Microsoft HR and IT: Organizing Function of Management
This paper examines how Microsoft Corporation applies the organizing function of management to its Human Resources and Information Technology departments. It analyzes how Microsoft aligns recruiting strategies, internal service delivery, and cross-functional coordination to achieve efficiency and effectiveness across the organization. Drawing on frameworks from French and Raven's bases of social power and Schein's work on organizational culture, the paper describes how expert power shapes HR's strategic role, how IT manages service escalation and software testing, and how both departments use performance measurement and cultural values to improve responsiveness to internal stakeholders.
- Overview of Microsoft Corporation: Background on Microsoft's products and global scope
- The Organizing Function of Management in Human Resources: HR structure, recruiting strategy, and expert power
- The Organizing Function of Management in Information Technology: IT service delivery, escalation paths, and software testing culture
- Conclusion: Synthesis of organizing function across HR and IT
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its analysis in recognized academic frameworks — specifically French and Raven's bases of social power and Schein's organizational culture model — giving the managerial observations theoretical credibility.
- Maintains a consistent dual focus throughout: both Human Resources and IT are analyzed using the same organizing-function lens, creating structural symmetry that strengthens the argument.
- Uses concrete examples (Windows XP rollout, "eating your own dog food" testing culture, internal performance dashboards) to illustrate abstract management concepts, making the analysis tangible.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates applied theory integration — taking established social science constructs (French & Raven's expert power, Spector's perceived control) and applying them directly to observed organizational practices at a named corporation. This technique shows the student can bridge theoretical literature and real-world business analysis, a core skill in undergraduate management writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a clear statement of purpose and scope, followed by a brief company overview that contextualizes the analysis. Two parallel body sections then examine HR and IT separately through the same organizing-function framework, each referencing academic sources to support claims. A short conclusion synthesizes the key takeaway — that ongoing organizational learning drives improved efficiency — before a properly formatted reference list closes the paper.
Overview of Microsoft Corporation
The intent of this paper is to evaluate the organizing function of management as it relates to Microsoft Corporation's Human Resources and Information Technology (IT) strategies internally. Organizing the many resources in each of these two areas within Microsoft to attain an optimal level of efficiency and effectiveness requires the company to stay focused on existing, proven processes while striving to improve those areas showing the need for improvement. As the markets Microsoft competes in rapidly change, so too must the processes the company uses to attain efficiency and effectiveness in organizing Human Resources and IT internally.
The challenge is, first, to stay vigilant to the changing market conditions the company faces, and second, to stay attuned to the changing needs of all departments within Microsoft for both Human Resources and IT support. Within Microsoft, the need for both of these functional departments to serve the many other departments within the company requires a highly synchronized set of organizing processes that give each department the human resource and IT support it needs. This paper describes how Microsoft uses the organizing function of management to ensure responsive service from Human Resources and IT organizations to the remainder of the company, achieving effectiveness of solutions delivered and efficiency of response.
Microsoft Corporation is a global leader in the development and marketing of consumer, personal productivity, small business, and enterprise software applications, employing 71,000 professionals worldwide. The company focuses on the development, manufacturing, and support of a very wide variety of computing devices. The company's core business is its personal productivity applications, including Microsoft Office. In addition, the continued growth of distributed computing environments, business solutions applications and platforms, software development tools, and server-based operating systems has given the company the most diverse software product portfolio in the industry.
Beyond these specific businesses, the company also entered the gaming market with the Xbox video game console and games, in addition to an existing line of PC games and PC peripherals. Microsoft has also made several investments in online initiatives, including its own extensive website and online applications area called MSN, and a move into Software-as-a-Service applications through its OnDemand initiative in the business solutions area. Microsoft also spends more on research and development of new technologies than any other software company in existence.
The Organizing Function of Management in Human Resources
Microsoft's culture stresses individual responsibility and accountability in development work, and seeks out employees who thrive on the immediacy of generating and providing valuable information. The organizing function of management within Human Resources has as its goal the synchronizing of the many services the department delivers, in addition to the continual monitoring of how to deliver those services more effectively and efficiently. The organizing function is primarily centered on delivering a set of services to other departments within the company that is integrated across all of Human Resources and precisely meets the needs of the departments requiring assistance. The cultural values of any company over time reflect its core values (Schein, 1983), and Microsoft promulgates its cultural values through the hiring practices it employs.
Microsoft monitors the effectiveness of its Human Resources strategies by regularly having departments rate each other's performance. In other words, Microsoft seeks to quantify how effective its Human Resources department is in meeting internal departments' needs. The efficiency — or speed — with which the company meets those needs is also measured and published on an internal dashboard posted on the Human Resources intranet site, viewable only by employees in that department.
The extensive research completed by French and Raven (1959) provides a useful framework for analyzing the impact of the organizing function of management on Microsoft's Human Resources organization and its strategic direction. Human Resources is one of the core strategic departments at Microsoft, as programming talent is critical to the company's long-term viability and future growth. From French and Raven's research it is clear that for the organizing function of management within Microsoft to be effective, an understanding of the various sources of organizational power is critical, as this is a key indicator of how effective the department can be in meeting the diverse needs of the company's many departments. Using the French and Raven constructs, it is clear that the role of expert power consistently comes to the forefront of Microsoft Human Resources' contributory role within the Microsoft culture, and creates a high level of internal credibility for the organizing function of management in that department.
Due to the major contributions of Human Resources in staffing Microsoft's development, marketing, sales, and services teams, expert power is one of the most powerful social forces in the Microsoft culture. Making the recruiting process as effective as possible is the most important strategic objective that the Human Resources department contributes to. In accomplishing this goal, the organizing function of management within the department concentrates on recruiters for both college graduates and working professionals. The efficiency of recruiting new employees to Microsoft is a major part of the strategic goal, as programming areas require new college graduates with the latest skills in addition to industry veterans who can help get new applications built. Balancing the effectiveness of hiring the right person for the right job with the need to manage the recruitment process as efficiently as possible are two critical areas of focus within the company.
Conclusion
Microsoft's unique culture is based on the need to continually innovate new software applications and solutions across an increasingly wide breadth of markets globally. For Microsoft to remain competitive in both its Human Resources and IT organizations, the organizing function of management is extensively relied upon to synchronize and coordinate efforts with other departments, ensuring a high level of effectiveness across all strategies. As Microsoft's departments in these areas learn more over time about how to better serve the departments that rely on them, they have become increasingly efficient as well.
References
French, J. R. P., & Raven, B. H. (1959). The bases of social power. In D. Cartwright (Ed.), Studies in social power (pp. 150–167). University of Michigan.
Schein, E. (1983). The role of the founder in the creation of organizational culture. MIT Sloan Working Papers.
Spector, P. (1986). Perceived control by employees: A meta-analysis of studies concerning autonomy and participation at work. Human Relations, 39(11), 1005–1016.
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