Leadership and Innovation in Microsoft: A Case Study

This case study examines the leadership and organizational culture of Microsoft, focusing on how these factors drive innovation within the company. It analyzes Microsoft's mission, vision, values, and slogan, demonstrating their contribution to an innovation-focused environment. The study explores how the leadership of Satya Nadella fostered a culture of creativity, diversity, and inclusion, leading to new product development, including the Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, and the Surface line. The case study further details the new product development process, innovation strategies, and the company's attitude toward risk-taking. It concludes with recommendations for fostering a 'learn-it-all' mentality and encouraging diversity, ultimately aiming to enhance Microsoft's competitive edge in the global market. The study highlights the importance of strategic vocabularies, culture-driven innovation, and a robust new product development process in achieving sustained success.

Running head: LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN INNOVATION
Leadership and Organizational Culture in Innovation in Microsoft Company
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Abstract
Microsoft is an American multinational technology organization that supports and sells computer
software, consumer electronics, and personal computers along with related services. The
employees of the company abides by its mission, values slogan and vision and work together and
creatively so that they can develop new ideas for technological innovation and promising the
consumers to make their life better through offering constantly advancing innovative software
and electronic devices. Microsoft Corporation follows a leadership start-up that promotes risk
taking attitudes among the employees in order to support the innovation culture in the company.
In this risk taking strategy, the company took the risky decision to make huge investments in
innovative product development strategy

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Strategic Vocabularies.....................................................................................................................3
Culture Driven Innovation...............................................................................................................4
New Product Development Process.................................................................................................5
Innovation Strategy..........................................................................................................................7
Attitude to Risk Taking...................................................................................................................8
Recommendations............................................................................................................................9
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
Reflection.......................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
Microsoft Corporation was incorporated in the year 1993 as a technology based
organization. The business operations of the company involves developing, licensing along with
supporting a wide range of software products, devices and services. Microsoft is an American
multinational technology organization that supports and sells computer software, consumer
electronics, and personal computers along with related services (Microsoft.com 2019). The
company’s major business segments include business and productivity processes, intelligent
cloud and several other personal computing. The objective of the paper is to analyse the
leadership and organizational culture of Microsoft Company that has supported the company in
driving its innovation along with offering suitable recommendations based on the findings.
Strategic Vocabularies
 Mission Statement of Microsoft Corporation is to empower every individual and
company all over the world to achieve more (Pakdil and Leonard 2015).
 Vision Statement of the company is to help others and businesses all over the world to
realise their complete potential. This vision statement of the company focuses on
maximising every individual’s contribution ranging from employees to consumers so that
the ways they innovate naturally encompass diverse perceptions.
 Values and Slogan- Core values of Microsoft Corporation includes integrity, openness,
honesty, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, and constant self-improvement
along with mutual respect. The slogan of the company is “Be what’s Next” that is a new
corporate tagline for the organization (Alter and Rathnayaka 2019).

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The mission, vision, values and slogan of Microsoft Corporation greatly contributes towards
promoting an innovation culture in the organization. Through abiding by these strategic
vocabularies the company is committed to its consumer’s ad partners for having a passion for
technology. The employees of the company abides by its mission, values slogan and vision and
work together and creatively so that they can develop new ideas for technological innovation and
promising the consumers to make their life better through offering constantly advancing
innovative software and electronic devices (Kim and Yoon 2015).
Culture Driven Innovation
Organization culture has a huge impact on innovation that is being able to facilitate or
retrain it. The workplace culture followed by Microsoft Corporation is observed to successfully
foster innovation in the company for attaining competitive edge. The constant innovation culture
is encouraged among the employees in the company under the leadership of “CEO Satya
Nadella”. The leader focused on developing fostering the mindset of employees on creating an
inclusive culture along with thinking creatively regarding the ways in which technological
innovation can be used for developing new and advanced electronic and software products
(Busaibe et al. 2017). Microsoft Corporation strives to create a diverse business environment
through recruiting people with disabilities through inclusive hiring programs, supported
employment programs along with partnerships national and global companies. It is also observed
that the diversity culture of the company’s collective workforce is the fuel that encourages
culture of growth and innovation. Microsoft Corporation’s cultural shift under the transformative
leadership of “CEO Satya Nadella” is leading to new product development. The global
technology company was criticized lack of innovation within its product portfolio. However
under the transformative leadership followed within the company, a culture of increased

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commitment to change is developed around the company through integrating values of
innovation and creativity into organizational culture of Microsoft. Following such constant
innovating culture, Microsoft has been successfully able to attain competitive edge in the global
market (Khalili 2016). Certain instances of such culture driven innovation include Holoporation
that a new type of 3D technology that facilitates 3D technology that facilitates high quality 3D
models of people to be compressed and reconstructed. Another instance of such culture driven
innovation is Microsoft concept graph that facilitates machines to understand human
communication better. From such culture driven innovation examples it has been gathered that
the company has organization culture that is driven to create and inspired to spark change (Chen
et al. 2016). Innovation culture in Microsoft promotes individual growth, optimizing the work
environment and building confidence.
New Product Development Process
Under highly effective transformative leadership followed within Microsoft Corporation
a culture of innovation is fostered within the company the supported it in attaining highly
efficient new product development process to attain better sustainability in the global market and
compete successfully with its major business rivals (Mokhber, bin Wan Ismail and Vakilbashi
2015). New product development process of the company fostered from innovating culture has
resulted in introduction of its best-selling products such as Microsoft windows operating system,
Microsoft office and Microsoft surface The NPD process of Microsoft Corporation is indicated
below:
 Idea Generation: Innovation culture followed within the Microsoft Corporation’s
organizational setting has facilitated the company in fostering its idea generation process

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for new product development through replying certain effective techniques such as
brainstorming, mind mapping along with visualization and visual prompts (Chen, Zheng,
Yang and Bai 2016).
 Idea Screening: The idea screening process in new product development process of
Microsoft Corporation includes integrating its Windows operating system along with
increasing its product ranges having innovative features. Certain new product
development ideas those were considered by the company were video portal, security
systems, calculators, computers, education channels and e-books that will be of
economical value (Sherwood 2017).
 Concept Development and Testing: For analysing the concept of redevelopment and
testing certain ideas for new product development has been selected based on consumer
surveys. From conducting the online surveys it has been recognised that certain product
developments were desired by the consumers from Microsoft that will have unique
gestures with economical prices.
 Market Strategy Development and Manufacture- In the market development strategy,
Microsoft Corporation selected to develop its GUI surface Calculator, language
converter, because of its unique features and offer it in online shopping stores (Dodge et
al. 2017). Certain other products that are rejected by the company for development based
on consumer needs include e-book with auto shutdown saver as its inbuilt sensors are
economical and has high production cost. In manufacturing its technological innovative
software and electronic products it focuses on following the cost leadership strategy
where it manufactures products from China and offers to consumers at affordable prices
which makes them products economical.

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 Commercialization- Through offering innovative products to consumers, Microsoft
focuses on making them products of increased consumer preference. Along with ensuring
this, the company conducts online advertisement and make its innovative offerings
available in all its online and retail stores (Donate and de Pablo 2015).
Innovation Strategy
Microsoft Corporation’s “Innovation Management Framework” s developed to support
its comprehensive and integrated approach in implementing and supporting the company’s
innovation management strategy (Naqshbandi and Tabche 2018). These processes are employed
by Microsoft that facilitates the organizations in quickly implementing innovation programs
those are fit for the purpose. The innovation management framework followed within Microsoft
Corporation that includes through leadership on innovation along with its broader ecosystem.
Following such framework, the innovation strategies implemented by Microsoft Corporation is
indicated below:
 Envision- Microsoft follows new product development strategy focusing on the
consideration that innovation is critical in attaining the goals of the modern business
strategy. The Envision process of the company follows the innovation strategy and plan
for attaining its innovation goals such as launching technologically advanced products
such as GUI surface calculator and language converter (Taylor, Santiago and Hynes
2019).
 Engage- The innovation strategy of the company considers engaging consumers,
employees and partners for captivating and sharing new ideas. This innovation strategy
has facilitated the company in implementing grassroots innovation strategy in which

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different creative ideas are gathered from the companies along with attaining vast range
of ideas in launching creative products such as clouds on the horizon along with
evolution of web ad computing interfaces.
 Evolve- In this innovation strategy, Microsoft Corporation evolves new ideas as yams or
individuals for increasing their quality or values. Moreover, early feedback is also
attained by the company for issues faced by the company in improving its innovation
ideas for product development (Zach 2016).
 Evaluate- This innovation strategy of Microsoft Corporation is focussed on improving
quality and value and also considers that organizing, re-duplicating and merging ideas
can convert their ideas into development of technologically advanced products.
 Execute- Following this step, Microsoft Corporation has executed its strategically
developed business and production into strategies that has facilitated it is attaining
sustainable position in the global marketplace.
Attitude to Risk Taking
Microsoft Corporation follows a leadership start-up that promotes risk taking attitudes
among the employees in order to support the innovation culture in the company. In the past
leadership culture of the company failed as the innovation improvement efforts failed because of
lack of innovation strategy. In this risk taking strategy, the company took the risky decision to
make huge investments in innovative product development strategy (Arditi, Nayak and Damci
2017).
The leader of the company is focuses on developing a culture in the organization that
risks can be turned into big opportunities. To thrive the software competition from its major

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competitors such as IBM, Intel and Apple, the risk taking attitudes of the company has
implemented innovative approaches in product development without being sure of their success
in the market. Successful launch of new innovations on a constant basis has facilitated the
company in positioning itself as an IT giant. Successful risk taking based innovation success
includes constant development of Windows operation through making constant addition of new
features, introduction of Internet Explorer and Cloud (Hussein et al. 2016).
Recommendations
Focussed on the leadership and organizational culture followed by Microsoft in driving
constant innovation certain effective recommendations are offered to the company that can
facilitate it in creating effective working environment that can continually overcome the business
competition globally.
 “Learn-it-all mentally” strategy is recommended for the company to follow as it can
facilitate in transforming the company’s innovation culture. It will also encourage its
employees at all levels and of diverse surroundings to develop an open mind towards
learning new skills along with capabilities. This can also facilitate them to accomplish
their jobs in a better and systematic manner.
 Microsoft Corporation is also recommended to focus on encouraging diversity and
inclusion within its organizational setting as it can promote the company to develop an
environment of capitalising on diversity of people along with inclusion of solutions and
ideas. This can also facilitates in developing the needs of increasing global and diverse
consumer base.

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Conclusion
The objective of the paper was to analyse the leadership and organizational culture of
Microsoft Company that has supported the company in driving its innovation along with offering
suitable recommendations based on the findings. It was gathered from the report that
Organization culture has a huge impact on innovation that is being able to facilitate or retrain it.
The workplace culture followed by Microsoft Corporation is observed to successfully foster
innovation in the company for attaining competitive edge. Moreover, Microsoft Corporation is
also recommended to focus on encouraging diversity and inclusion within its organizational
setting as it can promote the company to develop an environment of capitalising on diversity of
people along with inclusion of solutions and ideas.
Reflection
From analysing the case of Microsoft Corporation, I have learned that fostering the
culture of constant innovation and effective leadership style followed in the company can
facilitate in driving innovation. Moreover, after completing the course I have also attained
increased knowledge regarding the fact that effective leaders are committed to organizational
growth through empowering the employees in contributing their creative business development
ideas. I have also learned that creating supporting environment by a leader can facilitate in
developing an organization cure where people can take risk, experiment and learn from their
failures in developing a product. Moreover, I have also attained knowledge from analysing the
case study of Microsoft Corporation that innovation is viewed as vital leadership capability and it
goes beyond the strategy and product development to analyse the social process that enable
companywide innovation. I have also learned that rethinking the strategic vision and business
model in building a collaborative culture within the organization can successfully encourage

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leading the creative and predictive teams in that empowers others in collaborating and innovating
each day in the company.