ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior

Introduction

Google, fast becoming a household name synonymous with performing an Internet search. What does the word Google mean and where did it come from? “Google is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, Mathematics and the Imagination by Kasner and James Newman. It refers to the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google's use of the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information available on the web.” (Google, 2007). This paper describes motivational tools and techniques used in Google and analyse how effective these tools and techniques are in supporting employee performance.

Discussion

“Larry Page and Sergey Brin where two college students who began a collaboration on a search engine called Backrub which earned its name from its ability to analyze the “back links” and point them to other web sites. Larry had the ability to tinkers with electronic equipment so he took on the task of building their network out of low end servers to keep the initial cost down. In the beginning they even borrowed servers to meet their increased bandwidth demand. After a year of successfully running their search engine “Backrub” it began to build a reputation among the computer world and word of mouth advertising spread fast.” (Google, 2007)“Larry and Sergey continued working to perfect their technology through the first half of 1998. In the beginning Larry continued to buy bargain hard drives to support the growing need for space for their datacenter which resided in their dorm room. Meanwhile, Sergey set up a business office, and the two began calling on potential partners who might want to license a search technology better than any then available. They had a difficult time trying to convince potential partners to invest in their new company even though at the time DOTCOM companies dominated the industry.” (Google, 2007)“Even though Google.com was still in the beta stage it was answering over 10,000 search queries each day. The press began to take notice of the upstart website with the relevant search results, and articles extolling Google appeared in USA TODAY and Le Monde. That December, PC Magazine named Google one of its Top 100 Web Sites and Search Engines for 1998. Google was moving up in the world. On September 21, 1999, the beta label came off the website.” (Google, 2007)In Google's early days it was going up against giants, such as Microsoft (Ratner, 2006). “The increasing dissatisfaction with the Microsoft monopoly led Google to develop the motto, “Don't be Evil,” which seemed to be a breath of fresh air for consumers who were tired of the Gates Empire.” (Ratner, 2006). Google can be found in the NASDAQ under the title, “GOOG” (Financial Wire, 2007/Lohr, 2005). In 2006 Google grossed over 10 Billion dollars, primarily due to the company's advertising profit (Financial Wire, ...