The strategy of ’Twin Faces’ in state governance and positioning

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Raffles Place, Singapore.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

A number of years ago, I decided to focus my doctoral thesis on cross-cultural leadership in Swedish led organizations in Singapore. The idea was to identify elements of the Swedish management style and how this in that case would work out in Asian organizations. The study led to numerous interesting observations of which a selection of ideas were developed into my thesis.

For some time now I have come to look into Sweden’s positioning within the European Union (EU), and in a comparative study, Singapore’s positioning within the Association of Southeast-Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The issue of Sweden’s overall positioning towards European integration has been much considered and debated in the Swedish political arena and by interested members in academia. Continue reading ”The strategy of ’Twin Faces’ in state governance and positioning” →

Geely Headquarters and Cixi Plant, Hangzhou

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In China’s First Automobile Health and Development Summit held in Beijing in 2012, Geely’s Emgrand EC8 was nominated one of the Top 10 environmental friendly cars for 2012. (Globaltimes.cn April 2013).
From left to right Swati Ravi, Emily Xu, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro and Joyce Wu, PR Manager of Geely.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

Geely HQ and Cixi Assembly plant
Friday the 15th of November was the fifth day of our visit to Shanghai in 2013. We had focused quite some on the Chinese automobile industry and today it was time to meet with Geely. Both the Geely Cixi Assembly plant and the Geely Headquarters are located in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, a few hours drive inland, from Shanghai. Continue reading ”Geely Headquarters and Cixi Plant, Hangzhou” →

Visiting Volvo Group R&D, Shanghai

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Visiting Volvo Group, Trucks Technology, Advanced Technology and Research, Shanghai, China.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

On the second day of our visit in Shanghai, we had the pleasure of meeting with the Director of Advanced Technology & Research at the Volvo Group Headquarter in Shanghai. If it is confusing for a Swede to keep track of the difference between Volvo Cars (owned by the Chinese Geely Holding Group) and Volvo AB, very much still a Swedish company, it is even worse for the Chinese, where a representative from Volvo Group Shanghai told that she often got questions from relatives if she could help them buy a Volvo car on staff discount.

Today’s meeting was with the Volvo Group. Continue reading ”Visiting Volvo Group R&D, Shanghai” →

The Nordic Centre at Fudan University, Shanghai

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The combined delegation of Management and Organisation,
and the Centre for International Business Studies (CIBS) of the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg, at the Nordic Centre, Fudan University, Shanghai.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

It was a brief early morning walk from the Crowne Plaza Hotel to the Nordic Centre, located in the Handan campus of Fudan University, one of China’s top ranked universities.

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Inside the Nordic Centre with a glimpse of its mosaic mural.

Currently sharing location with the Foreign Affairs Office of Fudan University, the Nordic Centre was opened by the Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland together with the President of Fudan University, Professor Yang Fujia in 1995. It was to be a platform for collaboration between the university and the 14 Nordic universities located in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Today, the centre has 27 university affiliates that include the University of Iceland. Continue reading ”The Nordic Centre at Fudan University, Shanghai” →

North of the Bund, Shanghai

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Crowne Plaza Shanghai Fudan Hotel
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

When looking at the facade of the Crowne Plaza Shanghai Fudan Hotel it is difficult to not read into the facets of its facade some influences from the constructivist art movement that grew out of Russian Futurism in the early years of the 20th century.

Constructivist architecture flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. Its ideas were revolutionary at the time and combined advanced technology and engineering with social purposes.

This era was also a formative one for Shanghai, as it acted as an eastern melting pot between East and West in the Warlord epoque of China in the 1910s, around the years of the Russian revolution and the financial boom of WWI. As such one would not be too surprised to find traces of these ideas right here in the Yangpu district of Shanghai where much of China’s academia flourishes today.

It is even difficult not to draw references to Russian industrialism and earlier, the cubism of Picasso and Braque, in the facets of the facade looking like human beings standing on top of, lifting, carrying and supporting each other. Architecture depicting the human strive to higher and higher achievements.

The Russian bicyclist painting by Natalia Goncharova (Cyclist, 1913) comes to mind as another reference to the Russian futurism of the 1910’s. This can be seen in contrast to the slightly older painting by Ramon Casas, of himself and Pere Romeu on a tandem bicycle, 1897. The two works of art illustrate a dramatic change in ideologies and thus realities, that had come by in a mere few decades. The latter was painted specifically for the interior of the Els Quatre Gats in Barcelona, a restaurant and bar that was pretty much the center of the early Modernisme art movement in Barcelona at the turn of the century, and also the very place where Picasso had his first exhibition.
Continue reading ”North of the Bund, Shanghai” →

Gothenburg – past, present and future

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, Eunice Olsen

Eunice Elizabeth Olsen and Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

It had been more than a decade since I last met with former university mate, Ms. Eunice Olsen. And it was a phone call from Fredrik Stjernlöf of Houston Media AB that brought us together again after these years.

We share an array of similar events in our lives. We were both once Singapore representative delegates to the international Miss Universe pageant. Eunice represented the Republic of Singapore in Cyprus in 2000, whilst a year earlier in 1999, I was the country’s delegate to Trinidad & Tobago. We also shared a similar view on how beauty pageants can come with both a goodwill and an ambassadorial role if that is what you want to make out of it.

During the day, we took the opportunity to look into the multiple facets of the valuable relations of the past, present and future between Gothenburg, in Sweden, and Singapore, in Southeast-Asia.

To that end, I had some very kind and excellent help from both mentors and colleagues in making this day memorable, for which I am most grateful. Continue reading ”Gothenburg – past, present and future” →

With ears to the ground

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The fika break is a Swedish near holy opportunity to stay tuned in on what is really going on.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro 2013

It was 2004.

We were sitting in the canteen of the main administrative building. The canteen was located on the higher floors, with high ceilings and large windows that overlooked three other buildings with chimneys billowing smoke. Continue reading ”With ears to the ground” →

When in doubt, begin with a custard then go left.

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The advantage of being in sniper position and camouflaging is the ability to produce blueberry muffins as one of three food wishes, from limited quantities of frozen blueberries.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

We were standing loosely, in a group, outside the main office buildings, in idle summer chatter which mostly covered what transpired during the most recent seminar that some of us had just stepped out of. It was lunch time and those present were waiting for a few more colleagues that formed the daily lunchtåg or lunch train, before proceeding to said destination for lunch. Except in Swedish group organization tradition, those present are never really sure who is going to turn up for the lunch train, and there is most often no said destination for lunch. Decisions are made in a much more mysterious manner – you just needed ’to know’ these kinds of things. This happens too in more formal meetings, where issues other than what is on the agenda are discussed and there seems to be no general agreement on anything at any one point in time. In such meetings, it is also not unusual that the only point in time when people start to take notes would be at the end of the meeting when they are deciding when to meet next. And meetings are planned very much ahead of time, so you could decide on two future meetings already now.
Continue reading ”When in doubt, begin with a custard then go left.” →

Multiculturalism, the Liberals’ Dilemma and integrated aperspectivism – when not all perspectives are equal

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Cheryl Cordeiro and Alvin Tan with his art, at Phunk Studio’s Empire of Dreams exhibition, January 2013, Singapore. Phunk Studio is a gallery space that illustrates an integral perspective expressed through art.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

I’ve been reading Doriane L. Coleman (1996), Jürgen Habermas (1976) and Ken Wilber (2000), where I’m finding a lot of humour in Wilber’s writings in how he incorporates Habermas into his own philosophical reasoning, specifically talking of how some disciplines argue themselves lost into aperspectival space usually at higher levels of development within the individual, the organizational, national and transnational realms. More thoughtful and filled with much less humour is the article by Coleman on “cultural defense” and “the Liberals’ Dilemma”.

This article is an exploration in thought on the dialectic of progress, the nature of multiculturalism (and its consequences when used in court as a “cultural defense”) and aperspectival fallacy. Continue reading ”Multiculturalism, the Liberals’ Dilemma and integrated aperspectivism – when not all perspectives are equal” →

Teahouse in Hangzhou

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Teahouse. 高山流水.
Tea-drinking at teahouses is a tradition in China that goes back to the Three Kingdoms of Wei, Wu and Shu, 220-280 AD.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2010-2013

Walking through the streets of Hangzhou, I could never quite grasp the sentimental feelings of its romantic past even as my eye caught the elegant lines of temples, the fine pagodas and the many intricately carved bridges that made the landscape so picturesque.

But arrive at the calm and mirroring waters of West Lake, and the realization sets in – that the city through numerous phases of transformations, carries within its aura a purity of natural beauty and a sense of timelessness. And it is perhaps this, that rocked the souls of the literati both past and present.
Continue reading ”Teahouse in Hangzhou” →