Case Study Exploring Gender in a Silicon Valley Company

Exploring gender in a Silicon Valley company

Introduction

The mission of Google is to organize the information of the world and make it useful and accessible universally. The constant search for better responses continues to be at the heart of everything that Google does. From YouTube and Android to Gmail as well as Google Search, Google has made hundreds of products that are used by billions of people around the globe (Bijl et al., 2016). While the Lego servers were dismissed and only a few other such company services were introduced, the company’s enthusiasm for creating technology for all has remained with them from the dorm room to the workshop, and this very day.

Google attracted the attention of not just the academic world, but Silicon Valley investors as well, during the next few years after its launch. Google had fired a software engineer who released an internal memo that criticized the diversity efforts of the organization and claimed that biological differences instead of discrimination were the product of the low number of women in technical positions. Many in Silicon Valley were upset by the memo named Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber, since it relies heavily on certain gender stereotypes, such as the belief that women are less capable of high-stress jobs because they are more eager to rationalize the gender gap in the tech industry. The memo spread rapidly outside the company, as several of its assumptions were railed against by other Google employees. The chief executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, stated parts of the memo had breached the code of ethics of the organization and overstepped the mark “by advancing negative gender roles in our workplace.” Therefore, the CEO Sundar Pichai fired the employee that breached the company code of conduct.

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Main Body

1. Ethical analysis of Google’s firing of Damore

Google fired Damore but the issue lies at the point that this firing of Damore by Google is ethical or not. So Yes, this is ethical for firing an employee who possesses and also expresses the views bluntly that are no synchronized with the philosophy and ideals of the company. The companies hire people on the basis of their alignment to the philosophy, vision, and ideals of the company (Vilegas et al., 2019). However, if there is no alignment between the philosophy, vision, and ideals of the company and employee, then the violence of code of conduct, organizational environment, ethical standards, and conflicts are at stake that may arise at any time. The same situation happened with Damore which was not bearable for the CEO of Google. Hence, he fired Damore which is ethical.

The laws regarding employment are made in all the countries that state women and men are equal and each human possesses their own strengths and weaknesses (Guerin and Barreiro, 2016). So, the firing of Damore was ethical as its memo was anti-diversity and discriminatory in the view to keep women out of the tech industry consideration. This memo violated some parts of the code of conduct of Google. Moreover, if Google had not fired Damore for his advancement of harmful stereotypes regarding gender in the work environment, then almost all of the female employees would have been uncomfortable working at Google or even have resigned from their jobs which would be a huge loss for Google and the value that they are providing to their employees. Hence, the firing of Damore was an undeniable action that saved the company from bearing other such losses in the future.

Damore also did not anticipate the consequences of his memo for himself and for other employees working at Google in Silicon Valley. Such decisions and notices in the company without anticipation of consequences are really harmful to the work environment. If Damore could not have been fired, more issues of decisions with negative consequences would arise in the future in the company. The workplace ethics and code of conduct are provided to the employees when they join any company, so if any of the employees violate the work ethics by writing a memo with wrong moral and ethical consideration then there must be a strict action needed to not disturb the morale of the targeted or affected group of people in the company.

Furthermore, it is also to be noted that characterizing a group of employees to be having the traits that are biologically not well suited for the work is really offensive by one of the other employees working in the same company as in the case of Damore. There were many other discriminator actions regarding genders in the Silicon Valley, if this action had been ignored and Damore had not been fired then such instances would have been continuing in Google as well as other companies in Silicon Valley. So, such gender discriminatory actions need to be stopped particularly in a company like Google that has a huge audience that would be significantly affected by such instances. Google was also launching the diversity initiatives in the company at that time in which the situation of Damore took place. In such times where Google was launching a program and an employee shows his perspective that is completely opposite and contradictory to the mission or vision of the company then the employee is not compatible with the objectives and vision of the company. Google’s business does not suit to the perspectives that women are biologically not suited as good engineers and this showed a lack of empathy and lack of awareness by Damore. Therefore, it is stated that firing Damore by Google was ethical as it was extremely unfair for the female employees in the company and no women in the workplace should bear such hostility.

2. Decision of Pichai and ethical frameworks

Yes, I would have made the same decision if I were Pichai. This decision is based on the usage of two ethical frameworks including the Identify-Consider-Act-Reflect and virtue ethics framework. According to the framework of Identify-Consider-Act-Reflect, the first step is the identification of the scenario with and ethical standpoint for searching the best action. This is implemented by asking a few questions for instance, what are the principles of ethics that are at stake? who is the group that will be affected directly? And where are the conflicts of interest? (Lehnert et al., 2016). For the situation of Damore’s firing, the principles of ethics that are at stake are gender discrimination, degrading coworkers, lowering morale, and not respecting the opposite gender. The group that would be affected by the memo of Damore were female employees. The conflict of interest lies in the difference in values and philosophy of employee and the company.

The second step of this framework is that the leaders should assess the chosen path of decision making before any action by considering additional perspectives and alternative solutions. The alternative solution in the case of Google’s firing is not to fire Damore and give him another chance but this decision would cause extreme inconvenience and an uncomfortable working environment for female employees as they were targeted. Therefore, the decision of firing Damore is the only solution that would not affect current employees as they will consider that the company is valuing their services and making actions for their defense. The third step of this ethical decision-making framework is to entail the action and consult any higher authority and the fourths step is that the decision-makers reflect on the outcomes of the actions (Lehnert et al., 2016). Therefore, by following this framework of ethical decision making, I would also have made the decision of firing Damore for the generation of positive outcomes for the company and maintain the image.

Additionally, the other ethical framework used for my decision is the value ethics framework that is a modern framework for decision making on the basis of tenets of ethics of Aristotle. The decisions are to be made as per the understanding of moral virtue and character of a person in a virtue ethics framework (de los Reyes et al., 2017). When this criterion of decision making is employed by the leaders of any business. they analyze how the organization would be perceived on the basis of choices that they will make. In this case of Google’s firing, my decision to for the firing of Damore is because the perception of Google regarding the company would be positive that the company takes care of the ethical perspectives of their employees and value them. If this decision of firing is not made then people will perceive that Google is anti diversity and discriminatory practices are seen in the company for the female employees in the tech industry. So, this negative perception of the company is not fruitful for the success of the company. Therefore, the decision of firing of Damore is based on the framework of virtue ethics. This would help the company to build strong and long-term relations with its stakeholders, employees, and even their customers and the overall community. This is due to the fact that such relationships posses a direct influence on the profitability, longevity, and growth of the company. Therefore, I would have made the same decision of firing Damore if I were Pichai in order for the prevention of any cascading effect of these derogatory and unethical statements and for the protection of the reputation and good name of Google as a CEO.

3. Ethical analysis of firing someone who expresses beliefs in the organization

Yes, it is ethical for an organization to fire someone who expresses beliefs that do not align with the overall culture. This is due in part to the reason that the hiring of people in companies is based on the alignment of people with vision, ideas and philosophy of the company (Lee, 2018). When the ideas, philosophy and vision of people are not aligned with the company, the arousal of complexities and tense situations takes place. So, these conflicting values and complexities of ideology may affect the development and the performance of a company.

The overall culture of a company is composed of their solid values set and their fundamental beliefs about what is right in their company. Unfortunately, when an employee expresses beliefs that are not aligned with the culture of company, it is better to fire that employee instead of changing the beliefs of other employees as well and disturbing the organizational culture and perception of company for the customers. The core values and culture of an organization define explicitly how the employees will behave in company with customers and with fellow colleagues. If the core values of culture are opposing then this creates stressful situations that impact the performance of employees.

Since, attitudes are shaped by culture, identity is created by culture, direction is provided by culture, values are embodied in culture and talent is attracted by culture. It is highly important to consider and value the employees that align with your organizational culture and fire the employees that confidently expresses their beliefs publicly that do not align with the overall culture as they would create even more complex situations for the company in future at any times and demolish the image and reputation of the company. additionally, attitudes of the employees can be changed to some extent but beliefs of the employees are long lasting that guide the behaviour of an employee in the day to day life. The turnover rate of the employees may increase if the overall culture of the organization is not strong and continuously damaged with the employees expresses their beliefs that do not align with overall culture and target specific groups or particular values of the organization. For instance, the case of Google’s firing of Damore demonstrated that the beliefs expressed by Damore were anti diversity and did not align with the company’s culture of incorporating and enhancing diversity. Therefore, Damore would not follow the company’s values and culture if he had contradictory beliefs that are affecting women in the organization. Therefore, the CEO of Google fired Damore on his memo expressing beliefs that were opposing to the company and devalued certain group of employees that was extremely unethical. In such situations, it is better to fire the employee.

Furthermore, if the belief that an employee expressed is regarding discrimination against any specific group or particular gender, it is ethical to fire the employee as the affected and targeted group would not have to suffer and become prominent in eyes of other employees in future (Van Rooij and Fine, 2018). It is just like giving another chance to the employee to express his or her more beliefs that would cause huge affect if you do not fire the employee having opposing beliefs and expressing them over confidently. Such compromises on expressing opposing beliefs about any particular group again and again for the employees destroy the organizational values and culture drastically.

4. Diverse work culture and role of leader

If a company is forcing work culture for employees that is diverse, they will start to speak out as it is natural for the people working in organization to speak when they have not faced such changes in company before. Moreover, incorporating diversity in an organizational culture also means that having more of the employees to speak up their thoughts. Since the diversity of gender, race, age, etc. is all about the encouragement of employees to participate and give their ideas and thoughts (Madera, Dawson and Guchait, 2016). So, the efforts towards a more diverse work culture does not necessarily mean to stifle the employees from speaking out, but by incorporating diversity the employees have to suppress and stifle some of their specific thoughts regarding opposing diversity. Just in the case of Damore’s firing, as he spoke out against diversity so he was fired. Thus, such employees have to suppress their specific thought if they are against diversity. The role of leader is to try to stop stifling the employee that speak out by certain proactive measures including mentally preparing them for change and tell them the purpose and benefits (Wiggins-Romesburg and Githens, 2018).

As diversity is a good and productive thing that organizations need to incorporate in this global world, so the leaders can do various actions that would help in averting the potential outcomes. For instance, the leaders must inform their employees about all the changes that will possibly take place so that they are prepared mentally for the introduction of diversity in company. The leaders must also explain to them the importance of incorporating diversity and convince employee by its advantages like increased productivity, creativity, employee engagement, profits, cultural insights, company reputation, variety of skills and reduced employee turnover (Pasic, 2020). The leaders must also create such policies in the company for encouraging the teams for having diverse background members. They must also incorporate the activities for team bonding for increasing the communication among employees possessing different backgrounds.

5. Analysis of termination of employee on the basis of their comments on social media

It has become very easy for organizations to post information on the internet about their private lives, their political opinions, and details related to employment in this age of social media. The boundary lines between both the personal and professional lives of workers have enormously been blurred by social networks. HR practitioners are also at the forefront of defending the employer ‘s reputation when an employee tweets something offensive. Hiring managers will also be required to serve as the company’s guardians if the online posts of a nominee have the potential to reflect negatively on the reputation of the organisation. However, terminating an employee derived from social media post is not really a good idea always. These conditions should be treated on a case-by-case basis by employers and HR practitioners (Henry, 2020).

For instance, if an employee posts something controversial about his personal choices and personal opinions that do not affect the organization’s work environment or reputation then such controversies should not be the reason to terminate the employees. Whereas, the organization can think of terminating the employee that posts something negative about the organization or leaks any private information that would damage the reputation of the company. HR practitioners and managers must evaluate the potential harm to the image and reputation of a company toward their desire to encourage a supportive workforce that does not micromanage the actions of workers.

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Conclusion

Google had fired a software engineer who released an internal memo that criticized the diversity efforts of the organization and claimed that biological differences instead of discrimination were the product of the low number of women in technical positions. The memo spread rapidly outside the company, as several of its assumptions were railed against by other Google employees. The chief executive of Google, Sundar Pichai, stated parts of the memo had breached the code of ethics of the organization and overstepped the mark “by advancing negative gender roles in our workplace.” Therefore, the CEO Sundar Pichai fired the employee that breached the company code of conduct. This is ethical for firing an employee who possesses and also expresses the views bluntly that are no synchronized with the philosophy and ideals of the company. Therefore, it is stated that firing Damore by Google was ethical as it was extremely unfair for the female employees in the company and no women in the workplace should bear such hostility.

I would have made the same decision of firing Damore if I were Pichai in order for the prevention of any cascading effect of these derogatory and unethical statements and for the protection of the reputation and good name of Google as a CEO. This decision is made by applying two frameworks of ethical decision making including the Identify-Consider-Act-Reflect and virtue ethics framework. Moreover, it is ethical for an organization to fire someone who expresses beliefs that do not align with the overall culture because the hiring of people in companies is based on the alignment of people with vision, ideas and philosophy of the company. The efforts towards a more diverse work culture does not necessarily mean to stifle the employees from speaking out, but by incorporating diversity the employees have to suppress and stifle some of their specific thoughts regarding opposing diversity. Just in the case of Damore’s firing, as he spoke out against diversity so he was fired. Thus, such employees have to suppress their specific thought if they are against diversity.

References

Bijl, L., Kringhaug, G., Molnár, P. and Sandvik, E., 2016. Google searches and stock returns. International Review of Financial Analysis, 45, pp.150-156.

de los Reyes Jr, G., Scholz, M. and Smith, N.C., 2017. Beyond the “Win-Win” creating shared value requires ethical frameworks. California Management Review, 59(2), pp.142-167.

Guerin, L. and Barreiro, S., 2016. Essential Guide to Federal Employment Laws. Nolo.

Henry, J.C., 2020. Management Ethics: How Social Media Affects Employees’ Privacy and Organizational Climate? (Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral University).

Lee, S., 2018. Employee turnover and organizational performance in US federal agencies. The American Review of Public Administration, 48(6), pp.522-534.

Lehnert, K., Craft, J., Singh, N. and Park, Y.H., 2016. The human experience of ethics: A review of a decade of qualitative ethical decision‐making research. Business ethics: A European review, 25(4), pp.498-537.

Madera, J.M., Dawson, M. and Guchait, P., 2016. Psychological diversity climate: justice, racioethnic minority status and job satisfaction. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.

Van Rooij, B. and Fine, A., 2018. Toxic corporate culture: assessing organizational processes of deviancy. Administrative Sciences, 8(3), p.23.

Villegas, S., Lloyd, R.A., Tritt, A. and Vengrouskie, E.F., 2019. Human resources as ethical gatekeepers: Hiring ethics and employee selection. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 16(2).

Wiggins-Romesburg, C.A. and Githens, R.P., 2018. The psychology of diversity resistance and integration. Human Resource Development Review, 17(2), pp.179-198.

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