Ikea’s Management Style
IKEA’s Management Style
IKEA has become one of the top international firms and the world’s largest furniture retailer, and a large part of its success is attributed to its founder Ingvar Kampard’s strong personality and his style is doing business.
Based on the case study that briefly shows how Ikea’s management was able to reach to this success, we can notice that Ikea’s management style is informal, open, and caring. Hierarchy is not emphasized, and only three levels of responsibility between the store manager and coworkers were there. With a pragmatic approach to problem solving and consensus based decision making are strongly encouraged by Ikea’s management, coworkers involvement are encouraged and their initiatives are appreciated and considered as a necessary part of the business process. Managers are expected to share information with the coworkers along with the knowledge and the skills.
The management of Ikea wanted the coworkers to feel important so they can express their ideas, and should be responsible for improving the way things are done. Bureaucratic procedures are avoided and the managers are encouraged to be close to coworkers, and this made it easy for the employees to work up with little formal trainings. There have been to differentiations between managers, all of them who need, have been given the same company’s cars with economic models for work or business regardless of their positions.
2
Ikea refrained establishing extensive training programs; they preferred a softer approach through discussion and explanation.
Using Hofstede’s 5-Dimension cultural model, we can describe to what extent Ikea’s culture and management style is affected with Swedish national culture. The first dimension, power distance,
Sweden’s score is 31. This reflects a more equality and less hierarchy environment where the seniors and managers are casual and friendly, democratic and consulting, welcoming suggestions from subordinates, encouraging
IKEA has become one of the top international firms and the world’s largest furniture retailer, and a large part of its success is attributed to its founder Ingvar Kampard’s strong personality and his style is doing business.
Based on the case study that briefly shows how Ikea’s management was able to reach to this success, we can notice that Ikea’s management style is informal, open, and caring. Hierarchy is not emphasized, and only three levels of responsibility between the store manager and coworkers were there. With a pragmatic approach to problem solving and consensus based decision making are strongly encouraged by Ikea’s management, coworkers involvement are encouraged and their initiatives are appreciated and considered as a necessary part of the business process. Managers are expected to share information with the coworkers along with the knowledge and the skills.
The management of Ikea wanted the coworkers to feel important so they can express their ideas, and should be responsible for improving the way things are done. Bureaucratic procedures are avoided and the managers are encouraged to be close to coworkers, and this made it easy for the employees to work up with little formal trainings. There have been to differentiations between managers, all of them who need, have been given the same company’s cars with economic models for work or business regardless of their positions.
2
Ikea refrained establishing extensive training programs; they preferred a softer approach through discussion and explanation.
Using Hofstede’s 5-Dimension cultural model, we can describe to what extent Ikea’s culture and management style is affected with Swedish national culture. The first dimension, power distance,
Sweden’s score is 31. This reflects a more equality and less hierarchy environment where the seniors and managers are casual and friendly, democratic and consulting, welcoming suggestions from subordinates, encouraging