Open Systems Models The company that I am going to study is Google. Their primary business is online advertising, where they are the industry leader. Google owns many of the world's top websites, and uses its immense database of information about user preferences to give it competitive advantage in this business. The company has also proven to be one of the most collaborative and innovative companies. Two of its other products -- the Android mobile operating system and the Chrome browser, are also market leaders, even though they do not generate significant revenue for the company. This paper will focus on open systems as Google, to illustrate how the principles of open systems work.

Open Systems Elements

There are several elements to systems, including inputs (resources), organization culture, organization structure, behavior, processes and technologies. All of this lead to outputs. When these elements work well together -- when they are aligned -- the organization will be more effective. Open systems analysis typically begins with an organizational diagnosis. The organization's mission and objectives are the starting point for understanding the organization's activities, then other inputs are also evaluated. There are four key input elements that are important at Google, and define the company's culture of openness -- work processes, structure, behavior and culture (Harrison, 2005).

Leadership Strategy

Google is a company that has a very different leadership strategy from many older corporations. Tapscott (2012) would argue that Google is a "digital native," something quite different from older companies that have more traditional ways of doing things. The company begins by hiring the best and most creative people, but it also gives them room to work on their own projects. It gives them a more comfortable physical setting in which to let creativity thrive. Google also sets aside specific time for each employee to work on their own projects, many...

Thus, the company empowers its workers to collaborate, and then it fosters this with an open culture.
At the highest management levels, Google believes that innovation comes from anywhere. The company defaults to an open process, accepting innovative ideas from around the world, but also defaulting to an organizational culture that focuses on bringing people together, to harness the power of collaboration (Innocentive, 2014). Because this is supported at the highest levels, all members of the organization embrace the culture of innovation and openness. This is what leads to Google's high level of innovation. Further, the organizational culture is not bound by the whims of shareholders. There is no time frame on when a project has to earn money -- if it is a good project, it will be pursued. This removes a critical institutional barrier to innovation. It may be counterintuitive from a traditional perspective to dominate mobile operating systems and not earn money from Android, but Google does it anyway. Android does drive more data and traffic to Google properties, but the bigger point is that the company has this market share because it removed the barriers to innovation, such as the need for short-term profit. It is safe to say that Google shareholders are not displeased by the company's financial performance, either.

Openness

Google is a leader in openness culture, and has an openness mindset. This mindset is embedded in its values. One such value is that there is always more information out there, and another value is that the need for information crosses all borders. Thus, Google places tremendous value on creating information flows, a truly open world in which information is created and disseminated freely (Google, 2014). This philosophy has created problems for the…