Ikea Csr
Ikea’s strategy toward Corporate Social Responsibility.
Corporate social responsibility is a concept that is becoming increasingly important and these days seems like a necessary condition to do business. There appears to be an infinite number of definitions of CSR across academia, varying from the simplistic to the complex and includes a range of related terms and ideas- including corporate citizenship, corporate sustainability, corporate social investment, socially responsible investment, business sustainability and corporate governance.
It can be usually agreed upon that CSR consists of taking on more responsibility than just an economical principle and for the purpose of this discussion will be defined as ‘A commitment to improve community well-being through discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources’. In other words CSR implies a stakeholder view and that they have moral responsibilities that extend beyond a return for their shareholder.
The Swedish furniture giant IKEA has received much respect from the entire world with regards to its CSR philosophy. The things that makes IKEA stand out is that despite its aggressive focus on cost cutting it has been able to combine this with global CSR issues which most companies find near impossible to do. The organisation alongside cost effectiveness has added an element of altruism, so that its guiding philosophy is to "create a better everyday life for the many people … and to offer a wide range of home furnishings with good design and function at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them" IKEA's underlying goal is to consider and integrate social and environmental considerations into its daily operations and to "make products which have minimum impact on the environment and … manufacture them in a socially responsible way" . These values stem from the fundamental norms common within Sweden and in Nordic countries as a whole, which on a cultural
Corporate social responsibility is a concept that is becoming increasingly important and these days seems like a necessary condition to do business. There appears to be an infinite number of definitions of CSR across academia, varying from the simplistic to the complex and includes a range of related terms and ideas- including corporate citizenship, corporate sustainability, corporate social investment, socially responsible investment, business sustainability and corporate governance.
It can be usually agreed upon that CSR consists of taking on more responsibility than just an economical principle and for the purpose of this discussion will be defined as ‘A commitment to improve community well-being through discretionary business practices and contributions of corporate resources’. In other words CSR implies a stakeholder view and that they have moral responsibilities that extend beyond a return for their shareholder.
The Swedish furniture giant IKEA has received much respect from the entire world with regards to its CSR philosophy. The things that makes IKEA stand out is that despite its aggressive focus on cost cutting it has been able to combine this with global CSR issues which most companies find near impossible to do. The organisation alongside cost effectiveness has added an element of altruism, so that its guiding philosophy is to "create a better everyday life for the many people … and to offer a wide range of home furnishings with good design and function at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them" IKEA's underlying goal is to consider and integrate social and environmental considerations into its daily operations and to "make products which have minimum impact on the environment and … manufacture them in a socially responsible way" . These values stem from the fundamental norms common within Sweden and in Nordic countries as a whole, which on a cultural