BSS064-6 Leading and Managing Organisational Resources Assignment Sample

Module code and Title: BSS064-6 Leading and Managing Organisational Resources Assignment Sample

Task 1: Email

The CEO

Google

Subject line:

Date: 10.10.2022

Respected Sir,

The effectiveness of corporate governance in an organisation helps in cultivating a culture of integrity, and sustainable development along with positive performance among the workforce in attaining the organisational goals. In organisations, the Board of Directors has adapted to the use of Environmental Sustainability Goals (ESG) to be incorporated in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) principles to enable the leadership in the company to attain sustainable development in future (Coulson, 2022).

At Google, the board of directors and the executives have considered using technology such as Artificial Intelligence to impact society through value intrusive focus and using it to resolve ethical issues through the AI approach to maintain good governance (Grove and Lockhart, 2019). The purpose of the email is to provide a detailed analysis of the use of effective leadership, integration of leadership and the impact of Corporate Governance on Good companies through theories and models.

Critical evaluation and analysis

In terms of the creation of effective Corporate Governance, Google has opted for the adaptation of horizontal governance and integration for the organisational, function maintenance by the higher authorities. However, Google has been facing criticism from the stakeholders over the mismanagement of the governance structure in the company requiring negative behaviour and branching of ethical practices. (Asghar, 2022).

It may be stated that the role of Corporate Governance in Google may have provided the company with effective development of policies and procedures with clear identification of accountability and responsibilities used by the stakeholders in overcoming conflicts to meet the needs of the target audiences. Moreover, the implementation of Corporate Governance in an organisation is to ensure that the company maintains a startling sense of transparency and balance in the organisational functions to lead towards economic development and sustainability maintenance (Popescu, 2019).

Corporate Governance to identify stakeholders’ needs.

Social Responsibility has been obligated to be incorporated in a given organisation which further leads to benefit the economic development of the company and society at large. The implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become an unavoidable priority in many organisations such as Google to define a suture in gaining opportunities, societal development and implementation of innovation in the process. In Google, the CSR strategies are developed on a thematic aspect that highlights the needs of stakeholder interest in fields such as sustainability through arts and culture, education and Economic Opportunity (Singh and Misra, 2021).

The success of Google’s CSR efforts is to provide and satisfy the needs of advertisers and other consumers as the stakeholder group to meet needs and desires (Wang et al., 2020). The implementation of Stakeholder theory in the organisation has also provided a structure for addressing the trends, business decisions and profits keeping the stakeholder’s interests in mind along with fulfilling the ethical concept in organisational function.

Finance Governance:

Financial Governance in an organisation is referred to the method by which the company manages, controls, and monitors financial information which in turn impacts operations, compliance and disclosure. In Google, the Chief Finance Officer or the Principle Accounts and Finance officer (PAFO) are regarded to be in the same position to be with either director including the president of production or director of the firm (Google. 2022).

The company has been meticulous in designing the CSR strategies for meeting the stakeholder’s interest which has resulted in the influx of revenue in the global market. In 2020, the global revenue of Google has been $181.69 billion which has increased to $256.74 billion in 2021 under the effective financial governance structure in the company (Statista. 2022).

Sustainability:

In Google, sustainability has been the main focus of work-life development which is focused on creating a sustainable workplace to foster productivity and including environmental development. The CSR strategies have revolved around the practices of sustainable maintenance where the strategy has been useful in the reduction of pressure on both the working employees and the environment. The stakeholder interests and desires are kept in mind during the development of products which are used as inspiration to meet the needs of users and designing the workplace for employees who are the main stakeholders for the company.

Apart from that, Google has also focused on building ecological landscapes and the inclusion of sustainable designs to promote safe and environmentally friendly living standards (Pratap, 2022). Google has also included focusing on Supply chain Responsibility which may be regarded as the prominent pillar of the company’s CSR efforts. The implementation of the Responsible Supply Chain Program in Google Has helped in the adaptation of sustainable practices among the suppliers and the maintenance of a Code of Conduct designed to impact less upon the environment (Sharma et al., 2022).

Ethics:

In Google, the building of the CSR strategies has been designed to meet the standard of ethics along with meeting the desires of the stakeholders involved in the business, especially the suppliers and the employees. According to Google, the Suppliers are responsible for holding the highest standards of ethics in the business in terms of promoting integrity and honesty (Google. 2022).

CSR strategies and the development of good governance may be identified in the company with the implementation of the policy of privacy and information security which is developed to protect the private information of suppliers, consumers, employees and investors who are the main stakeholders. Additionally, Google has developed an ethical policy in terms of Fair treatment, Diversity, Inclusion and non-discriminatory practices which are designed to improve organisational culture and better workplace management (Gould et al., 2020).

Google has faced issues regarding ethical practices, sustainability maintenance and financial scams which have been eliminated by the Board of Directors in the company in an attempt to maintain Good Corporate Governance. In the company operations, criticisms have been faced by the company regarding ethical issues in the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) which have violated the hard work put in by employees of colour.

Google has faced criticism for putting in the AI system of facial recognition of images of Black Americans as “Gorillas” which has led to the creation of issues of biases against race and colour (Gyan, 2021). Corporate Governance has taken the initiative to include Stakeholder theory in the operational function along with the step to the firing of the head of the department to eliminate the issue. Google has also had its fair share of sustainable issues where the workers of the company have gone on strike to demand more actions to be taken by the company on Climate change (Dhar, 2020).

The company Board of Directors in the maintenance of Corporate Governance has taken the initiative over supporting Electricity maps to enable decision-makers to make informed choices towards energy consumption in operational functions.

Moreover, the company has also faced criticisms over the rise of financial scams that have been presented through advertisements on the Search engine platform which has led to users losing financial assets. This has led to the company facing allegations towards the Board of Directors for not taking sufficient actions in mitigating the financial scams faced by users.

However, the company has analyzed the issue and implemented the Stewardship theory in the operations management which has enabled the managers to take informed decisions to mitigate the financial scam issue. The Corporate Governance in the Company has also taken the initiative to expand verification programs on a global level to eliminate the issue of financial scams through advertisements (Gilbert, 2022).

Leadership to maintain business ethics and sustainability.

Organisational behaviour is calibrated with the systematic evaluation of corporate governance and hence, different leadership roles are examined in the current context of business ethics. Authentic leadership is one such leadership role where the ethics of the business is stabilised and maintained, where the authenticity of the leadership is judged and known. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Google, Sundar Pichai has explored to view the profile of leadership, and it has been found that the Google CEO is a person having quite a natural authenticity to practise, with a high range of leadership roles to practise for.

There are few arguments regarding authentic leadership being practised, as the lead form and system have been fully analysed to find a better process that maintains ethical standards (Gardner et al., 2021). To understand the concept of ethics in leadership at Google, first, the social learning theory needs to be given a space for analysis and hence, the literature on social learning theory may be further examined.

At Google, authentic leadership may be understood by getting an insight view on the degree of authenticity of Sundar Pichai, the CEO and the genuine character of the leadership practised by the CEO has been duly understood. Various forms of research calibrate the social learning theory to an extent where the exploration of personal encouragement and factors of behavioural attitudes have been explained (Albert, 2017).

For instance, several points from Sundar Pichai’s personality show that Google’s leadership structure is based on a high concern over ethics, as the CEO focuses on personality and individuality (Refer to Appendix 1). Authentic leadership is thus an important sphere to address, as it is the one force that centrally pushes people involved with the organisation to work based on ethics (Iszatt and Kempster, 2019).

Business ethics is another term that has been repeatedly used in the management of the leadership in an organisation, as an example of immoral behaviour in the United States of America (USA) and the fallout of the medical sector has been a disastrous example to show (Trevino and Nelson, 2021). If Google is concerned and is examined to understand the nature of the leadership behaviour, the company may be known and analysed to find out that there had been several management issues (Tran, 2017).

There have been different ethical concerns based on the activities of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of Google to be specific, as the company had been regularly updating on the ethical calculation and creating efforts to find out the issues (Refer to Appendix 2). In terms of having a traditional leadership style in an organisation, the leader leads the employee structure through motivation, direction and guidance and the main priority is given in uplifting the brand position in the given market. Google may include the approach of traditional leadership in the organisation to help in bringing growth to the company as well as the employees in general.

The leadership system changes often and is more inclined to build an ethical atmosphere for the organisation to be sure of, where regenerative leadership has been executed to find the natural balance. It means that Google takes care of the spheres, both the culture that lies inside the company crux and the cultural dimension of the external actions and elements.

Regenerative leadership thus takes care of the ethical aspect quite well and is more related to the cultural betterment of the corporation. As per the research papers, regenerative leadership consists of the sustainability phase and is more about the right decision, and making a system of growing together, in a network of collaboration to say specifically (Mark and Vangelova, 2022).

The sustainability of the business is maintained wholly when the leadership style is more elaborate and consists of several different themes that are inclusive of the leadership structure, along with employee care. In the need of meeting the organisational stability in the technological sector, the leadership style has to be followed based on contemporary leadership structure which may require the fulfilment of technical and interpersonal competencies.

Google, on the other hand, has been entirely charged on the accusations of a few of the business issues, as they had been breached by $310 million for the company to suffer from, which needs serious ethical focus (Refer to Appendix 3). As per the given academic support, the sustainability in the corporate structure has been further explored and it has been found that the sustainability strategy is related to different models of innovation, surely the organisation may upgrade.

In the long term as per the given case source, the sustainability law governs the entire company and makes a suitable way through the economic refuge of the company, inferring with the financial structure. The executive pay of Google is $2, 17,234 with $103 in hourly payment, which is one of the most important factors to consider and makes Google stand in one of the topmost ranks for economic pay.

In the business sector, in the case of Google is considered one of the leading Multinational Corporations (MNCs), the Triple Bottom Line model is taken for focussing on society, the environment and the economical aspect (Correia, 2019). CIPD recommends a value-based system of ethical principles for Human Resources (HR) to consider, as the major motive of the CIPD ethical norm area is to facilitate life for better living (Davies, 2017).

Conclusion

According to the above argument it suggests, the use of Good Corporate Governance may be directed through an effective leadership role in the company which may be utilized in mitigating the ethical breach issue faced by Google. The ethical principles that are followed in the ethical leadership traits may help the company in underlying the issues that are faced in the organizational structure to be resolved effectively to help in meeting the sustainable needs of the stakeholders.

In Google, Corporate Governance is responsible for delivering suitability and ethical practices in the working environment which further leads to the development of the organisational culture.

Recommendations

Google in terms of mitigating the issue with sustainability practices and ethical breaching needs to adapt to Environmental leadership theory which may help in directing the organisational function for the betterment of the environment other than focusing only on economic development. The use of this leadership in the organisational structure may provide the company with the needed economic value of new product introduction and process along with gaining a competitive advantage in the given market.

Furthermore, the company requires the building of Corporate Green innovation which may require emphasis on stakeholder theory and institutional theory before implementation. The analysis of institutional theory in Google is required to be conducted to gain a better understanding of the Social responsibility of the organisation along with meeting employee needs to gain sustainable development in the long run. The leadership style that is followed in the company needs to gain a better insight into the stakeholder vision for organisational success.

References

Albert, B., 2017. Social learning theory of aggression. In The control of aggression (pp. 201-252). Routledge.

Asghar, R., 2022. The Inexorable Evil Of Google’s Governance Structure. [online] Forbes. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/robasghar/2019/01/11/the-inexorable-evil-of-googles-governing-structure/?sh=3cfb0d9f7457> [Accessed 10 October 2022].

Correia, M.S., 2019. Sustainability: an overview of the triple bottom line and sustainability implementation. International Journal of Strategic Engineering (IJoSE), 2(1), pp.29-38.

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Davies, J., 2017. CIPD’s profession for the future project and its implications for the HRD curriculum in UK universities. Gardner, W.L., Karam, E.P., Alvesson, M. and Einola, K., 2021. Authentic leadership theory: The case for and against. The Leadership Quarterly, 32(6), p.101495.

Dhar, P., 2020. The carbon impact of artificial intelligence. Nat. Mach. Intell., 2(8), pp.423-425.

Gilbert, R.J., 2022. Innovation matters: competition policy for the high-technology economy. MIT Press.

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Grove, H. and Lockhart, J., 2019. Evolution of corporate governance towards intrinsic value. Corporate Law & Governance Review, 1(1), pp.8-13.

Gyan-Addo, L.D., 2021. ” Smartening” European borders: Are we automating discrimination?.

Iszatt‐White, M. and Kempster, S., 2019. Authentic leadership: Getting back to the roots of the ‘root construct’?.International Journal of Management Reviews, 21(3), pp.356-369.

Mark, V. and Vangelova, N., 2022. Contributions of Regenerative Leadership to team collaboration and Social Sustainability.

Popescu, C.R.G., 2019. Corporate social responsibility, corporate governance and business performance: Limits and challenges imposed by the implementation of directive 2013/34/EU in Romania. Sustainability, 11(19), p.5146.

Pratap, A., 2022. Google CSR and Sustainability. [online] notesmatic. Available at: <https://www.notesmatic.com/google-csr-and-sustainability/#:~:text=Responsible%20Supply%20chain%20%3A%2D&text=Google%20has%20formed%20a%20responsible,minimum%20impact%20upon%20the%20environment.> [Accessed 10 October 2022]

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