IKEA in India : A study of the cultural aspects of deploying an IKEA store in India

Abstract: Introduction: This study is about organisational culture and different cultural influences in a cross-cultural environment at an IKEA office in India. Statement of Purpose: The purpose of this master thesis is to provide increased understanding of the cross-cultural setting in regards to conceptualisation of the concept of culture as well as sense-making and sense-giving processes of employees in a trans-cultural environment in India. The case study follows a social constructionist understanding of organisations, and can thus provide valuable insights into the field without attempting to offer normative solutions (‘the company should do this or that’) or predictive views (‘the company will suffer or have success because of this’). Research Questions: In what ways are employees of an IKEA office in India making sense of their complex cross-cultural environment? Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework of this thesis is the conceptualisation of cross-cultural management in a transcultural setting. The literature on cross-cultural management is in this thesis seen as divided between culture as managed and manageable (organisations have cultures and culture is seen as an essence) and culture as being organic and developing through interaction (i.e. organisations ‘are’ cultures as culture is a non-essentialist, dynamic and on-going process of interaction). Woven into these above mentioned conceptualisation of culture are sense-making and sense-giving processes. Research Methodology: This qualitative case study of an IKEA office in India is based on semi-structured in-depth interviews (8) and observations at the research site in New Delhi, India. Findings: The findings show how sense-making processes of individuals – that interact with sense-giving attempts in terms of ‘official’ cultural values and norms – construct organisational culture in the form of shared meanings, individual interpretations and on-going negotiation processes. Moreover, the findings also point to specific cultural influences that are based on the historical situation, i.e. the rule of the British Empire in India that lasted nearly two centuries and ended in 1947. Discussion: At the office in India, IKEA tried to influence employees through sense-giving processes by means of official corporate values, norms, policies and the actions by managers. These sense-giving processes, nonetheless, interact with individual and collective sense-making processes of employees and various cultural influences. For example, linguistic ‘barriers’ (which might influence the sensemaking processes of employees), different notions of time, or of how formal or informal the organisational context should be, influenced the employees’ understanding of the official cultural values of the organisation. Furthermore, special historical influences (in the case due to Britain’s rule over the Indian subcontinent) can create tensions around dominance and authority within the organisation. Conclusion: The case study that I present in this master thesis offers the following theoretical contributions to the literature on cross-cultural management: it takes the conceptualisations of culture in cross-cultural management and provides empirical insights based on the view of organisational culture as being constructed and negotiated in on-going interaction between individuals. Moreover, it adds a specific aspect to the literature on cross-cultural management, as it highlights the importance of special historical influences as additional factors that researchers need to consider. The practical recommendations that this study provides are – due to the nature of the constructionist approach – neither predictive nor normative. Nonetheless, the constructionist view of organisational culture in cross-cultural management can help people in various positions in organisations (e.g., shop floor employees, administrators, managers) in their attempts to analyse and understand the complexities of cross-cultural settings. Instead of finding a kind of ‘recipe’ or ‘best practice guidelines’, this view can make people aware of individual sense-making process and the negotiation of shared meanings, of experts of cultural knowledge within their firm, and of historical influences that can become important in the negotiation of shared meanings.