Cultural Insensitivity In Ikea Case Study

Register to read the introduction… the IKEA beds came in centimetres but American liked their beds King size and large beds , the standard book shelves were too small for Americans TV, this was not the first time they faced same problem it had happened in Germany 1974 where the desks were flop just because the Germans were used to 5 legged ones and standard ones in IKEA just had 4 …show more content…
IKEA had general plan on entering the market on its standard marketing plan where there was very little scope for analysis, they have to understand the emerging demographics which will force the firm to widen its focus strategy to respond to nation level consumer groups for e.g. the standard plan in entering the Japanese market failed just because the need to understand the requirement of cohort consumers were not taken in to account, hence the failure to lure the Japanese consumers to its …show more content…
The IKEA case shows that company is using similar way of entering being under the impression that their way of managing is universally accepted which they are now struggling with in countries like China, Japan and America. The decision that going global in Scandinavian style in Asian price has preserved the Swedish content and it has managed to fare successfully in European market but not in many international markets.
IKEA has built a strong corporate culture laid by its founder Ingvar Kamprad, which has given it a competitive advantage but IKEA applies same corporate culture in all the market it operates which influences the national culture resulting in cultural insensitivity, It was for the same reason that Hofstede (2001) had doubts about the universal validity of management theories which are developed in one countries and when they are applied in another market due to different environment culture and it may have different impact in different