Reflections Of Country Of Origin Upon Corporate Culture, Practices of In-house Communication and Human Resources Management: Case Study on IKEA

The cultural factors of a society affect a corporation that stems and develops in that society. The culture of the corporation is a sub-culture of the society in which it develops. Thus, the origins of corporations are effective in the cultures of their own corporate cultures. Corporate culture is a system shared by staff, that defines the mission, believes and corporate’s priorities in its surroundings. The adaptation of staff to the corporate culture is vital to obtain good business results. This is achieved by in-house corporate communication and human resources methods. Defining “origin of the corporation” that effects corporate culture, has become harder because of globalization. Actors in the global market are generally multinational and the world has become a workplace for people. When the subject of “origin of the corporation” is examined, a concept called “New Swedishness” comes up. What is “Swedishness”? Sweden is geography that we are not really familiar with. It is an old industry. Lately, it has turned all such kinds of disadvantages into advantages making good use of modern communication technologies. Many brands are Swedish; Scania, Volvo, Erickson, Oriflame, Ikea are some of them. Ikea takes place in the retail sector with its Swedish brand identity and corporate culture. Ikea concept and criteria of success are based on Swedish national culture. Ikea differentiates due to its criteria of success that has remained unchanged since the beginning and its uniqueness in different markets. In this paper, the reflections of Swedish national culture upon the corporate culture and human resources practices of Ikea will be examined with qualitative and quantitative methods experimented in Istanbul ümraniye Ikea organization