The study aimed to assess the digital leadership strategies, methods, and technological emphasis that contribute to IKEA’s successes in its digital leadership journey. The study utilized a ...qualitative case study methodology, drawing upon published sources such as recorded interviews, documentaries, retail and consumer industry observations, and relevant literature on IKEA and the retail and consumer business. Findings demonstrate several strategic orientations, philosophies, and tactics employed by IKEA to achieve digital leadership excellence. A comparative analysis of digital leadership between IKEA and some global R&C businesses reveals IKEA’s strategic uniqueness in digitalization. The research concludes by proposing a process model that identifies several factors, including networking, customer understanding, marketing strategies, talented HR specialists, and smart technologies for operations. By applying change management theories, manufacturing theories, and innovation theories, these factors can potentially contribute to achieving success in digital leadership. The study tries to triangulate digital leadership strategies, management thoughts, and R&C business operations.
•Assessing the digital leadership of IKEA’s Retail and Consumer (R&C) business.•Comparative analysis of digital leadership strategies among global R&C businesses.•Framework for Success in Digital Leadership.•Combining digital management and organizational technology has brought up novel prospects and constraints.•Practical recommendations for business leadership in the digital age.
People exhibit a strong attachment to possessions, observed in behavioral economics through loss aversion using new items in the Endowment or IKEA effects and in clinical psychology through ...pathological trouble discarding domestic items in Hoarding Disorder. These fields rarely intersect, but both document a reticence to relinquish a possessed item, even at a cost, which is associated with feelings of loss but can include enhanced positive states as well.
To demonstrate the shared properties of these loss-related ownership effects, we developed the Pretzel Decorating Task (PDT), which concurrently measures overvaluation of one's own over others' items and feelings of loss associated with losing a possession, alongside enhanced positive appraisals of one's items and an effort to save them. The PDT was piloted with 31 participants who decorated pretzels and responded to their own or others' items during functional neuroimaging (fMRI). Participants observed one item per trial (self or other) and could work to save it (high or low probability loss) before learning the fate of the item (trashed or saved). Finally, participants rated items and completed hoarding tendency scales.
The hypotheses were supported, as even non-clinical participants overvalued, viewed as nicer, feared losing, and worked harder to save their items over others'-a response that correlated with hoarding tendencies and motor-motivational brain activation. Our region of interest in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) was engaged when viewing one's own items to the extent that people worked harder to save them and was more active when their items were saved when they felt emotionally attached to possessions in real life. When their items were trashed, NAcc activity negatively correlated with trouble discarding and emotional attachments to possessions. Right anterior insula was more active when working to save one's own over others' items. Extensive motor-motivational areas were engaged when working to save one's own over others' items, including cerebellum, primary motor and somatosensory regions, and retrosplenial/parahippocampal regions-even after controlling for tapping.
Our attachments to items are emotional, continuous across typical and pathological populations, and drive us to save possessions that we value.
In this paper we investigate how the second person pronominal T-form is translated in IKEA catalogues in a number of different languages. IKEA is renowned for using the T-form as a form of branding: ...it promotes this form even in those countries where it might not be perceived favourably. However, our examination of a sample of IKEA catalogues shows that there are frequent deviations from IKEA's T-policy. By examining translations of the T-form in IKEA catalogues, and language users' evaluations of the (in)appropriacy of these translations, we aim to integrate T/V pronominal research into the pragmatics of translation, by demonstrating that the study of the translation of seemingly ‘simple’ expressions, such as second person pronominal forms, can provide insight into an array of cross-cultural pragmatic differences. The study of translation in global communication is also relevant for research on the pragmatics of globalisation.
•Provides innovative insight into translational practices in global communication.•Demonstrates that the translation of seeming ‘simple’ expressions can be challenging if they are pragmatically salient.•Provides a micro-level research on the pragmatics of globalisation.
IKEA, a worldwide known “Assemble & Install-It-Yourself” furniture company with Swedish origin, launched an augmented reality app, namely, IKEA Place, that aimed to solve practical problems ...surrounding furniture shopping in September 2017. The IKEA Place, which used augmented reality to allow its users to visualize how furniture will look in their own home, is examined in this article. Discussion is centered around how the app allowed IKEA to create a service-centered value as it signaled that it understood the hurdles involved in the furniture shopping process for investing to extend technology-based support to its customers.
Este artículo se centra en la vida interior de la Casa de Suecia, un edificio de Madrid proyectado por Mariano Garrigues en 1953, completado en 1956 y dañado irreparablemente en la actualidad. Se ...trata, por tanto, de recuperar una realidad perdida; de estudiar el edificio tal y como fue concebido en origen, a partir de las escasas imágenes interiores que se conservan. El análisis se efectúa desde la experiencia de uso y va de lo general a lo particular. Primero se narra el espacio físico de las grandes reuniones colectivas en el salón de celebraciones, luego el espacio social de las pequeñas e informales reuniones en el salón y bar del hotel y, por último, el espacio emocional de Ernest Hemingway en una de las suites del hotel. El texto reseña la importancia que el movimiento de los cuerpos, la recreación de ambientes y la activación de la memoria tienen en una consideración profunda del arte de habitar.
This study aims to develop a more dynamic and relational view of centers of excellence (CoE) within multinational enterprises (MNEs), that is, business units with specific and highly valuable ...competencies and knowledge, which are transferred and leveraged by other units of the MNE. We employ a longitudinal case study to analyze how, between 1986 and 2014, an external supplier progressively became a CoE within IKEA and even improved this role, thereby becoming increasingly important for the MNE. Particularly, we develop a model linking internal (resources, competencies, and structure) and external factors (exchange volumes, interorganizational routines, mutual dependence, trust and commitment, and identities) with changed network positions, which, in turn, define the intensity and importance of a CoE's role. Thus, the elements required to establish a CoE may not originate from the MNE's core competencies, but may be extracted, recombined, and integrated externally from the MNE's global supply network.
•The concept of center of excellence (CoE) is of relational nature.•The emergence of CoE happens through a strong and central network position.•Introducing the notion of the degree of importance and value of a CoE•A unit may improve (or worsen) its role as a CoE over time.•Developing a model connecting drivers of network position and the establishment of a CoE.
•The mere act of preparing food increases liking and consumption.•Labor changes the sensory experience of food.•Preparing food could facilitate overconsumption.
Research has demonstrated that people ...like and overvalue objects that they have created themselves. In the present study, whether preparing food increases the liking for and consumption of food was examined. Participants (N=60) tasted a high-calorie milkshake that was either self-prepared or other-prepared, i.e., prepared by the experimenter. The self-prepared milkshake received higher liking ratings than the other-prepared milkshake. In addition, participants who prepared the milkshake themselves consumed a larger quantity of the shake. Further analyses indicated that this effect was mediated by liking; thus, participants consumed more of the self-prepared shake because they liked it more. We refer to this phenomenon as the “I cooked it myself” effect. In sum, the study demonstrates that the mere act of preparing food could facilitate the overconsumption of high-calorie foods and provides preliminary information that may guide the design of future experiments on food preparation and consumption.
Most current research argues that globalization of companies is a myth. In spite of this Swedish firms have managed to globalize successfully according to a study by Vahlne and Ivarsson (2014). On a ...general level this is because they managed to build strong advantages and learned to overcome barriers constituted by cultural, institutional and geographic distance. We elaborate on the expectation that organizational ambidexterity has explanatory power for profitable globalization. We perform case studies of IKEA and AB Volvo to motivate our expectation and illustrate how these firms have been able, or not able, to balance and manage the simultaneous processes of exploration and exploitation. Ambidexterity is included in the package of dynamic capabilities affecting the globalization process positively. We find that being proactive in exploration and improving on the effectiveness in exploitation may lead to successful globalization performance.
Creating your own financial portfolio has never been easier than today. While recent literature shows that people overvalue self-built consumer goods (“IKEA effect”) we ask the following question: ...How do investors value and trade a self-built versus a not self-built financial portfolio? Our pre-registered experimental design allows us to rule out any confounding customization, actual ownership, or learning effects. We find that self-building a portfolio significantly increases corresponding attachment. However, neither valuation of the portfolio nor trading decisions are affected. Thus, our precise estimates suggest that there is no economically relevant “IKEA effect” in financial investment decisions. These results indicate that common portfolio self-building opportunities per se do not directly distort financial markets.
We elevate our constructions to a special status in our minds. This ‘IKEA’ effect leads us to believe that our creations are more valuable than items that are identical, but constructed by another. ...This series of studies utilises a developmental perspective to explore why this bias exists. Study 1 elucidates the ontogeny of the IKEA effect, demonstrating an emerging bias at age 5, corresponding with key developmental milestones in self-concept formation. Study 2 assesses the role of effort, revealing that the IKEA effect is not moderated by the amount of effort invested in the task in 5-to-6-year olds. Finally, Study 3 examines whether feelings of ownership moderate the IKEA effect, finding that ownership alone cannot explain why children value their creations more. Altogether, results from this study series are incompatible with existing theories of the IKEA bias. Instead, we propose a new framework to examine biases in decision making. Perhaps the IKEA effect reflects a link between our creations and our self-concept, emerging at age 5, leading us to value them more positively than others’ creations.
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