《IKEA的真相》

    Author Johan Stenebo was for 20 years one of the leading directors of IKEA while it turned itself into the world’s largest flatpack* furniture retailer* with 700 million visitors a year. During these years, he was the personal assistant to Ingvar Kamprad, the billionaire founder and owner of IKEA, set up its Leeds store that broke profit records, was global director of key furniture areas, and CEO of investment company IKEA Greentech.

    In this authoritative* book, he writes frankly* about Kamprad’s inspirational leadership of the company built in his image from a provincial store in Sweden, as well as Kamprad’s Nazi links, IKEA’s amazingly low wage bill, exceptional profits, complex Stasi*-like business culture, and resourceful ways of using the media and organizations like Greenpeace and WWF to cover environmental issues. No company director has ever written a more open book about the company’s success and failures and he is likely the last.

    However, according to several Amazon customer reviews, the English version is “badly translated and poorly organized.”

    “The only redeeming* part of this book was the last chapter, which speaks about IKEA’s sustainability* and social policies,” one reviewer said. “I found the author’s opinion on the subjects both interesting and thought-provoking as I am a big skeptic* of companies who claim green credentials for cost-cutting measures.”

    The Chinese version is available on dangdang.com.

    (SD-Agencies)