Organisational Culture and Creative Behaviour at Ikea - Case Study Example

Abstract This paper explores the impact of organisational behavior and implementing behavioral change at the IKEA franchise in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, the paper thus looks at the organisational behavioural issues with regard to diversity and how this has been well incorporated to able to meet the challenges that the organisation faces. The paper thus talks about behavioral challenges that managers face in the process of trying to get in line with internationalisationof an organisation as part of behavior change. The report will also discuss the aspect of IKEA corporate behavior in general by the exploring Hofstede way of classifying values across culturewith a special focus on the company’s expansion to Dubai, the UAE. 1.0 Introduction IKEA is one of the most reputable and successful furniture in the world, the company specialises in sale and designing of home appliances with products which are suitable for people of all ages, tastes and economies. The company is known for having one of the most affordable and best design furniturethat come in natural colours in order to bring out a natural feeling in the homes of many customers[Ale12]. The IKEA concept was nurtured in Sweden where people in that country are popular for embracing harmony and nature as being part of a simple home designs that offer all weather feeling in the homes. The company vision is to ‘create a better everyday life for many people’ this means that the company’s strategy aims at offering a global middle and top class lifestyle that is described with their wide range of furniture that are ‘designed, functional home products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them’ (IKEA, 2014) As of now, the IKEA owns 265 stores that are spread all over the world. 235 of them are owned by IKEA which the rest 30 have been franchised by outside the group, this means that the company has extended to other countries (IKEA, 2014). For this reason, it is important that the company’s organisational behavior is based on the idea of values that have to be shared. These values will need the company to incur costs, togetherness, simplicity and respect in way that people are managed and the way that the things are manufactured[Kev03]. When looking at these values, one will find that the company has most of the time portrayed itself as being democratic in terms of organisational behavior. This is because the company has always provided freedom to those who work with the company and this has highly contributed to the ever growing success of the company. The company also claims to treat its human resources with equality and does not look at the rank. The company also encourages employees to use their own creativity and it provides full support for this. In doing this, employees in the company continue to come up with fashionable designs that make them easy to implement such organisational behavior all over the world. However, this has not always been so; the company has had to undergo several changes in order to meet the challenges that came with organisational behavior. The company had to review its culture of doing things in order to excel in to the international market[Joh131]. 2.0 OrganisationalBehaviour Challenges within Ikea The main behavioral challenge with IKEA has laid on the fact that it had to internationalise itself from an ethnocentric corporate culture to becoming diverse enough in order to embrace the behavior of the people that it embraced in the new international market. This means that it had to come up with a diverse workforce which would see the company obtaining more customer advantage over other companies with regard to competition [Dwi06]. In fact these are some of the things that the company stands for, where it claims to encourage employees who work with their satellite stations to work in a way that they are being themselves. This should also be seen in the way employees do things. To add on this, it was again important that the company introduce new managerial positions which were to be away from the native Swiss. In order for the company to succeed in this, it had to the reflect the way in works in a new perspective with regard to the way that they showcase their products and stop playing under the normal Swedish rules. This is even reflected in their website where one can observe the dominance in Scandinavian behaviour (Gupta, 2014 p. 429). The other organisational behavior challenge that the company experienced over the years was based on the fact that it had to make internal change so as to be able to accommodate its foreign workers in high managerial positions. This means that that the company had to ensure that organisational behavior was internationalised by employing other groups and behaviours in main managerial positions with regard to their satellite stations, it was also important that these key positions are distributed evenly to people in the native countries and not only for people with Swedish nationality[Gee01]. The third challenge was to also ensure that all communication systems are done in universal language so as to make everyone understand, this would be able to break cultural barriers in the organisation. For year, this behavioral change has been realised due to implementation of various behavioural needs[HUA11]. The next section analyse literature related to behavioral change with regard to IKEA. Workplace culture will also depend in the way that the company treats its HR, as a matter of fact, the main aspects of HRM is about the way that the organization manages its people on the grounds. This is why it is important that IKEA provides for a strong HRM policy in order to manage the new culture in their international stations. There needs to be a well-structured organization which has a very strict format and serious approach to the way things are done in the organization. One of the way that the company can be able to influence the Muslim culture for example, without colliding with the communities, can be done through training, this should contain different aspects of Organizational culture with regard to various job positions. The company should thus come up with a very unique slogan for each station that provides employees of the new Muslim culture and religion with a special role to meet the company’s purpose and value(Gupta, 2014 p. 429). Other aspects of culture will come highly when it comes to language barrier, this is one of the main mirrors of organizational culture. This will also be influenced by religion of the international market. As a multinational company, the IKEA will have challenges as whether they need to adjust to specific needs that are related to local culture on the brand itself. However the important of IKEA reputation is different with regard to different cultures. Organizational culture will also come out well with regard to the organization’s HRM. It will also influence the way that the company advertises in the international networks and how it makes decisions. Since a country like the United Arab Emirates is not as diverse with regard to culture, there will be some cultural challenges experience by both the IKEA and the United Arab Emirates communities. Cultural differences will also influence the way consumers provide feedback to the organizations services. This is because most Islamic consumers will only buy commodities when they need to, this is not like the European consumers who are always easily convinced by advertisement and popularity of an organization of item(Weir, 2013 p.280). 3.0 IKEA and Hofstede way of classifying values across culture and Cultural Change In order to understand the behavioral issues of IKEA we look that theHofstede way of classifying values across culture and how it has been used to define behavioral and cultural issues that the company has had to undergo over the years. The theorist came up with the cultural change theory when he observed behavioral and cultural issues that companies all over the world face from time to time[Kos05], (Hofstede, 2001). i) Power distance: In the power distance model, one will look at the issues of organisational behavior with regard to the degree of power or inequality that a country experiences that eventually influences the way people are treated in a country. For countries like Asia, one will realise that it ranks its people with regard to culture and religious practices. This means that there is a great difference between the rich and the poor in that county making other people more privileged than others. For this reason, it will be important for IKEA to choose its managerial representative well so as to avoid colliding with the local folks who strictly observe the caste system. It is also important to note that in this country, when opportunities come in the country, it is only the privileged people that will have the opportunities to enjoy such privileges (Walsh, 2008). The poor will always be blocked from several opportunities by the rich. ii) Individualism:In some countries people are so individualistic that everyone is expected to mind about themselves, while in other countries people take care of one another in the sense that if a project is implemented then it should be seen to benefit each person in the community[Dav132][Nan05]. [GEl06]. The company will thus have to embrace the virtue of collectivism in order to adopt the behaviour of the organisation (Hofstede, 2001). iii) Masculinity: This dimension of behavior will look so much on the productivity of each gender. This is the same with people living in the United Arab Emirates as the Muslimbehavior poses more value for women as being home makers more than workers. This means that people who are employed in most of the companies there are men, gender diversity may not highly work in the country as it does in Sweden or other non-Arab countries like the United Kingdom(Hofstede, 2001). iv) Uncertainty avoidance: This will focus on how the new organisational behavior model will have an impact in the way that the company is set to observe change. One of the reasons for doing this is because people in the United Arab Emirates will not be able to embrace new organisational behavior which will interfere in the normal order of doing this. For example, they may not like the idea of having women managers over men[IKE14]. v) Long term orientation:The last model under Hofstede theory of behavior is that of long term orientation, in this area, one will find that some countries people take long to change their working culture while other are quick to adapt. Since the IKEA native country is in Europe, it may be a challenge for countries in Dubai and the whole United Arab Emirates to embrace the country’s organisational behavior[Pro03]. [Joh081]. These are very important values for the country, that IKEA will have to be consider the way people are employed and more so in the way people are handled in the organisation. 4.0 Organisational Change in IKEA and its impact In order for the country to realize behavioral change in Asian Countries, the company needed to first of all understand that most Muslims are controlled by the power of faith and it plays a much greater role in the way organisations are run and managed. There is an aspect of power distance and uncertainty in these countries organisational behavior unlike other countries which value other issues. Organisational behavior will also influence the way people are hired in the country, this means that the aspect by which the company uses to employ people in Sweden may not go hand in hand with the way that the countries in United Arab Emirates would prefer. For example the country implements very serious rules and regulations with regard to international trade in order to reduce the amount of uncertainty. Power is also shared among few people in the country as vast wealth is among the selected people in the society who control a great chunk of minerals and oil. To add on the above, the county will also enjoy uncertainty and avoidance index that may make it have low tolerance levels in the society. The aspect of masculinity plays a very huge role in the way human resources engages itself, this means that IKEA will not be able to employ women in high positions and if they do, they will only have to do it under the class that they belong to[Pen13]. Masculinity plays also in the area of productivity, this means that the Arabian market is highly disciplined meaning that they are able to work when they are called upon to do son, however it will also be important to investigate other important issues such as prayer sessions for Muslims and attendance to the mosque which will in all ways affect they work people work in the organisation[Bri12]. Other issues such as etiquette also dictatethe way that the company has been able to handle its business meetings and other social interactions. For example, in the country, it is discovered that women are always over protected by Islamic religion, at times it has not been easy for one to setbetween men in business meetings. For this reason, the company has not employed many women to work for them since it realized that this was a great challenge in the country’s organisational behavior. Ironically the most powerful people in the Arabian behavior are the silent ones who often speak through a personal assistant or a spokesman, the company needs to understand that this is the only way they will be able to continue maintaining business relations with the countrymen (Toit, Motlatla, & Marais, 2003). This means that the country has a long term oriented behavior with which the company may find it hard to embrace in the long run. 5.0 Conclusion This paper looked at the organisational behavior challenges that IKEA encountered during the internationalisation of its business to United Arab Emirates, the paper also discussed ways in which the company was able to meet these challenges by use ofHofstede way of classifying values across culture and how this has been able to ensure that they work well in a new country. In conclusion thus it can be said that there is generally a significant amount of similarity in the way that organisational behavior is bound to affect the way human resource and business is carried in the organisation. This is bound to affect the employee turnover and profitability of the organisation. Its expansion will also be affected since the company may find difficulty embracing new behaviours[Bar09]. Due to this, the company needs to continue embracing the issue of behavioral diversity in order to maintain its business culture in the new countries. For example, it is important that the company embraces the roots of social, religions and economic development of the Arabian people. Diversity is a very important tool in internationalisation of businesses, meaning that as much as the company will expand carrying with it the Swedish way of doing things; the company will also be called upon to embrace the Arabian way of doing things[Ang12]. Lastly, it is important that the company does a continuous recruitment of new people from the United Arab Emirates. It has to stop the habit of employing and recruiting people who come from the company’s native country, Sweden. If it does this well, then communities and country’s organisational laws will not be a problem. The company needs to also welcome the Islamic way of doing things and create a single synergy that will work for the organisation for mutual benefit[Pro03]. This new organisational culture finally also needs to be embraced in the country’s mission and vision with regard to its presence in the Arabian country. It is only by continuing to embrace organisational and cultural diversity that the company will grow its presence in the international market. 6.0 References Ale12: , (Chernev & Kotler, 2012), Kev03: , (Chun, Organista, & Marin, 2003), Joh131: , (Creswell, 2013), Dwi06: , (Dwivedi, 2006), Gee01: , (Hofstede, 2001), HUA11: , (MIN, JIE, & BIAN, 2011), Kos05: , (Kossek, Brown, J.M.Pringle, Konrad, & P.Prasad, 2005, p. 3), Dav132: , (Larcker, Tayan, & Gutman, 2013), Nan05: , (Lockwood, 2005), GEl06: , (Elkin & P.Strach, 2006), IKE14: , (IKEA, 2014), Pro03: , (Toit, Motlatla, & Marais, 2003), Joh081: , (Walsh, 2008), Pen13: , (Pullan & Archer, 2013), Bri12: , (Night, 2012), Bar09: , (Kenton & Yarnall, 2009), Ang12: , (Kinicki & Williams, 2012), Weir, D. (2013).Organisational analysis and development: A social construction of organisational behaviour. European Management Journal, 379-380. Gupta, B. (2014). Organisational culture and creative behaviour: Moderating role of creative style preference.International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 429-429. Read More