Organizational structure is described as the vertical and horizontal configuration of a departments, authority and jobs within a company. (Williams & McWilliams, 2013) It defines and differentiates responsibilities of each sector of a company. Formal structures and communication are also recognized as part of an organizational structure. If constructed well, it can be used as a powerful tool to aim and achieve success in the future.

 

Google, which started off as a simple search engine founded by two regular students, is now a multinational company currently located in the USA. It is mostly famous for the extravagant working environment. (Google Inc., n.d.)

 

Google follows the first element of the organizational authority, which is the chain of command. It is also a decentralized company. Decentralization is when a company’s important decisions are trusted to be made by lower level employees and not all the important calls are decided by the top managers. For Google, they have 6 levels of hierarchy in management.

It starts off with their board of directors which includes their CEO and co-founder, Larry Page. The next level is the executive management group such as their Executive Chairman, Eric E. Schmidt and such followed by four different sectors including - Engineering, Products, Sales, Legal and Finance. Those of which are all followed by three other rows with some regarding specific locations. For example, Sales has three hierarchies under it which are Americas, Europe Middle East & Africa and Asia Pacific. (Morrow, 2008)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One other organizational structure they follow is organic organization.

This is when the company is very loose with job responsibilities and the roles of one frequently changes. (Williams & McWilliams, 2013) According to Burns and Stalker, (Education Portal, n.d.) an organic organization is one that is very flexible and is able to adapt well to changes. Its structure is identified as having little job specialization, few layers of management, decentralized decision-making and not much direct supervision. This is very suitable for Google as it is one of the fastest growing, developed and renowned companies in the world. With so many fluctuating parts of business, this fits perfectly for Google. They make sure they have different ways of influencing their workers to constantly make an effort to innovate, which is one of the key parts to their business. The loose culture that they have developed over the years is also one of their famous ways of motivating, that has influenced everyone around the world.

 

Therefore to conclude, Google’s hybrid ways of functional and multidivisional organizational structure helps them succeed.