nonrandomness that i can’t explain
Brayden
Perhaps Teppo can explain this.
Two Danish academics, Klaus Kjöller of the University of Copenhagen and Tröls Mylenberg of the University of Southern Denmark, conducted a thorough analysis of the names used in the IKEA catalog. They concluded that the Swedish names are reserved for the “better” products, and that even Norwegian names manage to make it into the bed department. But the “lesser” products bear Danish names like “Roskilde” and “Köge.”…Upholstered furniture, bookcases and multimedia consoles, for example, are named after small Swedish cities, while Norwegian towns serve as the namesakes of beds, dressers and hallway furniture. Names of Finnish origin grace the company’s chairs and dining tables. As it turns out, nothing is random at IKEA.
There is a twist to the story. Apparently some Danes wanted to boycott the store, but the boycott never materialized because IKEA is one of the only home furnishings store in Denmark. I thought this might have been a joke, but it looks like the story is also covered by the Telegraph.
UPDATE: As belle lettre notifies in the comments, the story has been retracted.
[...] Org Theory, via Law and [...]
They yclep us doormats . . . : clusterflock
March 9, 2008 at 1:55 am
I have nothing on this. Perhaps, as the article suggests, the naming is rooted in the historic rivalries of the region. (I grew up hating and making fun of the Swedes — for no apparent reason other than Finland used to be part of the Swedish empire from the 13th to the 18th century).
tf
March 9, 2008 at 2:04 am
Or, perhaps its an effort to get back at us Finns for being smarter than everyone else.
tf
March 9, 2008 at 2:16 am
[...] nonrandomness that i can’t explain « orgtheory.net [...]
ikea as a malevolent force for Scandinavian hate-mongering? « The Nets We Weave
March 10, 2008 at 5:43 pm
This story has been retracted!
belle lettre
March 10, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Too bad, it was such a sticky story (of course, only a small portion of folks who actually read the original will read the retraction, so the story will live on for years to come.)
tf
March 10, 2008 at 11:08 pm
It sounds like the work of an overzealous journalist. Yikes.
brayden
March 10, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Brayden: didn’t your ASQ protest paper recently get spun the wrong way (though, not quite to that extent)?
tf
March 11, 2008 at 12:55 am
Nobody ever offered a complete misrepresentation of our analysis, but I think it’s common for journalists, however unintentional it may be, to be a little off on the details. Usually the difference is so subtle that the average reader wouldn’t notice.
brayden
March 11, 2008 at 1:07 am