Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Patrick Petit
Program Lecturer: MarK Esposito Associate Professor at
Grenoble Graduate School of Business
August 2008
Organizational Context, Structure, and having fun. “Kick butt and have fun” was
and Values Sun's former CEO Scott McNealy's speech to
new hires. Sun has a “can-do-it” spirit with a
Since its inception in 1982, Sun Microsystems focus on engineering excellence and innovation
has had a singular vision—The Network is the in an intense competing context (both internal
Computer—which propelled Sun Microsystems and external), all pushed by contrarian minds,
as the leading provider of industrial-strength which sometimes make consensus and change
hardware, software and services that make the acceptance hard to obtain. As such, it is often
Internet work. Sun is still a global leader in said that Sun's worse competitor is Sun itself.
enterprise network computing with a revenue
approaching 14 billion worldwide in 2007. It is Employees tend to hold jobs with big
also the seventh largest company incorporated responsibilities. They also have considerable
in the Silicon Valley. Sun’s 34,000-plus room for independence and creativity. I
employees are located in 100 countries around personally could enjoy ten years of almost total
the world. The company is organized in freedom to work on the projects I wanted to, the
product-based divisions, which are independent way I wanted. Another example of
yet aligned as shown in Exhibit 1. Sun's empowerment culture is that all Sun employees
operations are organized into two business are encouraged to tell the world about their
segments: products and services that are carried work on Sun's unfiltered blog server without
out through four distinct business units; (1) having to ask for permission first.
Systems, (2) Sales and Services, (3) Software At Sun, being a self-starter is a must. Managers
and (4) Storage divisions. Sun's product look to hire people who learn quickly (“hit the
revenues are comprised of sales of Computer ground running”) and have the skills to be
Systems products and Storage products. Sun's productive right away. In response to new
services revenue is comprised of sales from two technology developments and rapid company
classes of service: (a) Support Services, which growth, products, processes, managers and job
consist of maintenance and managed services responsibilities change frequently. Many people
and (b) Professional Services and Educational work in offices, instead of Dilbert-style
Services, which consists of technical consulting cubicles. Employees dress casually, decorate
to help customers plan, implement and manage their workspace with personal taste, displaying
distributed network computing environments everything from family photos, to decoration
and develop integrated learning solutions for artifacts, toys and gadgets.
enterprises (Sun, 2007).
Another aspect of Sun's core values is integrity.
However, since the burst of the Internet bubble In the early 1990's Sun published a Standards of
in 2001, the company started a period of poor Business Conduct, with which all employees are
business performance. Sales dropped as the required to comply. In early 2001, Sun formed a
growth of online businesses failed to meet Business Conduct Office under the leadership of
predictions. As online businesses closed and the Chief Compliance Officer. The Business
their assets were auctioned off, a large amount Conduct Office has designed and implemented a
of high-end Sun hardware was available very variety of training materials and tools for
cheaply. Since then, several quarters of employees to respond effectively to ethical
substantial losses or declining revenues have issues, and conduct their work with integrity. In
been leading to repeated rounds of layoffs, particular, Sun's Standards of Business Conduct
executive departures, and expense-reduction as it relates to employees, emphasizes the
efforts. obligation to treat individuals with integrity and
respect, following transparent, professional
Sun's culture and values are about hard work employment practices, protect and enhance
employee health and safety and reputation (Sun,
conducted by Gartner, used statistical analysis to the company to continue maintaining innovative
examine the financial impact of mentoring and programs and inventing new ones.
how Sun could target its spending in this area.
The study concluded that mentoring has a On a final note, I think the continuous and
positive impact on mentors and mentees repeating layoffs that have struck the company
(Holincheck, 2006) in key factors that drive for over six years now, have had a disastrous
return on investment, such as retention and impact on the morale and motivation of an
productivity. When Sun compared the career exceptionally talented and loyal workforce. It is
progress of about 1,000 employees over a five- like employment is now bound to the resilience
year period, it turned out that both mentors and of the project people are assigned to, regardless
mentees were 20% more likely to obtain a raise of the individual's performance and skills. In my
than people who didn't participate in the opinion, this management policy has a
mentoring program at all. But the surprising part destructive effect on the company's overall
is that 25% of mentees got a raise, while 28% of performance, both from an execution and
mentors did (vs. just 5% of managers who were innovation standpoint. Bottom line, employees
not mentors). Employees who received feel insecure because there is no way they can
mentoring were promoted five times more often control their future, whether they have been
than people who didn't have mentors, but again performing outstandingly or poorly. In this
the mentors fared even better: they were six context, people are more preoccupied by
times more likely to get a promotion maintaining their employment capacity or
(Holincheck, 2006). jumping on the next “big thing” that will keep
them afloat for another year, rather than finish
Despite the positive aspects of these the job that should make the current project
experiences, I think the actual situation with successful. Also, employees have become more
regard to Sun's human resource management risk averse and reluctant to change. They have a
and people development is not that rosy. Things tendency to stick with the “stable” projects even
have changed quite a bit since the start of Sun's though stability in that context is elusive and
decline, which followed the Internet bubble sometimes artificially maintained.
burst. For instance, the Career Services is no
longer provided by a counselors, but delivered Learning from Sun Human
as a web-based application. One might wonder Resource Practices
about the true effectiveness of this substitute
compared to the analytic listening of a As stated in (Elsdon & Iyer, 1999), there is
professional. Additionally, I think that the two limited quantitative information available on the
experiences I presented above have been organizational impact of career development
successful only because multiple practices work. In addition, there are few fundamental
throughout the organization were linked. Not models describing the complexity of linkage
only human resource practices. In fact, both between human resource practices and business
programs were initiated and sponsored by performance. However, the findings from the
organizations outside of human resources. In an studies of the Career Services and SEED
effort to reduce costs and “rationalize” programs suggest that there should be added
transactions, Sun outsourced its global human value to generalizing the impact of these
resource business processes to Hewiit practices to other organizations or countries. In
Associates in October 2004. This includes fact, the SEED program was designed to be
workforce administration, recruitment, available worldwide, from day one, as a way to
compensation administration, performance balance the diversity of career growth
management and learning. It is hoped that opportunities in terms of demographics,
enough human resource personnel remained in professional area, and geographic location. This
issue is particularly salient among the
population of the Distinguished Engineers, who Global HR Outsourcing Win”, 06 Oct 2004,
are almost exclusively located in the US, due to Available at
the co-optation and fierce lobbying practices to http://www.hroassociation.org/file/3303/hewitt-
get to this position. On the business ethics side, associates-announces-global-hr-outsourcing-
many foreign companies could learn from Sun's win.html
Standards of Business Conduct as it relates to Sun, (n.d.), “Engineering Mentoring: Sun
treating individuals with dignity and and Engineering Enrichment & Development
respect. This is even true in european countries (SEED), Available online at
like France, where I have witnessed harassment http://research.sun.com/SEED/
situations, which could never have happened
under the rules of the Business Conduct Office. Sun, (n.d. a), “Corporate Governance”,
Available at
http://www.sun.com/company/cgov/standards.js
References p
Artel, L., (n.d), “Sun Microsystems Career Sun, (2004), “Tapping into the Knowledge
Services Evolving”, Available online at Network”, Feb. 18, 2004, Available online at
http://www.careertrainer.com/Request.jsp?lView http://research.sun.com/spotlight/2004-02-
=ViewArticle&Article=OID%3A111222&Page 18.SEED.html
=OID%3A111223
Sun, (2007), Annual Report for 2007, Available
Elsdon R. & Iyer S., (1999), “Creating value online at
and enhancing retention through employee http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/investor/annual_r
development: the Sun Microsystems eports/index.jsp
experience”, Human Resource Planning, Vol.
22, 1999 Holincheck, J., (2006), “Case Study: Workforce
Analytics at Sun.”, Gartner, Inc., 27 October
Hewiit, (2004), “Hewitt Associates Announces 2006 (ID Number: G00142776)
Scott McNealy
Dirertor
ECommerce
Jonathan
Schwartz
President, CEO,
& Director