fundamentals of management research paper

MG2650: Week 4 Leading Individuals and Groups

Research 4.1

Searching For? Case Study

1

It gets over 777,000 applicants a year. And it’s no wonder! With a massage every other week, on-site laundry,

swimming pool and spa, free delicious all-you-can-eat gourmet meals, what more could an employee want? Sounds

like an ideal job, doesn’t it? However, at Google, many people are demonstrating by their decisions to leave the

company that all those perks (and these are just a few) aren’t enough to keep them there. As one analyst said, “Yes,

Google’s making gobs of money. Yes, it’s full of smart people. Yes, it’s a wonderful place to work. So why are so many

people leaving?” Google has been in the top 1 0 list of “Best Companies to Work For” by Fortune magazine for three

years running and was number one on the list for two of those three years. But make no mistake. Google’s executives

decided to offer all these fabulous perks for several reasons: to attract the best knowledge workers it can in an

intensely competitive, cutthroat market; to help employees work long hours and not have to deal with time-consuming

personal chores; to show employees they’re valued; and to have employees remain Googlers (the name used for

employees) for many years. But a number of Googlers have jumped ship and given up these fantastic benefits to go out

on their own.

For instance, Sean Knapp and two colleagues, brothers Bismarck and Belsasar Lepe, came up with an idea on how to

handle Web video. They left Google, or as one person put it, “expelled themselves from paradise to start their own

company.” When the threesome left the company, Google really wanted them and their project to stay. Google

offered them a “blank check.” But the trio realized they would do all the hard work and Google would own the

product. So off they went, for the excitement of a start-up. If this were an isolated occurrence, it would be easy to

write off. But it’s not. Other talented Google employees have done the same thing. In fact, there are so many of them

who have left that they’ve formed an informal alumni club of ex-Googlers turned entrepreneurs.

Source: Robbins, S. P., De Cenzo, D. A., & Coulter, M. (2013). Fundamentals of management (8th ed.). Upper Saddle

River, NJ: Prentice Hall.