Ikea Case Study

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EACase Study: IKEA IKEA was founded by Ingvar Kamprad in 1943 when he was only seventeen years old. The company was started as a catalog company that sold pens, picture frames and other bargain goods like wallets. In 1951 they began to sell furniture made by local carpenters. In 1957 IKEA opened its first store and in 1985 it opened its first U.S. store. It now has stores in thirty-three countries and is one of the largest furniture stores in the world. The story strongly related to the leadership and the path-goal aspect of the chapter. Ingvar Kamprad took his entrepreneurial and frugal spirit to business and has become very successful. He has made this company strive for profits and market share through cost cutting and searching for new and better ways to do something, not settling for the norm. 1.) One way that Ingvar Kamprad is like a leader is though his philosophy that he tried to instill in his company. He had his company continually ask themselves, “why they are doing this or that.” He hoped that they will not settle for something just because it is established, they strive to make progress and dare to do it a different way. Ingvar Kamprad is like a manager through his frugality when it comes to business. IKEA continually looks for ways to help save costs through either using employees as models for the catalogs or sharing travel expenses when employees travel. 2.) Effective followers are active, responsible and autonomous in their behavior and critical in their thinking (Nelson, 2011 Pg. 424). Ingvar Kamprad has instilled a lot of this type of followership in his former company. Whether through his personal story in being active, responsible and autonomous and along with critical thinking was used to start his company or though his well noted philosophy where employees are encouraged to find different better ways to do something and not accept

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