We offer our engineers '20-percent time' so that they're free to work on what they're really passionate about. Google Suggest, AdSense for Content, and Orkut are among the many products of this perk" (Engineer's life, 2011, Google). Executives rub shoulders with ordinary employees at the Google cafeteria. Employees work at Google as part of non-hierarchical teams.
As an information technology company that requires its product to suit the needs of a constantly-changing market environment, Google's approach seems to make sense. Its tasks are ambiguous, yet it selects employees that are highly motivated and rewards their efforts with extensive perks and bonuses, so they perform at a high standard. Employees, because of their education and intelligence, have a need to give back to the workplace with their own input. However, Apple takes a very different approach. Despite being a company dependent upon innovation, its philosophy has been described as follows: "You work for Apple when you work at Apple. Don't try to make it about you, or spill secrets...You are part of something much bigger than you. The ideas you talk about in the hall, the neat tricks you figured out in CSS, the new unibody machining technique, that's part of your job, something you are paid to do for Apple's success" (Yarow 2010). Even independent ideas generated by workers are subsumed by the company's ethos.
Apple takes a highly directive approach, despite the fact that it has produced many creative products. This may be because it was designed...
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