Organisational Behaviour Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Organisational Behaviour - Essay Example It is, however, vital to learn the organisation’s background to delve any further. IKEA prides itself to be the most successful and largest furniture retailer in the world, and boasts provision of everything and anything for a home, having products suited for people of all ages, and all this at low prices. The company promises excellent value for money spent with all of their products designed with an emphasis on natural colours to bring a light and airy atmosphere within a home. This concept is based purely on IKEA’s Swedish origins, where people pride themselves in living in harmony with nature with simple home designs which offer maximum efficiency in all weathers (http://www.iamaceo.com/marketing/ikea-brand-success-strategy/). IKEA’s vision, â€Å"to create a better everyday life for the many people† is reportedly largely aimed at the global middleclass which is also evident from their business idea, â€Å"to offer a wide range of well designed, funct ional home furnishing products at prices so low that as many people as possible will be able to afford them† (http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_GB/about_ikea/press_room/student_info.html). To achieve this global mission, IKEA is well known for having a rapid internationalisation process from its Swedish origins and its rapid expansion into countries with cultures very different from its original Swedish national culture (Hollensen, 2007). With 265 stores worldwide, where 235 are owned by the IKEA group while the remaining 30 by franchisees outside the group; the extent of IKEA’s expansion is obvious (IKEA, 2007). Although owned by franchisees in some countries, the IKEA concept and trademark are solely owned by Inter IKEA Systems B.V in Netherlands. This means Inter IKEA Systems B.V is the franchiser for all IKEA stores within or outside of the IKEA group, ensuring uniformity of corporate values right from the centre (IKEA, 2007). Having looked into the organisation’s ba ckground, it is now important to study Morgan’s metaphors, which can then be applied to the organisation. Firstly, Morgan suggests that organisation theorists, after decades of comparing organisations as mechanistic entities, have moved to the biological sciences for more apt comparisons, where individuals, groups, organisations, populations or species of organisations, and their social ecology are paralleled with molecules, cells, complex organisms, species and ecology (Morgan, 2006, pg 34). The idea derived from drawing such comparisons is that certain species of organisation are adapted to certain external conditions just as certain species of organisms are to certain environments (Morgan, 2006, pg 33). Such metaphoric views have changed the classical mechanistic focus on efficiency, and structure to the basic element of survival with more emphasis on the organisation-environment relationship (Morgan, 2006; 1998). This can be further complimented with modern environmental analysis methods like SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and PEST (political, economical, sociological and technological) analyses, that have been developed solely for comparing an organisation’s internal abilities to the external factors that may or are affecting its survival and performance in that environment (Johnson et al, 2008; Kotler, 2003). Within the metaphor of an organisation as a living organism, Morgan introduces certain