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Social Responsibility Adopted by IKEA
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Contents
- Introduction
- Company profile
- Objective of the study
- Review on CSR
- Social responsibility management system
- Fair labour association
- Research methodology
- Findings
- Conclusion
- References
Introduction
Public interest and awareness has encouraged the companies to adopt positive methods for sharing information about CSR methods. The CSR strategies help in using the resources in an effective manner. Companies communicate the responsible conduct, which states the process that would be followed for improving the CSR strategies. This report analyse the corporate social responsibility strategies adopted by IKEA. The responsibility adopted for CSR strategies differs for organisations, and it depends upon the type of organisational activities undertaken by the management. CSR policies are disclosed by the management to state the responsible tasks undertaken by the managers of the company.
Sustainable economic condition defines the methods to be followed for investing, adoption of advanced technology, and using the available natural resources. These changes are integrated with the institutional changes and reformation programs that enhance the future and the current potentials that analyse the human needs. Maignan & Mcalister, 2003 argues that an inefficient plan for sustainable business development impacts the performances on the long run (pp. 78-89).
The economic system adopted by the company supports the sustainable business plan for improving the environmental and social outcomes. Economic process or condition is the method that is followed by humans to create acceptable environmental and social outcomes. The tasks undertaken by the management has to be performed within the circled boundary. This defines the action course and different types of responsibilities to be undertaken by the management. CSR is analysed in legal, ethical, economical, and humanitarian basis.
This report evaluates the business strategies followed for improving the CSR policies for IKEA and the present policies followed by the company. The research methodology examines the relevance of the information collected for the research work. Finding part of the research work evaluates the opinion of the members and the type of changes that can be introduced for improving the business activities. This report also analyse the CSR framework that defines the process that is followed for increasing the performances for the company.
Company Profile
IKEA is well-known international home appliance and furniture store. It is a popular company and is appreciated for the quality services rendered to the clients. The CSR business objectives of IKEA are to integrate together the economic, social, and environmental sustainability plan that would contribute towards the business success. IKEA defines the best practices and communicates the process with the suppliers, clients, and the employees.
Environmental responsibility is one of the top priorities for IKEA. The company states that the good business policies are based on the effectiveness of the environmental and social responsible tasks adopted by the managers. Business tasks are done in a sensible manner, and the challenges are evaluated to implement appropriate changes essential for the growth of the operations. Social responsibilities impact the demand of the products from the clients, affects the ability of the company to tackle with the resource shortages, and introduce new plans for handling issues related to climatic change (Schiefelbein, 2012).
Policies are implemented to tackle with the challenges related to enhancing and maintaining the CSR policies for the organisation. Established companies like IKEA ensure to follow the stated policies and standardised rules for maintaining the CSR policies. Different strategies are implemented to increase the performance of the company and cater the expectations of the clients, without compromising with the quality of the products.
Objective of the Study
This study or research work is conducted to find the challenges and business opportunities associated with the social responsibilities undertaken by the management. Through a defined policy, the management implement changes that would be useful in increasing the business performances and activities.
Some of the objectives for the conduct of the study are –
- Analyse the impact of the CSR strategies on the performance of the company
- Develop strategies for coping with the CSR challenges
- Implement policies to protect or introduce the safety measures for the staffs
- Analyse the issues that is related to improving the task performances.
Review on CSR
The standards and compliance issues are quite relevant for the companies. Child labour is one of the biggest challenges that are faced by the companies. IKEA has an effective supply chain management system. The products or the DIY products are imported from the suppliers, and it is sold to the clients under the company brand name.
As per the international framework, the CSR strategies are designed to include certain policies that are uniformly followed by the company and the suppliers. Child labour is one such policy that are strictly drafted and communicated with the members. IKEA is a reputed company that specialises in the sales of different types of furniture are home appliance products to the clients (Moir, 2001 pp. 16-22).
The company, along with the suppliers ensure to control the child labour, and analyse the issues related to such issues. CSR objective is to control the issues related to child labour and share positive information about the task performances with the stakeholders and the clients. The company analyse the reason that causes child labour and develops different strategies for controlling the issue.
For this, the management has partnered with different child welfare and professional departments or organisations that work on the development of the children. As a part of the child welfare program, the company actively participates in different quality educational system designed for the children. These programmes are designed to help the children to prepare for a positive future, which also includes creating better job opportunities for the children after growing-up.
Sharing Information
The growing interest of the buyers or customers towards the CSR strategies has encouraged the company to adopt a feasible method to share appropriate business related information. This process helps in analysing the issues, which is not yet discovered by the management. Awareness is created by sharing appropriate and useful business related information with the clients.
Information about various social welfare programmes, environmental protection policies, and others are included in the process. The policy change is done by adopting and following transparent methods that would be useful in sharing appropriate business related information with the clients. Compliance challenges are analysed, and effective measures are introduced to share the required information with the clients and stakeholders (Saunders et al., 2009).
The core business objective is to cater the expectations of the stakeholders and handle the concern of the people. This process also defines the methods that would be followed for increasing the moral standards essential for the business. Through balanced environmental, economic, and social factors the CSR policies are improved by the company.
The managerial obligations include analysing the problem related to the CSR implementation and introduce an effective action plan that would benefit the community. Policies are drafted and integrated with the interest of the organisation, which is required for improving the overall business activities.
Scientific Method
IKEA uses statistical method, to improve the quality of the goods manufactured by the company. This method is used for improving the services or the products that are sold to the clients. The designs are created for analysing the challenges involved with the deviations. This improves the inefficiency level, which has a direct effect on the overall business quality activities.
The method is used for avoiding the losses in the functions that is used for manufacturing and selling the products. Design methods of experiments are used for analysing the quality changes that needs to be introduced. This theory analyse the outcome of the process that is selected by the company.
Code of Conduct
The business code of conduct is associated with the auditing scheme drafted and followed by the management. This includes using an effective code of conduct process, which defines the process that is followed by the management. The quality of the products are analysed by following the standardised policies that defines the methods and strategies adopted by the management.
Internal auditing team appointed by the management conduct random check on the quality of the products and services. Essential business development measures are introduced for minimising the negative impact associated with the quality check. Staffs are trained and are informed about the quality check process that needs to be followed for implementing the business related changes for increasing the business operations (Nejati & Amran, 2009 pp. 259-265).
The supplier performances are designed to continuously protect the environment and improve the social performances of the company. By adopting innovative business strategies and introducing new solutions, it is possible for the company to save energy, water, and other important resources required for protecting the environment.
CSR strategies improve the business performances, and increases the outcomes expected from the company. For better business performance, the labour law and internal organisational policies are improved. This helps in improving the staff efficiency, and improves the productivity for the company. The standards and policies drafted by the company for securing the rights of the staffs of IKEA are defined.
Issues are analysed to understand the challenges involved with the task performances, as it helps in overpowering the issues that impacts the performances decided by the company. IKEA believes in adopting an effective strategy that would help in improving the CSR strategies for the company.
The team members are trained and provided with the resources that improve the fundamental ethical values required for the business management. This process benefits the company and the clients, associated with the organisation. Through this method, the management ensures to manufacture similar kind of products and upgrade the quality for the services, which is required to meet the expectations of the clients (Benoit et al., 2010 pp. 156- 163).
Social Responsibility Management System
Social responsibility management system is designed to improve the quality of the CSR strategies adopted by the managers to improve the standard of production activities. For increasing the CSR values, the company integrate the standardised process with ISO standards that are drafted by the management. The standardised method states the policies that are required for improving the business performances and reducing the negative aspects related to the non-following of the standardised rules drafted by the company (Dahlsrud, 2008 pp. 1-13).
SA 8000
SA 8000 is a standardised policy that is followed by the companies across the world. The certification process defines the measures or the standards to be followed for executing the works. These standards are followed by internationally accommodated companies from various parts of the globe. It is necessary to maintain the standards, and this is done by improving the commitment values followed by the companies. The norms and the standards are defined to help the company to cope with the expectations of the clients.
SA 8000 standards explain the relevance of the information that is collected by the auditors of the company to comply with the needs of the CSR methods. The process explains different task performances, which is an integral part of the task performances for the company.
The social accountability strategies are quite helpful in developing and implementing the standardised process that will encourage the company to adopt and follow good practices within the company. These strategies help in identifying the challenges and implementing the required process that would be useful in implementing changes with the production process (Blombäck & Wigren, 2009 pp. 255-270).
In this standardised process, the methods followed by the company include adopting a standard method, which explains the process to be introduced for increasing the performances. The processes are outlined, which helps in defining the procedure that is followed as per the standard rule of SA 8000.
The management approach and systems helps in setting out the standards that can be followed for defining the procedure for improving the quality. By defining the procedure, the company adopts a standardised process for increasing the business production activities. Companies implement policy changes to improve the internal work conditions of the staffs, which is required for sustaining the long-term business achievement goal (Husted, 2008).
Through the strategic changes the rights and privilege of the human rights of the staffs of the company are protected. The audit team of the company ensures to follow an appropriate strategy that defines the task performance process and the method to measure the outcome of the results.
Product Safety
The product safety measures are adopted to improve the quality of the products sold to the clients. Safety requirements are standardised as it helps in coping with different challenges that are associated with the quality maintenance for the company. This factor forms an important part of the CSR strategies and policies adopted by the company.
Products manufactured by the company for the children are exclusively monitored for the quality. This is done from the production stage, as the necessary changes and quality improvement process is adopted and introduced by the managers. Through an effective training program, the safety measures are communicated with the members. This helps in teaching different processes that can be followed for children development, which also concentrates on the quality development and implementing health and safety measures (Burdge, 2004).
Necessary business related information is shared by the company with the suppliers and others associated with the production of the quality products to the clients. This helps in implementing standardised process that would be useful in upgrading the quality of the products for the buyers. Changes are implemented to improve the production process and implementing standardised process for increasing the quality analyse methods.
Safety Measures for the Staffs
The health and safety measures for the staffs are one of the top priority tasks for the companies. IKEA has a standardised process that defines the methods or the process that is followed for improving the production activities. The management refrains from using any sort of harsh or harmful chemicals for the production purpose.
Human safety standards are improved by increasing the internal work conditions and introducing new policies for reducing the accidents. The usage of the chemicals has to be planned, as the management can reduce the occurrence of mishaps in the official premises. Business rules are upgraded and constantly monitored to increase the performance of the company (Dreyer et al., 2006 pp. 88-97).
The rules introduced by the management are integrated with the EU policies which mention the hazardous substances. Through a formal or informal networking system, the processes introduced by the management are closely monitored by the management. The updates are evaluated and corrective measures are introduced to improve the internal work conditions of the company.
By implementing the health safety measures, the underlying possible risks for the company is reduced or controlled. Health and safety measures are improved by increasing the environmental factors, and implementing different techniques that would be used in reducing the accidents at the workplace.
Fair Labour Association
The labour rules and policies are drafted for sustaining the competitive market. Employees are the biggest assets for the companies, and it is necessary to retain the members. To sustain the competition, the management adopt transparent payment and benefit offering process to the staffs. The business changes are introduced to cope with the international and national labour law policies that are drafted to implement changes within the company.
Labour law guidelines are introduced with a common global approach method, which defines the prime reusability of the company to secure the rights and privilege of the staffs. Business challenges related to the competitiveness are improved to cater the requirements of the staffs, and retain the members (Doane & MacGillivray, 2001).
IKEA has international operational activities, and it is quite important to follow the business development strategies at different places. This process requires the management to analyse the benefits that would reflect the expectations of the staffs, and enable the management to meet the changing requirements of the staffs.
Different benefits of the company are based on the core IKEA values, which is correlated with the local and international labour laws. The objective is to cope with various market conditions and cater the needs of the staffs. Some of the policies include providing paternal leave to the staffs. This particular rule varies for companies, and thus it is necessary to follow the policies quite strictly.
The other requirement is to interact with different labour unions that work on the staff benefits. Staff problem and conflicts are discussed with the unions, and essential changes are implemented to minimise the negative impact related to the same. The co-workers association in the national or the international market follow different policies.
Companies develop constructive relationships with such unions and work towards the benefit of the staffs. This process requires commitment and undertakes new challenges to protect the rights and privileges of the members. The innovative strategies and business sustainable solutions are based on the cultural values and simplicity process followed by the companies. Through positive problem discussion process, the underlying challenges are evaluated and right process is introduced for protecting the rights of the people (Ess & AoIR, 2002).
Companies operating in diversified work culture have to develop policies to respect the members from various backgrounds. This is done by adopting policies that would fairly treat the employees working for the company (Hernandez, 2011).
Research Methodology
Introduction
The research methodology identifies the best techniques that can be used for collecting and analysing the data used by the company. Information selection process is defined to identify the challenges involved with the collection and analysing different business related information. This part of the report analyse the process followed for obtaining the details about the research process.
Method outline
This part of the research work, uses different business related information for the conduct of the research work. The method used for analysing the data outlines the research philosophy, data collection method, approaches, and analysis. This research work uses post positivism method for the research work. The other methods used are descriptive research and deductive research technique.
Quantitative and qualitative methods are used for gathering and analysing different information required for the research work. Data analysis is done through the sampling method, where the participants from different professional skills and experiences are involved. Secondary data are collected from resources such as the magazines, books, websites, and others.
Research onion
The research onion states the methods or the tools that would be used for determining the steps planned to be followed for the conduct of the research work. Different stages mention the process that would be followed for collecting and analysing the research related information.

Research philosophy
Research philosophy explains the knowledge that is required for the conduct of the research work. The philosophy highlights the relevance of the benefits associated with the fact collection. Drawbacks associated with the method selected for data analysis is also included in this part of the work. The research work concentrates on three different types of tasks such as positivism, realism, and post-positivism.
Justification
This research part analyses the relevance of the post-positivism system followed by the researcher to analyse the information collected for evaluating the information. Post-positivism method analyse the unseen facts, which is included in this part of the research work. Information collection method is based on the time, which is quite limited.
Research approach
In the research approach method, the research use deductive method to gather and analyse different information. The accessibility of the information is based on the system that is selected for analysing the relevance of the data. Inductive data collection process enables the researcher to collect useful information for the research work.
By adopting deductive approach, the process or the procedure followed for implementing the practical appliances are evaluated. This includes evaluating the models, which states the process to be followed for collecting and analysing different business related information. With deductive research method, the users collect and analyse different important information required for the conduct of the research work (Garriga & Mele, 2004 pp. 51-71).
Research design
The research design is drafted to support the research topic. Different types of research design implemented by the researcher include descriptive, exploratory, and explanatory techniques. For this research work, the researcher has chosen descriptive research method. This helped in collecting and analysing different information from various sources.
Data collection methods
The information collected for the research work would be done through the quantitative and qualitative method. Information collected from such resources would be used for evaluating the information in an effective manner. Quantitative method for data collection uses arithmetic analysis method or numerical tools for analysing the relevance of the information.
Such data are used by the researchers to support the questions included for the research work. Qualitative method uses information that was posted in the past historical journals, websites, or books.
Data sources
The data collection methods are classified into two methods which are primary and secondary methods. In the primary data collection method, the sources are directly related with the data required to be collected for the analysis. Secondary data are collected from earlier research conducted by the experts.
Information for this research is collected from the primary resources, and the details are analysed for finding the expected answers. The data and its relevance are analysed through the focus group-interview method and other techniques that would help in validating the information.
Data analysis
Data collected from the resources are presented effectively in the form of tables, charts, and other methods. This clearly states the relevance of the information collected from the research work. The information are analysed for evaluating the value of the details that are collected and analysed for the conduct of the research work.
Sampling method
The sample for this research method is selected on a random basis. The total number of participants for this research is decided to be 100 on numbers. Participants are of different age groups and belong to different professions. The objective to randomly select the participants is to find the awareness of the social responsibilities tasks expected to be performed by the companies (Sciaraffa, 2010 pp. 121-136).
Ethical consideration
The collection of the data is done as per the rules mentioned in the data protection act. Relevant ethical guidelines required to be followed for the fact collection and its analysis has been done at the time of collecting and evaluating the necessary information. The ethical values are analysed for the time constrain and other challenges that can impact the execution of the works.
Research limitations
The time, process, and the funds required for the conduct of the research work was few of the challenges faced while conducting the research task.
Conclusion
This part of the research work, analyses the significant process to be followed for data collection. Research methodology defines the steps to be followed for collecting and analysing the information that are included for their search task. The tools to be used and the process to be followed are mentioned in the research work.
Findings
1. Awareness of the social responsibilities

The sample of 100 people differently responded to the knowledge regarding the awareness of the social responsibilities undertaken by the companies. It was noted that the participants had a fair knowledge about the participation of the companies in the environmental protection policies. However, the rules followed for reducing the child labour and upgrading the relevance of the labour rule were not much known to the members.
Social responsibilities for the company include upgrading the policies for labour rule, and resource usage. These factors are quite important as the process helps in determining the tasks that needs to be followed for protecting the rights of the people and the company.
2. Does social responsibilities follow by the company encourages the buyers?

This question analyse the impact about the social responsibilities on the buyers of the company. Around 65 per cent of the customers expressed their willingness to buy products from the company that strictly followed the social responsibility tasks. The rest 35 per cent were not bothered about the compliance issues. This research states the relevance of the awareness of the product quality and the willingness of the customers to invest time and efforts required for improving the CSR strategies essential for the company. Through an effective strategy, the management implement new policies and strategies for creating an awareness about the tasks that needs to be performance for creating the awareness about the social responsibilities followed by the company.
3. Do you collect information about the social responsibility task performed by the company?

Through this question, the researcher analyse the awareness of the participants in collecting data related to social responsibilities. By collecting such information, the buyers analyse the tasks performed by the management to improve the production activities. Out of the total participants, around 68% of the people agreed to the fact that information about the social responsibility were regularly collected and analysed by the participants. The rest were not concerned about the details, as it was viewed to be a time consuming process.
Conclusion
Awareness about the social responsibility tasks performed by the company is quite important for the customers. This helps in improving the relationships between the management and the potential buyers. Through an effective strategy, the management introduced essential changes in the CSR policies. This helps in increasing the performances, and achieving the goals decided by the management. For collecting the information, the management evaluates the strategies to be followed for improving the performances of the company.
The objectives of the study were to analyse the relevance of the information that were collected for analysing the challenges involved with the fact collection. Through improved business strategies, which is used for analysing the information that is used for evaluating the data? The findings analyse different types of information or data that are used for collection and analysing the information considered to be essential for the research work.
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