Introduction
Human Resource Management (HRM) today plays the significantly more strategic role than several decades ago. Globalization, international supply chain and increased diversity among workforce and customers demand companies become more focused on building competitive advantage through human capital. One of the critical elements of the contemporary HRM strategy is a creation of unique corporate culture, which according to many academic and business professionals can enable strong bond between employees and organization and ensure high performance, motivation, and retention among staff (Sadler, 2003). With that in mind, this topic received the significant amount of attention in media and academic research, building on a comprehensive and robust base of corporate experiences and studies. One of the most interesting organizations to look at is Google, who, arguably, became a pioneer in a new format of employee-employer relationships and praises itself for the unique and iconoclastic work culture. With the retirement of the SVP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock, the news came to the top of the business agenda of international media.
The News
The news, that was chosen for this document dwells upon the launching of another innovative solution for the company, building on an already strong reputation of the company as one of the most innovative and unique in its approach to the HRM and corporate culture. McGregor (2015) notes that the re:Work site, which Google management calls the “curated platform” will enable the companies, which are seeking for ideas and follow the Google HR tradition with a dedicated place to search and explore the Google world. The platform will make public such practices, as selection and hiring, anti-bias training and the regulations on parental leaves and CSR. Moreover, the company will make public the internal slide decks and checklists, used in the Google HR organization and provide an insight of the major case studies of employees from other companies, which the organization uses as the example or the study material for the development of its HR policies and practices.
The news also sheds some light on the fact that Google, even though always among early adopters and one being the first company to bring transparency in this area of the business, is not the unique organization to adopt this open and transparent HR policies and make the "world's information universally accessible" (McGregor, 2015). Comparing Google with Facebook, who also recently disclosed its unconscious bias training externally, the author still emphasizes that it is difficult to find an equal comparison to the deepness of this information in the contemporary market.
One of the important points of this news and that the article will discuss further include the universality and possibility to generalize the practices of the company, the debate about how valid nd reliable is the example of Google, which only employs 18% women in technical positions or clearly states the preference for Harward and Yale graduates. That said, Google claims that they would like to share the information, which competition can replicate because they believe that the company also "got a lot of stuff wrong along the way" and would also like to learn from others.
Analysis
Steiber and Alange (2013) explore innovation in its historical context and argue that many companies, which started as innovative organizations some time ago, have lost this spirit and culture somewhere along the way and even ceased to exist. The author explores the organizational culture for innovation from a perspective of a single firm, Google.The article looks at the aspects of corporate culture from two angles: organizational characteristics and the organizational obstacles for continuous innovation in the company. The authors conclude that Google's continuous innovation model is built upon several characteristics, including, but not limited to innovation-oriented and change-prone culture, empowerment and coaching leaders, innovation-oriented performance and incentive systems and mentoring programs on the regular employee level (Steiber and Alange, 2013), pp.252-253). Finally, the authors argue that the Google's corporate culture and innovation are the open systems, which is built upon the external interaction and learning. This, according to the research, brought a number of benefits to the organization from learning perspective and allowed fostering sustainable culture and innovation in the organization.
Tellis et al (2009) discussed the role of radical innovation in the contemporary business environment and argues that this type of innovation is crucial for sustainable competitive advantage. Radical innovation, in his opinion, comes not only from product and soft and hard features and attributes but also from the reformation and transformation of corporate culture, building on human capital as the core sustainable advantage. The authors suggest that labor is a major driver for radical innovation in the company and emphasize that the creation of motivation and loyalty among the skilled labor is essential for prerequisite for innovation culture in the company. Finally,the article explores the role of corporate culture for innovation. The arguments presented in the work include the fact that markets experience the growing convergence across emerging and developed countries, emphasizing the role of interconnectivity and transparency of the corporate culture in successful negotiations and capital access and productivity across borders; the importance of tacit knowledge unique to the firm and developed through loyalty and high retention rates, due to strong bond between organization and employee. The empirical studies, conducted by the authors to understand the drivers of radical innovation allow concluding that internal corporate culture is the key to success due to increasing globalization and lowering barriers for mobility (Steiber and Alange, 2013, pp.262-263).
The research conducted over two decades ago by Barney (1986) explores the sources of competitive advantage of a company n the rapidly changing external business environment and the development of technology. This article is interesting for this research as it allows gaining an insight into the view of innovation and culture in the beginning of such organizations, as Google and the idea of Silicon Valley in general. The authors explore various aspects, which were on top of the organizational success agenda at the time and make the conclusion that culture, leadership, and trust are central for a long-term competitive advantage of the company. The authors argue that the cultural and diversity knowledge have "fairly consistent impact on quality, regardless the strategy, chosen by the company" (Barley, 2986, p.7).
Conclusion
The analysis of the above-mentioned works demonstrates the consistent interest and a number of arguments in favor of the role of corporate culture in building sustainable competitive advantage. While it is evident that many companies recognize in the beginning of their lifecycle that innovation and, radical innovation specifically, are critical for the sustainable organizational development, many of these organizations lose the momentum and their innovative culture relatively fast. This opens an entire field for research with regards to the critical factors, which affect sustainable organizational development. The example of Google and the news about the creation and launch of Re:Works outlines how the focus on innovation and transparency of corporate culture can benefit the company. Steiber and Alange (2009) provide a number of examples outlining the fact that the by choosing to share the experience and explain to the external public the core cultural drivers of the company, Google chose a humble approach to admitting its errors and demonstrate forward-thinking, further strengthening its corporate culture and making its employment relationships unique. The analysis of the role of internal culture in organizational sustainability with 20 years conducted by Barney (1986) and Tellis (2009) respectively, demonstrates that historical evidence supports the statement of the central role of culture in the competitiveness of the business and seconds the opinion of Stieber and Alange.
References
Sadler Ph (2003). Strategic Management. 2nd Edition. London: Kogan Page Limited
McGregor, J. (2015). With a new site, Google makes public many of its internal HR tactics The Washington Post News [Online]. Retrieved 7 August 2016, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/10/29/google-to-share-its-internal-hr-tactics-and-trainings-with-the-world/
Tellis, G.J.,Prabhu, J.C. and Chandy, R. (2009). Radical Innovation Across Nations: The Preeminence of Corporate Culture. American Marketing Association, 73(1), pp.3-23.
Barney, J.B. (1986). Organizational Culture: Can It Be a Source of Sustained Competitive Advantage? The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 11(3), pp.656-665.
Steiber, A. and Alange, A. (2013). A corporate system for continuous innovation: the case of Google Inc. European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 16(2), pp. 243-264.
