Nur Muhammad Akmal bin Makmor 1614179 (could not find partner)
For my comparison, I will be looking into two international companies from the US;
Google as well as Airbnb. From what I have gathered and understood, among the cultural
similarities among these companies is that both put emphasis on having a fun working
environment. Both companies allocate a lot of resource in ensuring that their workers are able to
destress at the workplace by providing places of leisure. Google, for instance, provides gyms,
playrooms as well as promotes an animal-friendly environment to ensure that their workers are
not restricted to only be committing their attention towards their job all the time. Although
Airbnb also provides facilities for their staffs to destress at the workspace, Google has the edge
on this one, ensuring that employees’ wants and needs are put as one of the main cultures that
differentiates them with the rest. Another similarity is that both companies emphasize trust
among workers. What is meant by this is that both companies believe that it is important that
staffs are able to assess and judge well in decision making processes. Therefore, for Airbnb for
instance, they do not seek to impose rules towards judgments, but rather prefer employees to
make mistakes and develop and improve their judgments.
Among the differences that I manage to see is that Google has a much more personal and
collectivistic work culture compared with Airbnb. Google, in promoting their trust among
employees ensures that they all understand and are able to contribute and partake in discussions
to perform tasks. On the other hand, it is a little bit different for Airbnb, which promotes
competition among staffs so that they are pushed to work harder, challenging each other for their
improvement and productivity. This is a little more individualistic compared to Google, despite
being involved in collaborative work as well. Therefore, the shared values that staffs from
Google have are developed and inculcated from the fun and environment of togetherness,
whereas Airbnb ensures that everything is worked in all seriousness despite the fun that they
have, and this influences much of the shared values that they have in maintaining conscientious
attention. However, this disparity may be due to the fact that it is important for a company like
Airbnb to maintain conscientious attention, especially given that they have to deal a lot with
customers that seek their service, whereas it is crucial for a company like Google to maximize
flexibility and creative freedom that their workers have to grow and improve.