Organizational Development & Leadership

Industrial/Organizational psychology (I/O) gained significant momentum shortly after the Industrial Revolution, which also provided organizations opportunities for increased commerce and further investments in personnel selection. This case study is based on the global retail giant IKEA, which is an acronym for the founder and his homeland; Ingvar Komprad, Elmtaryd, Agunnaryd (Sweden) (IKEA, 2012). A partial organizational analysis is conducted on behalf of IKEA's structure, culture, global strategy, leadership, personnel, and further support is provided through contemporary literature, e.g., other case studies relevant to the content analysis of IKEA. This includes an introduction and background to the company, with particular emphasis on several tenets which lend themselves to a more thorough analysis of IKEA. These are; organizational development (OD), organizational behavior (OB), personnel psychology, research methods in I/O psychology, and acknowledgements of any missing information in the field that may otherwise support this organizational analysis. It is important to note at this early point in the case study, that the above tenets do not exclusively include the subject of environmental analysis, save for strategy to a minor degree, which is part of OD, and is mostly an internal aspect of organizational analyses (Eilam & Shamir, 2005). It is also a key aspect of this study to analyze IKEA from an internal consultative perspective, given the evaluation of its organizational tenets as a whole.
Introduction and Background
Factual information in this section pertaining to IKEA was collected directly from IKEA's website, thus it is not necessary to cite redundantly (IKEA, 2012). IKEA began through the hard work of Ingvar Kamprad in 1958. He had taken modest steps as a young boy selling office supplies from his dad's shop, and later thought it would be a good idea to expand his entrepreneurship into housewares and furniture sales. Today IKEA is a