh 2016). In context of the
Google, the firm designed its organizational structure in such way which supports its
creativity and innovation. The main characteristic of the organizational structure of Google is
the innovation which helps the firm to increase the product development that provide the high
competiveness and performance in the technology industry. The product development is very
important for any company. Hence, the product development is also important part of
Google’s generic competitive strategy as well as intensive growth strategies. Hence, the
organizational structure of Google helps the management to maintain the effectiveness in the
performance of the firm and to give tough competition to its competitors those are Apple,
Amazon, Microsoft and all.
From the starting of the business, Google is known for its cross – functional or the
team based organizational structure. The organizational structure of Google considers the
employees in the bottom, supervisor above the employees and then the management above
the supervisors the then the top management above the all (Grubenmann 2017). This is the
vertical approach of the management. In this the decisions are made by the top management
and then the information are share in the downward from top management to employees. The
cross – functional organizational structure allows all the employees are free to be the part of
the decision making process of the firm and each employee gets the equal importance in the
decision making process of the firm, which is the main reason behind the success of the firm

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in their internet based business. The cross – functional organisational structure of the firm
provides the opportunity to its employees to be the part of the decision making process of the
company as well as this organisational structure make the employees free to share their
opinion and experiences directly in the decision making procedure of the firm (Morris, Tod
and Oliver 2015). This organisational structure also give the equal importance to the each of
the employee weather he or she is just an employee or the supervisor or from the
management. This type of organisational structure is very important for those companies
which business are fully based of the creativity and innovation and the creativity and
innovation is the important part of the Google’s business.
Reason for structuring the organisation in such way
As discussed above that the business of Google is fully based on the innovation and
creativity and the both are required for the success of the business. Therefore, to identify the
creativity and innovation among the employees, the organisational structure of the Google is
designed in such a way that is the cross – functional organisational structure. In this, the
employees are also the part of the decision making process of the firm and free to share their
opinion and idea. This also encourage the employees to share their opinion and idea as this
structure give the equal importance to each employee (Soderstrom and Weber 2019). This
helps the firm to get the innovative and creative ideas from their employees which help the
firm to develop new and innovative products. Apart from that this type of organisational
structure also have the various other advantages some of them can be explained by the
following points which are also the major reason behind having the cross – functional
organisational structure in Google: -
 Provides a better insight: - This type of organisational structure provides a better
insight of the creative ideas. As we all know, that the creativity is the group process,
when the manager make the every person free to share their idea in a group then each

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person come up with his own idea and the collaboration of the ideas always provide
an unique outcome.
 Engaged Employees: - As this type of organisational structure provides equal
importance to each of the employees and also consider the employees in the decision
making process which make the employees always engaged and motivated.
 Clear priorities and directions: - This organisational structure also provides the
clear priorities and directions to the employees of the firm which helps them to
perform their role and function in more effective as well as in innovative way.
 Adequate Communication: - As the name of the cross – functional organisational
structure suggests, the communication is in this structure is free from any level or
procedure which means that anyone can communicate with anyone (Su, Chen and
Wang 2019). This provides the adequate communication in the organisation that is
free from any misunderstanding and misinterpretation.
 No conflicting personal goals: - Such organizational structure increase the
transparency in the performance of the employees as employee of every level is the
part of the decision making process of the firm and each employee of every level get
the equal attention. This reduces the conflict among the personal goals of the
employees as all will get same importance and the level of employees is not very
important.
 Open – minded team: - This organisational structure also provide the open minded
team to the management as they are always free to share their opinion and ideas to the
management as well as they also have the importance from the management.
The above stated advantages of the cross – functional organisational structure are the
reason why Google obtaining the cross – functional as the organisational structure. There are
the various other advantages of having the cross – functional organisational structure (Ilin

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2016). Lastly, as per the requirement of the firm and the nature of business of the Google, the
cross – functional organisational structure is best suited organisational structure for the firm
and hence the firm reported the tremendous growth in the internet and information
technology field of its business.
Conclusion
The paper concludes that the Google is an America based company which involved in
the various type of internet based products and services. The company is one of the top
internet based company of the world. The firm have the cross – functional organisational
structure in its organisation which help them to produce and provides the innovative and
creative products to its customers. The main reason behind having such type of organisational
structure is that in this type of structure the employees of the firm is free to share their idea
and opinion and be the part of the decision making process of the firm which help the firm to
identify the innovative and creative ideas from their employees.

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References
Ahmady, G.A., Mehrpour, M. and Nikooravesh, A., 2016. Organizational
structure. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, pp.455-462.
Askoul, R., Khan, H.U. and Lalitha, V.M., 2016. Cross-functional integration of marketing
and information services in banking: a cross-industry comparison. International Journal of
Process Management and Benchmarking, 6(1), pp.57-78.
Bai, W., Feng, Y., Yue, Y. and Feng, L., 2017. Organizational structure, cross-functional
integration and performance of new product development team. Procedia Engineering, 174,
pp.621-629.
Google 2019. About | Google. [online] About.google. Available at: https://about.google/
[Accessed 23 Aug. 2019].
Grubenmann, S., 2017. Matrix organisation: The design of cross-beat teamwork in
newsrooms. Journalism Practice, 11(4), pp.458-476.
Ilin, I.V., Kalinina, O.V., Levina, A.I. and Iliashenko, O.Y., 2016. Approach to
Organizational Structure Modelling in Construction Companies. In MATEC Web of
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Morris, R., Tod, D. and Oliver, E., 2015. An analysis of organizational structure and
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Nguyen, N.P., Ngo, L.V., Bucic, T. and Phong, N.D., 2018. Cross-functional knowledge
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competition. Industrial Marketing Management, 71, pp.123-134.

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Soderstrom, S.B. and Weber, K., 2019. Organizational Structure from Interaction: Evidence
from Corporate Sustainability Efforts. Administrative Science Quarterly,
p.0001839219836670.
Su, Z., Chen, J. and Wang, D., 2019. Organisational structure and managerial innovation: the
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Management, 31(3), pp.253-265.
Winnubst, J., 2017. Organizational structure, social support, and burnout. In Professional
burnout (pp. 151-162). Routledge.