Case Study Ikea

Introduction 
The purpose of unit assignments is to broaden your comprehension of the unit material. The unit assignments provide an opportunity for you to explore areas that might benefit your own organization or studies and also help you broaden your exposure to the different elements of training and development.
Unit Learning Outcomes
· ULO 2.4 Evaluate the role of succession planning in organizational learning.
· ULO 2.5 Evaluate relevant scholarly research and synthesize research to complete required assignments.
Directions
Review Case Incident – Management Training at IKEA (Chapter 2). Conduct scholarly research to answer the assigned questions. Formulate a 2-3-page response in an APA (7thed.) formatted report. Review the grading rubric for expectations.
Case Incident 
Management Training at Ikea
IKEA is a Sweden-based home furnishings chain with stores in Canada and the United States. A single store can have 40 managers, making the task of training enough new managers quickly and well a challenge. To get managers trained for new store openings, IKEA has established certain stores as centres of excellence. These centres of excellence become learning sites for one or more management competencies that managers must master.
Manager trainees have a carefully developed, objectives-based curriculum and access to a 17-module online learning program that covers the basics of each of nine management competencies. Once a trainee has mastered the learning material and a series of practicum assignments, he or she is eligible to be certified as successful by the competence centre store manager. Trainees can be at a competence centre for two to six weeks depending on the competency to be mastered and number of competencies to be mastered at each centre.
Part of the process involves shadowing successful managers. This is followed by two weeks of classroom training at IKEA College, where managers are introduced to the philosophies and theories behind IKEA store operations. They get exposed to the “big picture,” the theory of how the company operates, and what the IKEA vision is all about. Six months after a location opens, managers begin rotating back to College for advanced store operations training.
Questions
1. What are the learning outcomes of the IKEA manager training program? What do managers learn and how do they learn?
2. To what extent does the manager training program follow the learning process and stages of learning according to ACT theory? What changes, if any, would you suggest and why?
3. Discuss Kolb’s learning styles, modes, and cycle with respect to the manager training program. To what extent does the program incorporate Kolb’s four learning modes and follow the learning cycle? What changes, if any, would you make to the program so that it includes all four learning modes and adheres to Kolb’s learning cycle?
Source: Zemke, R. (2004). Training top 100: Editor’s choice: IKEA U.S.A. Training Magazine, 41(3), 70. Trainingmag.com