Passion för Mat 2018, Food for Progress, Oumph!

At the Oumph! (oumph.se) food stand with Fredrik Kämpenberg, company chef at Food for Progress (FFP) at Passion för Mat 2018, 2 to 4 March, Erikbergshallen, Gothenburg.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2018

Global food demand is expected to rise by 35% by 2030 [1]. The demand in increased food supplies will need to come in the form of increased crop yields and/or a reduction in food waste. In view of keeping ecological balance with global nutrition needs in the upcoming deacades, there’s a general agreement that a transition from animal to plant-based protein supply is desirable [2-4], even if there is acknowledgement that the efficiency of the global food production system should not only be assessed as a function of the area of cultivated land but also in accordance to the amount of nutrients withdrawn and replaced from the soil [5].

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The theory of Autopoiesis.
Reflections on New Year’s eve of 2018

Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

In the days leading up to the New Year’s eve of 2017, I found myself revisiting what I wrote about the concepts of complexity and autopoiesis a few years ago.

The concept of autopoiesis, organisms as self-generating, was developed by Maturana and Varela [1,2] in the field of biology, primarily as a construct that enabled a distinction to be made between living and nonliving systems. Niklas Luhmann, in his turn adapted this concept from biological systems theory and generalized it for building a new social system theory.

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Reflections on New Year’s eve of 2018″

Conference on Global Production (CGP) 2017, Singapore: Towards an integrated scientific knowledge paradigm

Jubilee Bridge cityscape, Singapore.
The 6-8 Dec. 2017 Global Production Networks (GPN) conference was held in Singapore, hosted by the National University of Singapore.

Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

Launched in Jan. 2015, the Global Production Networks Centre at the National University of Singapore (NUS) is home to a new research initiative that studies the role of global production networks (GPNs) in the development of Asia. Due to the comprehensive and complex nature of GPN studies, the centre hosts scholars from various cognate disciplines, some of which include sociology, economics, international business, human-economic geography and social psychology in view of cultivating an integral perspective to the GPN field of study. Rather than a more traditional double-blind peer review system to the submission of conference papers, the purpose of the Conference on Global Production (CGP) 2017, held between 6-8 Dec., was to facilitate network sessions and exchange of ideas of like minded individuals interested in GPN and global value chain (GVC) research.

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Celebrating Dr. Emily Xu!

Emily Xu, standing together with her doctoral degree disputation opponent, Tommy Inkinen, Professor at the Centre for Maritime Studies, University of Turku, Finland. Emily successfully defended her thesis entitled, ”The Internet of Things: Projects-Places-Policies” [1] on 25 Oct. 2017.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

Doctoral degree disputation events are special because it is not everyday that one comes around in the proximate circle of your closest colleagues. On 25 Oct. 2017, Emily Xu, who is a member of faculty at the Centre for International Business Studies (CIBS) at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, successfully defended her PhD thesis entitled, The Internet of Things: Projects – Places – Policies. Her dissertation publication is timely, considering the progressive interconnectivity enabled by digital infrastructure and technologies. Her main argument is that the Internet of Things (IoT) is a paradigm shift in terms of machine intelligence, its knowledge production and interaction occuring with little or no human intervention. Digital intelligence are their own agents in producing, storing and transferring knowledge. These events and activities call for a myriad of human knowledge in order to manage the situation, from product to policy, it seems sometimes that humanity is both at the forefront of knowledge creation whilst trying to ’catch the tail of the Dragon’ at the same time. A seeming contradiction that some might not wish to see solved by an unsuspected and imposed Singularity by artificial inteligence.

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Towards an advanced services economy in Basque Country, Spain: The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao

The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (GMB) is more than a landmark for the city of Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain.
Designed by Frank Gehry, it opened in 1997. In three years it had attracted 4 million visitors [1].

Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

On 6 Jan. 2014, The Economist ran a print edition special report on cultural centres and ”The Bilbao effect” [2]. Referring to findings of a McKinsey study, the central observation and argument made is that a vibrant cultural sector, alongisde green spaces and people of diverse backgrounds and nationalities are core elements for the success of any city.

The opening of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (GMB), Basque Country, Spain in 1997 stands as prime illustration of how a museum commissioned by a city’s mayor can help transform citylife and living. GMB had as ambition, to attract 400,000 art visitors in the first year of its opening. This number would have enabled them to return total investment in a reasonably short timeframe and deliver income to the city and Basque Country economy [3]. GMB attracted 1 million visitors in its first year of opening. Within the first three years of GMB’s opening, the museum raised over 100m Euro in taxes for the regional government, an amount that more than covered the construction costs. GMB contiues to draw about a million visitors annually, even if its exhibitions remain modest. This observed success of the GMB had a cascading effect on other cities looking to revitalise their economies where over the next decade witnessed the mushrooming of cultural centres in various cities from Brazil, to China and Saudi Arabia [2]. Over the next decade more than two dozen new cultural centres focused on museums are due to be built in various countries, at an estimated cost of $250 billion, according to a study by AEA Consulting, a New York firm that specialises in cultural projects. The Guggenheim ”Bilbao effect” as discourse theme was picked up by the news media and reflected in different scholastic and practitioner circles [8-13].

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The 27th annual RESER (European Association for REsearch on SERvices) Conference 2017, Bilbao, Spain

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The 27th annual RESER (European Association for REsearch on SERvices) conference was held from 7 to 9 September in Bilbao, Spain.
Text & Photo © J. Bröchner, JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

The theme for this year’s 27th RESER conference on service research is the crucial role of services in business and cities competitiveness. The conference was held between 7 to 9 September 2017 at the Euskalduna Conference Centre, hosted in collaboration with Mondragon Univeristy of the Mondragon Corporation in Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain. The core theme was structured around 7 topics: city service, servitization, service ecosystems, service innovation and international perspectives, value creation and methodological challenges in service studies. A core value of RESER conferences, that could also be observed in this context, is to encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and interaction of scholars across disciplines in order to address complexity. It is always this element of the plurality of perspectives that I enjoy most when meeting with the RESER community of practitioners and scholars. There were 104 listed participants for presentation over three parallel sessions. Four social events were scheduled, one per day beginning 6 September with the doctoral colloquium meet and concluding with an interesting tour of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The conference days pendulumed between rain and sunshine. On the evening of the gala dinner however, conference participants were treated to a spectacular 360 degrees view of the city of Bilbao from Torre Iberdrola, located on the 24th floor of the Iberdrola Tower. RESER 2018 is set to be held from 20-22 September 2018 in Gothenburg, Sweden.

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4-5 Jul. GEM&L International Workshop on Management & Language, Copenhagen, Denmark

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro with Philippe Lecompte at the GEM&L International Workshop on Management & Language, 4-5 Jul., Copenhagen, Denmark. The theme this year was ”Revisiting multilingualism at work: New perspectives in language-sensitive research in international business”.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

The 11th international workshop of the Groupe d’Études Management & Langage (GEM&L) was held on 4 to 5 July 2017 at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) in Copenhagen, Denmark. 34 papers were presented at the workshop that ran in three parallel sessions. About 50 participants attended the conference with international representation from Australia, Canada, Colombia, India, Europe, Singapore, South Korea and the USA. The theme addressed this year was Revisiting multilingualism at work: New perspectives in language-sensitive research in international business. Pursuing a continued and parallel interest on research methodology from EURAM 2017 that took place just over a week ago in Glasgow, Scotland, to GEM&L 2017, I followed papers presented that addressed new directions in research in international business (IB) studies at this international workshop.

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21-24 Jun. EURAM 2017 Conference, Glasgow, Scotland

21-24 Jun. EURAM 2017 Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, UK.
“Managing Knowledge: Making Knowledge Work” was the overarching conference theme for 2017.

Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

The conferences organized by the European Academy of Management (EURAM) are generally well anticipated and draw a large number of international submissions for presentations. This year’s 21.24 Jun. EURAM 2017 conference held at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland, UK, was no exception. The key to navigating EURAM conferences in general is strategy in following focused individual research specific interests or complementary topics that might help broaden the perspective to one’s own research interests. EURAM 2017 had 13 strategic interest groups (SIG) of which this year, I chose to focus attention on SIG 12, on Research Methods and Research Practice (RM&RP).

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15-17 Jun. China Goes Global (CGG) 2017 conference, Kristiansand, Norway

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The 11th China Goes Global 2017 conference, Kristiansand, Norway
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

The 11th annual China Goes Global conference (CGG 2017) took place between 15-17 June at the University of Agder, in Kristiansand, Norway. I was last at this conference in 2014 [1, 2] in Shanghai, where this year’s gathering in Kristiansand, Norway, provides yet another splendid opportunity and platform for networking and the exchange of ideas on internationalisation processes related to China and the Chinese context.

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Collaborative Robot Test Center (CRTC) official opening in progressive city Västerås, Sweden

Anders Teljebäck, Chairman of the Municipal Council, Västerås, Sweden, was guest of honour at the CRTC opening ceremony.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2017

The opening ceremony of the Collaborative Robot Test Center (CRTC) at Robotdalen, Expectrum, in Västerås, Sweden, took place on 4 May 2017. CRTC is located within the creative learning hub of Expectrum, Västerås city’s meeting place for technology entrepreneurs, thought leaders and innovators. In terms of providing pioneering robotics solutions, CRTC, a joint project between ABB, Robotdalen and Mälardalen högskolan, will offer pre-studies to SME automation processes in use of collaborative robot, YuMi (Bergman, 2017; Löfvenberg, 2017).

Urban landscapes increasingly leverage advancing technologies to co-create socio-economic infrastructures and processes (Wakeford, 2004). In that aspect, CRTC’s lab location and its evolution as a robotics solution unit now officially open, could be seen as marking in contribution towards a larger global movement in the democratising of technology.

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