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Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, D Neikter Nilsson, CM Cordeiro-Nilsson, Sweden 2009
One of the things that have dawned on me during the years I have spent working on my thesis is that writing a doctoral thesis and having it approved are done for various reasons, and thus approached in many different ways around the world.
Continue reading ”Doctoral Thesis, public defense May 9th, 2009”
Nailing the thesis at main administration building located in Vasaparken, at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro-Nilsson, Sweden 2009
When I was told that I was supposed to “nail” my thesis to the University wall, it initially didn’t occur to me that I was supposed to do so literally and in person, with a hammer.
But so it went.
Continue reading ”Academic traditions: The nailing of the PhD thesis, 17 Apr. 2009”
Sitting in the garden at home at Styrsö, after the small ceremony of having nailed my thesis to the wall at the main administration building of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
I’m wearing a Purple wool dress by Warehouse and black patent flats by Prada.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro-Nilsson, Sweden 2009
It was to be a small academic ceremony today where I collected my thesis from the printers and have one copy nailed to the public notice board of the University of Gothenburg. The spikning or the nailing of the thesis is for two main reasons, the first of which is to encourage the public to read your work and the second, perhaps more important reason, is to show that your work is not the result of plagiarism.
Me, outside of the University of Gothenburg
about 5 minutes after I have left the final version of my PhD thesis to the printers.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro-Nilsson, Sweden 2009
Continue reading ”INVITATION to the Public Defense of my Doctoral Thesis, Gothenburg, Sweden 2009”
The experience of being and working in a foreign city is like a juxtaposition of realities. It’s difficult not to impose what you already know from before, to the here, now and the Other. Photo by Doug Keyes, from his Becoming Language series.
In 2004, I had the opportunity to network and meet up with about 33 Swedish leaders (CEOs, MDs, regional managers, managers etc.) and their Asian counterparts. They all worked in Swedish related or Swedish owned organizations in Singapore, some of which being Ikea (I think almost all Singaporeans have something from Ikea these days, they have just opened a 2nd megastore on that tiny city island!), Sony Ericsson, Kvaerner E&C and ASSAB. Continue reading ”The beginnings of profiling Scandinavian leaders in Asia: the 6 categories”
A Singapore print by Charlotte, principal artist and creative director of Lotti Lane. The myriad of colours captures the multi-cultural fabric of Singapore.
Singapore: a nation with a multi-cultural fabric
With its immigrant beginnings, Singapore has long struggled with the forming of a national identity. The Chinese were the largest immigrant group during the 1800s and early 1900s. Hailing mostly from the south of China, where they had very strong ties and loyalty to mainland China in the beginning. Many never thought of permanently settling in Singapore, but hoped to return one day to China. And when money was made in Singapore, it was often remitted to families back in China. Today, the Chinese make up about 75% of the Singapore population.
The natives of the land were the Malays, who today make up approximately 14% of the population. And Singapore had immigrants from India and other parts of the world, such as the Arabs, Portuguese, British, Dutch etc. The Indians form about 9% of the population and the ’Others’ including the Eurasians (European-Asian descendants) make up about 2% of the current population. The multi-racial fabric is also reflected in Singapore’s four official languages, which are Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English.
Continue reading ”In search of the Singapore management style”
Field in Mölle, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro 2014
The Swedish management concept made headlines in 2001, as only sports news can do, when the BBC news reported that Swedish soccer manager Sven Goran Eriksson took England to the top in the World Cup qualifying rounds using Swedish management ideology.
As a field of research, studies on Swedish management is relatively new, beginning in the 1980s with research in the area of Scandinavian management. A prominent piece of work in the field at that time was Skandinaviskt management i og uden for Skandinavien by Geert Hofstede.
And in 1985, Jan Carlzon’s success as CEO (1980 – 1993) of Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) led to his book entitled Riv pyramiderna!, which mapped SAS’s winning management strategy under his leadership. His success and work gained much media attention and created a Scandinavian leadership ideal. Carlzon’s main idea was to lateralize hierarchies and decentralize decision-making within the organization, which empowered employees further out in the service line to serve customers better. With decentralization, employees were given the power to make decisions on the spot, without having to go to their managers to ask for decision approvals. And since they knew the customers better, Carlzon was convinced that the people ’out there’ would fit best in making the right decisions regarding their work situations. The lateralization process had its problems and hiccups, one of which was the consequence of making middle managers feel rather redundant and had to be reassigned duties. Continue reading ”Swedish management: its research beginnings, characteristic traits and style”
A view of the Merlion at the Esplanade, Singapore.
An interconnected world
The world is becoming an increasingly small place to live in, we can feel it in the pace at which the world economy runs these days. World trade is much larger, faster and more intense than what we knew even from 1819 when Sir Stamford Raffles founded Singapore as a trade entrepôt. Many organizations today are multinational in nature in order to compete on the global scene. Employees in such organizations are often located away from home countries in order to continue the work of the organization on a global scale, contributing to the existence, expansion and success of the organization.
Organizations going global would also mean that their people would be working on a global stage, having colleagues from foreign countries. It would mean working with someone who not only looks physically different from yourself but who share a different set of values, taken-for-granted assumptions and collectively shared beliefs, in other words, a different ideology (Simpson, 1993).
These collectively shared beliefs or ideology, stem from their own socio-cultural and political background and working together would mean communicating on a daily basis about work projects, negotiating meaning with each other so that each one understands what the other wants, the aim of which is to push the organization forward in reaching its goal.
Individuals who are often deployed to an overseas organization affiliate from their home country would often possess specialized knowledge, expertise and leadership skills, so that they can help set up and steer the affiliate organization in the new country.
The case of Sweden
Sweden for example, is today more active in terms of setting up businesses and business affiliates overseas than ever before. For example, in Eastern Europe, Sweden has 900 organizations in Estonia, 500 in Latvia and 150 in Lithuania. With its current trading figures, Asia seems to hold the most promising trade for Sweden: China in 2005 for example had 44,000 Chinese employed in Swedish organizations with an annual intake of 7.9 billion US dollars and Sweden’s presence in China since 2003 has also doubled (Serger Schwaag and Widman, 2005).
The fast-growing markets for Swedish exports today are found in Asia, especially Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. Asia now accounts for 13 percent of Swedish exports, making it the most important single region outside of Europe. As Asia is one of the fastest growing markets for Swedish exports, the increasing Scandinavian and Asian international trade relations mean a need for a better understanding of management styles and working relations in the interdependent countries. A contributing factor to many failed cross national joint ventures and start-ups is due to a lack of understanding of international markets, cultures and management behaviour (Hill and Hellriegel, 1994; Hambrick, Li, Xin, and Tsui,2001). A greater chance of both tangible and intangible success will thus depend on understanding and acting upon the similarities and differences between management behaviour in different international markets.
Swedish trade presence and Swedish management in Singapore
With 93% literacy rate in the population and English as an administrative language (Malay is Singapore’s native language and Singapore’s national anthem for example, is written in the Malay language), Singapore proves a strong rival with Hong Kong to be Asia-Pacific’s regional hubs (Langdale, 1989) and is currently already a regional hub for many internationally based organizations (Mutalib, 2002; Teofilo and Le, 2003).
According to the 2007 statistics of the Swedish Trade Council (STC), who have been present in Singapore since 1978, there are approximately 160 Swedish or Swedish related organizations in Singapore with 900 Swedes living in Singapore. Companies included in the STC’s list are of the following three types:
The existence of the Swedish Business Association of Singapore (SBAS) also makes easy access to Swedish owned or Swedish related organizations in Singapore. The SBAS also provides a focal point for the Swedish business community to gather and exchange ideas and continue a Swedish / Scandinavian heritage in Singapore.
References
Oyster Dress by Alexander McQueen for S/S 2003. Ivory silk chiffon and silk organza.
I’ve been revisiting Addressing Fashion by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the avatar to the left will bring you to the MM’s website) and have picked out my favourite pieces from the their exhibition, to write about in this post. This is a subconscious streaming of thoughts, as it were, back on my favourite ponder on fashion, its connection to language, inspiration, geist and towards an understanding of a people.
My favourite pieces from this exhibit were the ones with a fuller silhouette, with soft flowing volume; their diaphanous design and characteristic, bordering on the ethereal. Even the ash grey of Theyskens piece below didn’t pull down my spirits or enthusiasm for the dress.
Continue reading ”Fashion: an expression of Hegelian geist”
Mega Yacht Red Square Aft at Night – Image courtesy of Dunya Yachts.
Luxury is an extensive concept which connects with extravagance, prestige and elitism (Dubois and Czellar, 2002). Some standard dictionary definitions of luxury could include:
One could see how the above three definitions found in the American Heritage Dictionary, are intertwined and difficult to separate. A very broad definition of what is luxury, from Coco Chanel reflects this interlacing of definitions to form a concept of luxury: ”Luxury is a necessity that begins when necessity ends” (Gradvall, 2007). Continue reading ”The evolving concept of luxury”
