‘The quest for social value’ - The narrative of IKEAs partnership with social entrepreneurs

• Main Author: Wellén, Klara
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS) 2020
• Subjects: Corporate Social Responsibility; IKEA; Corporate narratives; Social entrepreneurship; Humanities and the Arts; Humaniora och konst
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23917

Narratives in corporate storytelling is a powerful and persuasive tool for validation of Corporate Social Responsibility. To further their social mission, IKEA partner with social entrepreneurs, a collaboration which produce products or services for IKEA while creating incomes for the social entrepreneurs, claimed by IKEA as a win-win. In this thesis, the win-win narrative is analysed with a management theory applied in a critical perspective in conjunction with a narrative method. The aim is to investigate the validity of the win-win narrative produced by IKEA in this partnership to identify to what extent this narrative meets the reality of IKEAs CSR and human rights commitments. Issues investigated are to what end this narrative is produced, what is the dominant narrative, what is not presented and how are the social entrepreneurs represented in the IKEA narrative.