Introduction   * Apex furnishers in one of the leading retailer of furniture and furniture related products in the world.   * The company was started off by John Keane in 1962 as a solo venture in Atlanta, Georgia.   * During its early years, it concentrated on furniture assembly and repair.   * Later on it embarked on the selling and distribution of furniture, a venture that led to the growth and development of the company up to date. John Keane started off the company on 1st March 1962. He used his mother backyard as the workshop of his small business. With increased request for orders and the desire to expand, Keane transformed the business from a repair shop to a local furniture manufacturing workshop.   * From its humble beginnings in Atlanta, Georgia, the Apex Furniture is now found in over 20 countries, mainly in America, Europe and Asia.   * It has 196 stores world wide with a workforce of approximately 97,200 individuals.   * The company has prospects of opening additional stores in Africa, South East Asia and China.   * This is due to the presence of emerging markets in these regions. The founder of Apex Furnishers, John Keane had the dream that his company will have stores located all over the globe. Due to this fact, the management of the company has always strived to expand its activities into new markets. To achieve this, several market entry strategies have been used. In some situations, these strategies have been fruitful while in others, they have failed.   * The company is quite stable.   * In 2011, it recorded a net profit of $4.6 billion.   * On that year, its total sales amounted to $31.6 billion.   * Having entered the stock market in the early 1980s, Keane does not have full control over the company. However, he is the majority shareholder. The company required a solid financial backup in order to expand into new markets. During the early days, Keane was against the idea of entering Apex Furnishers into the stock market. However, due to stiff competition and strict regulations from the state and financial institutions with regards to provision of loans, the company had no option but to join the stock market in 1983. Since then, the company has been recording desirable profits. However, the global economic crisis that has been experienced since 2008 has had tremendous impacts on the its profits. With proper planning, the company has however managed to be profitable. Historical Data   * The organization and management practices that are practices at Apex Furnishers are highly influenced by the founder of the company, John Keane.   * The company is mission driven. Its main aim is to provide its customers with state of the art furniture. This is furniture that is of a great design, high quality but affordable to all individuals.   * To ensure that the goals and objectives of the organization are achieved in the short run and in the long run, the founder ensured that all the employees at the firm adopt the cause of the organization.   * Organization structure and culture are essential aspects that ensure the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization and its sustainability in the short run and in the long run (Ritter, 2000).   * Apex Furnishers has implemented a decentralized organization structure. However, the views and needs of low level employees have always been neglected.   * This has res