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IKEA & föreställda företagsgemenskaper: Benedict Andersons “Den föreställda gemenskapen” operationaliserad för granskning av Ikeas museums hemsida i en textanalys
Halmstad University, School of Education, Humanities and Social Science.
2021 (Swedish)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

This work addresses Benedict Anderson's work "Imagined Communities," which is a seminal piece on the emergence of nationalism and its impact on people's awareness of national belonging. I have chosen to operationalize Anderson's book "Imagined Communities" to study some key points that Anderson believes have contributed to shaping imagined national communities. Through these points, a textual and visual analysis is conducted on several of Ikea's films and texts on their museum's website, Ikeamuseum.com. My aim is to explain Ikea and the way companies can construct and emphasize an image of their company reminiscent of imagined communities for the nation.In my operationalization of Anderson, I have selected two points that Anderson suggests have an impact on how imagined communities are formed. My chosen categorizations are: Myriad av yttringar (Myriad of expressions) and kulturella artefakter och bindningspunkter (cultural artifacts and bonds). The reason I chose these two is that they clearly emerge in Anderson's book "Imagined Communities" as incentives that have shaped the formation of imagined communities as its scene in community in today's nations. I examine a range of films and texts available on Ikeamuseum.com, where IKEA operates in a manner comparable to the evolution of imagined communities, as theorized by Benedict Anderson. My analysis reveals diverse narrative strategies, including commendations of employees, tributes to founder Ingvar Kamprad, and the construction of a heroic saga that positions him as a unifying role model within the company culture. The website presents several focal points that function as symbolic artifacts, contributing to a coherent narrative about IKEA’s identity and values. These artifacts provide employees with the imaginative framework to develop a sense of shared belonging and purpose. A central motif is the company's connection to its origins specifically, its founder Ingmar Kamprad and the region of Småland and Sweden where Kamprad is from. This connection is reinforced through smaller narrative elements, such as the depiction of local farmers’ perseverance and their labor in removing stones from the fields. These stones, in turn, serve as powerful metaphors for the company’s values of resilience and work ethic. Furthermore, the analysis includes a close reading of frequently recurring keywords such as enkelhet (simplicity), för de många människorna (for the many people), and tillsammans (togetherness). These terms encapsulate IKEA’s ideological framework and contribute to a collective imaginary that aligns personal identity with corporate ethos.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021.
Keywords [en]
Ikea - Ikeamuseum.com - Benedict Anderson - Imagined communities - Imagined corporate communities.
National Category
Humanities and the Arts
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hh:diva-57129OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hh-57129DiVA, id: diva2:1987832
Available from: 2025-08-08 Created: 2025-08-08 Last updated: 2025-10-01Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
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  • Other style
More styles
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  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
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  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
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