Case study on Google’s innovation and entrepreneurship free essay sample

With the development of economy, innovation and entrepreneurship has become a pervasive subject. There are many definitions of entrepreneurship from deferent scholar. According to Venkataraman, S, we define the field of entrepreneurship as the scholarly examination of how, by whom and with what effects opportunities to create future goods and services are discovered, evaluated, and exploited (Venkataraman, 1997). Innovation is the creation of new ideas, methods, or things. They are interacting each other between Innovation and entrepreneurship. In a successful case of entrepreneurship, the innovation always throughout all stages which include discovery of opportunity, analysis of opportunity, making decision to exploit the opportunity, and mode of exploitation of opportunity. They influence each other and inseparable. Google is one of the most well-known successful organizations in the world. which was established by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in September 1998 in a car barn. Followed by a series innovation and entrepreneurial behavior, Google progressed rapidly. It is a very good example to illustrate and contrast with the theory above. I will undertake research on Google and examine examples or incidents that Googles’ approach and identify examples that illustrate the following five concepts; 2, Analyse the process of opportunity discovery at Google. Discovery of opportunity is the first stage of entrepreneurial innovation. When the opportunity emerged, some people see the opportunity and others do not. The reason of the difference is that, people have different individual factors and different background thus they may have different hunches or intuition. So, some people can see the opportunity and others can not. With the development of internet technology, there were many people need software or systems to help them to search information quickly. The opportunity of Google was emerged in 1996 with BackRub(a search system), which was a experimental project of Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they were in the PHD course in Stanford University. One day, they was amazed to find that thousands of people using BackRub system to search information every day despite there were only few tutors knew the system before. That means people like to use the system to search information. There was a market waiting for the system which helps people to search information quickly. So they discovered the opportunity of search engine. Discovery of opportunities and creation of opportunities throughout the whole development process of Google. Entrepreneur use various methods to encourage the staff to improve the ability of discovering opportunities and to create opportunities. For example, employees have 20 percent work time with their own projects, company provide free foods and drinks, medicinal services, entertainment facilities, even you may come with children. All this aim to encourage the creativity of employees. So Google’s innovation ability is very famous. For example they found opportunity from people search habits, and then they improved the technology of search engine. They found opportunity from people search target description, and then they realized the targeted advertising promotion. 3, analyse the process of opportunity exploitation at Google. The exploitation of opportunity is the second stage of entrepreneurial innovation. Following the discovery of opportunity, the entrepreneur need to analyze the opportunity, evaluate the opportunity. Find out whether the opportunity has market value, and analyze the target market. This process depends on nature of the opportunity and nature of individual. Nature of opportunity includes that: if the profit will to be bigger than the cost or to compensate for the uncertainty? The liquidity and demand. Moreover, expected value, technology life cycle, level of competition and cost of capital also should be considered before make decision. Individual factors also very important, for example, different people may have different financial capabilities, different choices available to them or they may have different entrepreneurial experience and perceptions. All of these factor will influence the decision. After the opportunity was discovered by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, they were very excited with the potential market. They considered that the new technology of search engine system would bring the internet industry to a new era, after then, they decided to exploit the opportunity. In the development process of Google, exploitation of opportunities has always been one of the most important strategic decisions. Any good ideas will not be ignored, and soon will become products. Such as Gmail, it was an individual idea of employee. It has become one of the company’s core moneymaking products. 4, Analyse the process of mode of opportunity exploitation at Google. Mode of exploitation of opportunity means that, in which way or how to exploit the exist opportunities. Normally, there are two options: start up a new company or sale the opportunity to existing firms. Firstly, Larry Page and Sergey Brin want to sale the opportunity to existing firms; however, there was no web portal interested in the new technology. They did not consider that was an opportunity. So, Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided to start up there own company from then. Google was established in September 1998 with a investment of one hundred USD from their schoolmate Andy Bechtolsheim. The opportunity was been exploited In the development process of Google, they used a variety of modes to exploit opportunities, Such as exploitation by themselves, cooperate with other companies and sale the opportunities to other firms. 5, How has Google’s process of influencing employee creativity affected Google’s Discovery, Exploitation, Mode of Exploitation. Google has been widely acclaimed for its emphasis on creativity. Google’s process of influencing employee creativity promoted the speed of Google’s Discovery, Exploitation, and Mode of Exploitation of opportunity. Innovation will not be strictly limited and evaluation. This greatly improve the speed of new product development, improved the market competitiveness of Google At Google, innovation is an imperative. The entrepreneur recognized that innovation comes from everyone, whatever engineers or cleaners. Larry Page and Sergey Brin and CEO always share all the information with employees about where the company is going and any challenges it might facing. All employees may spend 20 percent work time on their own projects, and their ideas will not be neglected. Good ideas will soon be converted into products. For example, Gmail, which has become one of the company’s core moneymaking products, was an employee’s personal idea (Klie, Shannon, 2010). 6, How has Google’s organizational culture affected Google’s Discovery-Exploitation-Mode of Exploitation. Google’s organizational culture is open corporate culture, which drives Google’s discovery of opportunity, exploitation of opportunity, and mode of exploitation of opportunity grown much quicker than others. â€Å"Googles mission is to organize the worlds information and make it universally accessible and useful (www. google. com). Google’s organizational culture is open culture, everyone share their thoughts and ideas freely. Employees may ask questions to the executives even Larry directly. Everyone is in the equal position. Company provides staff’s foods and drinks, medical services, fitness equipment, even they may come to work with their children. That is impossible with other companies. Google provide these welfare is aim to make employees feel like home, they do not need to worry about anything else, and always focus on creativity. Google’s open corporate culture and excellent employee’s welfare have maximize of employee’s initiative and creativity. Compare and Contrast 7, Similarities: cite important similarities between the framework and the practices of Google. The important similarities between the framework and the practices of Google was that, in the early stage of Google was established, the entrepreneurial innovation process such as discovery of opportunity, exploitation of opportunity and mode of exploitation of opportunity was similar as the theoretical framework presented. The entrepreneur plays the main role in According to the framework of Scott, Shane; Venkataraman, S. (2000). Entrepreneurial innovation normally includes existence of opportunity, discovery of opportunity, exploitation of opportunity and mode of exploitation. In the early stage of Google was set up, the entrepreneur (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) recognized the opportunity of search engine and decided to exploit the opportunity, then tried different way of exploitation, finally, they start up Google. This process was the similarity between the framework and the practices of Google. 8, Differences and possible explanations: cite important differences between the framework and the experience of Google. Explain possible reasons for the differences. On the other hand, like all questions, there are always some differences between theory and practice. The case of Google is no exception. The important differences between the framework and the experience of Google are that: Firstly, in the stage of discovery of opportunity, Google was not only focusing on the existing opportunities, but also try to create opportunities by themselves. Secondly, in the stage of exploitation of opportunity, Google was not only exploit the opportunity with low level of competition, low cost and high profit, such as the Android system, When Google decided to exploit this system, the competition of same product was fierce, and Google has invested a lot of money, but the system was free to use. Thirdly, on some investment or ma case, Google has not completely sought low investment projects, but look for some projects in accordance with the companys future development. Finally, the creativity-innovation-entrepreneurship network was the power of the development of Google. The possible reasons for the differences between the framework and the experience of Google are that: Googles success is largely due to the imagination and creativity of entrepreneurs. Google started an unusual development path. They use a unique enterprise culture and enterprise spirit to encourage employees creativity, It become the main engine of Google rapid development. Google’s unusual patterns and the development of enterprise spirit has led to the difference between academic theory and experience of Google. 9, revise the original framework in light of what you have learned from the case of Google. According to the case study of Google, It makes me understand more clearly the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in a successful case. The influence of corporate culture of enterprise creativity. The importance of creativity-innovation-entrepreneurship network in organization. Understand some contemporary entrepreneurs innovation activities. I would like to revise the original framework as follow: Conceptual Framework 1, creativity of entrepreneurial opportunity. In this case, Google was not only focusing on the existing opportunities, but also try to create opportunities by themselves. 2, not only focus on low cost and high profit, in this case, Google was not only exploiting the opportunity with low level of competition, low cost and high profit, such as the Android system. 3, Suitable for the development direction, in this case, Google has not completely sought low investment projects, but look for some projects in accordance with the companys future development. 4, Cooperate with other companies, on some projects and products, Google was cooperate with other companies