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Assignment: Company Exemplar

Course Code: BUSI 1033-BBA1A – Introduction to Business

Professor: Joe Saunders

Name: Hao Cui

Date: October 24, 2021

Yorkville University
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Background Information

Google Inc. is involved in providing products and services that are internet-related, such

as hardware, cloud computing, software, and search engine. In the United States, the company is

among the big five information technology companies alongside Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin established the company on 4th September 1998. In 2015, the

company was re-organized to become Alphabet Inc’s subsidiary. Larry Page was made the CEO

of Alphabet Inc. and was replaced by Sundar Pichai, as the CEO of Google Inc. in 2015. The

company has its headquarters based in Mountain View, California, United States. The company

is valued at $181.7 billion in 2020. By the end of June 2021, the company had 139,995

employees. The company has subsidiaries, such as YouTube, Google AdMob, Google Nest,

Fitbit, and Kaggle. The company’s main competitors are bing and Yahoo. This essay describes

the company’s efforts to ensure ethics and responsible business standards are upheld.

Google’s Ethical and Responsible Business Standards

Recently, Google has been voted to be the most ethical company in the globe by the

research organization Ethisphere. Google has various codes of conduct that make it to be the

most ethical company around the globe. The various codes of conduct are discussed below. The

company serves customers with integrity, responsiveness, privacy, and freedom of expression.

The company values its reputation and that the customers should have absolute trust in it. The

company considers that as their most valuable asset. The company works hard to ensure the

integrity of its products. The company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, affirmed that the company is led

without political bias and can never go against the company’s principles and business interests

(Shepardson, 2018).
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The company protects clients' information and data through encryption of data. The

security of data and information is the priority for the company. The company does not give

backdoor access to any of its client's data. The company respects the data stored with Google.

Google cannot give any government entity information regarding any of its clients. The

company's legal team rejects any requests that are made in pursuit of disclosing the client's

information. The company has been developing internet security technology that helps in the

protection of clients' data. Some of the technologies that have been adopted include safe

browsing, vulnerability research, security innovation, and project shield.

Google has been working towards prohibiting and effectively responding to harassment.

Recently, some Google employees complaint of being sexually harassed by some of the

executives in the company. More than 20000 employees matched protesting against sexual

harassment in the company’s premises. In response, the company apologized and said that it

would overhaul the sexual misconduct practices. The settlement included $310 million devoted

to new diversity, equality, and inclusion measures (Elias, 2020). This is made to set new industry

standards on issues regarding sexual harassment in the workplace and upholding gender equality.

This is also made to restore the company’s broken image regarding sexual harassment. Last, the

company promised to be supportive of workers who report issues of problems at work (Ghaffary,

2019).

The company respects its employees and that is shown in various instances. First, the

company is open to social events, rites, rituals, and jargon. Google respects the national culture

for its staff and allows employees to wear traditional clothes. Also, as a way of motivation, the

company provides massage programs to its workers to ensure that they calm down their stress.

The massages are provided by therapists who are licensed. In addition, the company allows the
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employees to use 20% of their working hours in a week on special projects and interests. Last, in

case an employee dies, the employee's family is entitled to receive the employee's salary for the

next ten years (Casserly, 2012). Therefore, this motivates the employees as their families won’t

be left to starve in case of death.

Google has been consistent in giving back to the community. The company has taken part

in charity programs through Google org. The organization has given grants and supported

investments, where it has already given more than $100 million. Google org. has been focused

on providing solutions to global poverty, public health around the globe, and climate change.

The organization is guided by the philosophy that, "one can make money without doing evil,"

which has been influential among many people and communities in their pursuit to make wealth

(Meyer, 2017). This has helped the company to build its image and increase brand awareness.

Google has upheld its efforts to conserve the environment. The company has made a

promise to use carbon-free energy by the year 2030. The company purchased enough carbon

offsets that will help to offset the carbon dioxide emissions that it emitted since it was founded in

1998. Nevertheless, in 2007, the company became carbon neutral whereby it cancels out the

carbon it emits to the atmosphere by investing in projects that are aimed at producing renewable

energy. It has been investing in projects that draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (Calma,

2020). For Google to be fully dependent on carbon-free energy, it will have to overcome some

technological barriers. It will require more and better batteries to store and supply energy. Also,

the company is weighing on using Artificial intelligence to predict the company's energy

demands in the future for it to become more energy efficient (Calma, 2020).
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Conclusion

Google has been has been ensuring that it provides security to information regarding the

users of Google. It has been respectful to its employees despite some of the company's

executives have been acting maliciously and involved in sexual harassment of their juniors. The

company has also stood in the gap to ensure that it conserves the environment, especially in the

fight against global warming by focusing on the use of renewable sources of energy. And last,

the company has been supportive in the community by providing cash to run investments and

also giving out grants. All these have made the company to be recognized as the most ethical

company in the world.

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References

Calma, J. (2020). Google announced one of the biggest green pledges from tech yet. Retrieved

from https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/14/21436228/google-climate-change-pledge-

2030-renewable-energy

Casserly, M. (2012). Here's What Happens To Google Employees When They Die. Retrieved

from https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/08/08/heres-what-happens-to-

google-employees-when-they-die/?sh=41796aa73926

Elias, J. (2020). Google’s $310 million sexual harassment settlement aims to set new industry

standards. Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/googles-310-million-

sexual-misconduct-settlement-details.html

Ghaffary, S. (2019). Dozens of Google employees say they were retaliated against for reporting

harassment. Retrieved from https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/9/9/20853647/google-

employee-retaliation-harassment-me-too-exclusive

Meyer, P. (2017). Google Stakeholders & Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Retrieved

from http://panmore.com/google-stakeholders-corporate-social-responsibility-csr-analysis

Shepardson, D. (2018). Google CEO defends 'integrity' of products ahead of testimony.

Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/article/alphabet-congress/google-ceo-defends-

integrity-of-products-ahead-of-testimony-idINL1N1YF1KU?edition-redirect=in