The main vision of IKEA is to provide customers with a variety of furnished household products (Vahlne and Jonsson 2017). The company gathers a lot of customers by keeping affordable prices of the products and also providing a good quality product (Jonsson, Rudberg and Holmberg 2013). The main vision of IKEA is to expand its stores in the future and us its profits on improving the existing business of the company. The company aims to improve the quality of its product and produce some sustainable solutions and constantly reduce the price of its products for its customers.
Though the company claims that it facilitates diversity in its structure yet it has been found that diversity problem exists in the structure of the company (Kristoffersson 2014). Diversity is a major problem that has existed in organizations around the world and is one of the major issues in the workplace which needs to be diminished to create a sustainable workplace in an organization. Individual differences among the employees of the company are one of the diversity issues which have been seen in an organization (Brown et al., 2016). A strong corporate culture is also missing in the company culture. These are some of the factors which need to be addressed by the company to ensure better performance of the company in the future (Daunfeldt, Mihaescu, Nilsson and Rudholm 2017).
Diversity as a corporate governance issue
It is quite ironic that diversity is crawling its way into the corporate governance of organizations at a slow pace. Diversity is considered to be one of the most important aspects of stable corporate governance. The board of a company is responsible for the kind of corporate governance which will be existing in the company (Hillman 2015). The perspective of diversity is a very common issue that has been faced by organizations from time to time. Diversity in an organization has a great effect on the role of the board of the organization as well as the environment of the board. The board of directors of an organization takes a lot of important decisions for the smooth work of the company and to go through its daily activities. The main goal of the board members of an organization is to identify the future risks which might be faced by the company and the asses the methods which might be applied to the company to avoid these risk in the future (Kim and Starks 2016). This explains why the board of directors of the company is an essential part of the board. For the better functioning of the board of directors of the company, the company needs to implement experience and a diverse group of people on its board. The board of directors of an organization must be skilled in communicating with other officials of the organization and must have a bond of trust with each other to help the company in the long run. To make a successful board of directors of the company needs to include diversity in the board. This is why diversity is such an important aspect of any organization (Harjoto, Laksmana and Lee 2015). Diversity in an organization not only helps the company in the higher levels but also helps the company in maintaining a good workplace. The diverse ideas of the employees of the company help the company to gather all the different kinds of ideas from the people and mix them, together to make decisions for the future planning of the organization. The presence of a diverse workforce in a company will not only foster better relations of the company with its employees but also help in understanding the various understandings and the diverse ideas among the people of the workplace which is needed for the smooth governance of the company (Boulouta 2013).
Whenever the topic of diversity is discussed in an organization then it is believed that women must be given the same opportunity as men but diversity generally explains a lot of factors in it (Ferrero?Ferrero, Fernández?Izquierdo and Muñoz?Torres 2015). When a board of directors of a company is selected on the fact that the person is eligible for the post or they have applies for the post of the organization, it reduces the chances of the implementation of diversity in the workplace of the company (Muttakin, Khan and Subramaniam 2015). To ensure that the discussion of the board is taken in a very diverse process, the perspective during the board meeting must be kept diverse. The boards of the organization which mainly select members of the board just to fill the slot of the board without taking into consideration whether the member will be able to fill up the perspective of the board fail to implement diversity in its corporate governance structure (Ben-Amar, Chang and McIlkenny 2017). For the implementation of robust discussions in the company structure and the board of the company a well rounding discussion panel must be implemented by the company which requires to company to hire employees who will be able to fulfill the perspective of the company rather than filling up the board spaces of the company as well as filling up the vacant spaces. the main target of the company is to appoint members in the board who will not only be able to fulfill the perspective of the company and align with the goals and missions of the company but also will be able to communicate these diverse perspective with other members of the company which will ensure that the board of the company will be functioning in a proper way (Yamamura and Streeck 2018). If all the board members of the company y are aligned on the same page then the company does not require board members in it. The board members of the company must be diverse in their thoughts which will ensure smooth functioning of the company as more the ideas which will be presented by the board members of the company more will be the presence of diverse opinions in the board function of the company (Filatotchev and Nakajima 2014).
Though IKEA states that it incorporates diversity in its management yet it has been seen that the company has failed to implement so in its corporate culture. As a global company, it is very essential for IKEA to include diversity so that it can survive in the present scenario. IKEA argues that it has handled human diversity in its organization in accordance with the global HRM policies. The company states that the global HRM policies must be in context with the increased heterogeneity which has been observed among the customers and how the organization will assess the recruitment of the new target markets (Hong, Li and Minor 2016). The characterization of these target markets always varies from each other. IKEA states that it is very important for the company to understand that diversity is a very important issue that needs to be implemented by the company (Steger 2015). By looking at these statements from the company it can be said that the version of IKEA’s diversity management is creating an idea of a state of affair which is paradoxical in nature (Korsgaard and Lauring 2019).
The corporate governance structure of the company which includes diversity in its nature somehow gives the idea that the company has been failing to implement diversity in its culture. Though the company states that it wants to embrace and respect the individual differences of its employees but it will also be maintaining a strong unified culture (Korsgaard and Lauring 2019). This gives an idea that the company is trying to impose its corporate culture of the employees of the company. The employees of the company need to follow these steps and will not be given the opportunity to express their individual ideas and thoughts. if the company what to maintain the unified culture of it in a robust way then there arises the question that how the company will be able to take into account all the different varieties of race, physical ability, sexual orientation, gender and ethnicity and age differences of all the employees and incorporate it in the diversity of the organization (Korsgaard and Lauring 2019). This clearly shows that though IKEA claims that it incorporates diversity in its corporate governance structure as well as the workplace it is failing to do so when it tries to impose its mission and visions on the employees of the company.
According to Appendix 1 and Appendix 2, it can be seen that all the countries in which the country is operating, the website of the company shows that how the company is advertising it includes diversity in its corporate culture (Korsgaard and Lauring 2019). While looking at appendix 3, we can say that the stores which have been own by the company have almost the same statements among themselves and the same ideas about the implementation of corporate cultural diversity in them. These findings also give an idea about how the company is trying to balance the strong corporate culture of the company along with the implementation of the diversity in the company. The paradox situation in which it is not possible to include both the strong corporate culture of a company along with cultural differences has been seen in the functioning of IKEA (Korsgaard and Lauring 2019).
Firstly according to IKEA the statement which has been implemented by IKEA states that to understand the individual differences among the individuals working in the company, an employee can be true to themselves and can be themselves. These characteristics which have been pointed out by the company states that an employee will be set apart from another employee and will not create any problem in the functioning in the workplace in the company. It has also been seen that the combination of “work hard” and “be yourself” states that the company will only be accepting the value of self of an individual as long as they are hard-working. This also raises the concern that if one of the employees of the company do not work hard or are unable to perform like the other employees of the company then they will be respected in the company and their self-nature and the ideas will not be entertained by the company (Korsgaard and Lauring 2019). With this statement, the company fails to address the implementation of diversity in its corporate structure. The statement of the company which is imposing a strong corporate culture on the employees is not an effective solution for the implementation of diversity in the organization. The corporate structure of the company does not allow the inclusion of cultural diversity in the company though the company states that it does so.
IKEA needs to follow its instinct for the implementation of diversity in its corporate value rather than following the stereotype of society. It has been often seen that organization around the world hires the employees only who are qualified for the position by looking at their experience and education. But the company needs to take into account the employees are implemented with innovative ideas are more el; eligible for a post on the board of the company than someone else who is more experienced. Cultural diversity in an organization leads to the implementation of various ideas that require the company to hire people from a different perspective. IKEA has been imposing the goals and vision of the company with the people who are associated with the company rather than allowing them to share their ideas with the managers and the leaders of the company. Cultural diversity in an organization helps all the divisions of the company starting from the workplace to the board. In the future when the company will be hiring member for the board the company needs to look at the candidate who is more eligible for the port and ga=have more chances of providing innovation the company rather than looking at the experiences of the employees and just to fill up the empty spaces in the company.
The decision-making process which the board member is going to implement in the company must be shared with the employees who are associated with the company and feedbacks from them must be taken to ensure that everyone is on board with the decision-making process of the company. If someone associated with the company has some different or any kind of innovative idea for the company them that must be taken into account by the company and see if the idea is feasible to be implemented in the decision making the process. Sharing different ideas with the employees from different cultural aspects will give IKEA a huge scope4 for the betterment of the company in the future (Aguilera and Crespi-Cladera 2016).
The different career goals of the employees of the company must be respected by the company as different employees of the company must have different goals in the company which needs to be taken into account by the company (Ibrahim and Hanefah 2016). These employees with different career goals can be looked upon by the company and some suggestions can be made by the board of the company which will be giving the feeling of security in the employee associated with IKEA.
Flexibility is one of the aspects which needs to be implemented by the company to promote diversity in its structure. Being flexible with the employees by understanding their problem and helping them to grow within the company is also one of the main factors which foster happiness among the employees of the company (Ferreira 2015). The human resource management of the company must look into the well being of the employees and check whether they are doing good in the corporate structure of the company and provide solutions to them if they are facing any kind of particular problem.
Conclusion
To conclude it can be said cultural diversity in an organization is a very important aspect that needs to be implemented by all organizations around the world. The more diverse a company is the more will be diverse ideas it can imply on the functioning of the company. IKEA is such a huge global brand needs to implement diversity in its corporate governance structure as it will be very helpful for the company in the long run and will also solidify its position in the global market. The recommendations which have been stated above for the company need to be followed by it which will give it an opportunity to implement cultural diversity in its structure. Cultural diversity is a major corporate governance issue that needs to be addressed by the company as it will be helping the company to grow in the future. IKEA being a global brand needs to implement the varieties of cultures in the company as the board members of the company must be diverse which will help the company to get new ways for improving the company in the future and will also foster the idea of being a diversified company in the present market.
Reference
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