The Nordic Centre at Fudan University, Shanghai

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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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

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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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

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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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.

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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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

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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” →

Conversation about status symbols over cinnamon infused apple crumble

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A mixture of sweet and sour apples render
a nice balance to the flavour of this cinnamon infused creation.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

It was over a delicate apple crumble dessert served with whipped cream and cinnamon, in the plush setting of the Bar and Billiard Room at Raffles Hotel in Singapore, that the importance of the use of status symbols in Asia was explained to me as a series of unhappy events that a Nordic company experienced in its early years in Singapore, during the late 1990s.

Different views of what defines success

Asia and Scandinavia have different views of what defines success. They also have different ways of showing social / organizational affluence, a lack of understanding on either side on the effective use of such status symbols could well lead to an awkward situation of miscommunication, some small, others needing nothing less than a crisis management strategy.

Some ten years ago, part of how Nordic organizations expanded their operations was to send a core-team of top Scandinavian managers to oversee initial functions in Asia. Chances are, this modus operandi has not changed much since then. Continue reading “Conversation about status symbols over cinnamon infused apple crumble” →

Organization identity and the dialogic process of recreating corporate values

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

In SvD 19 April 2013, Näringsliv.
Conflict and powerplay between Volvo Cars and Geely as presented in the press.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro 2013

‘Five conflicts stirring Volvo in China’
Just recently this headline in large fonts headed the front page of the business section of one of Sweden’s most respected morning news papers. It was obvious that something had changed.

As one of many who keep a keen interest in the economic and geographic spatial reconfigurations of the global automobile industry, I did not expect a smooth process of acquisition of Volvo Cars by Geely from 2010 onwards.

Research literature charts a five times more likely narrative of a failed attempt at mergers and acquisitions than one of success. In the case of the Swedish then American owned Volvo Cars being acquired by Chinese Geely, language, culture, values and outlook on life per se are but the tip of the ice-berg to the multiple foundational layers of differences that need to be disentangled in this corporate marriage. Continue reading “Organization identity and the dialogic process of recreating corporate values” →

The global trade winds of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III

Posted on by Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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Photo: Kent Hallgren.
The Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III in GP 11 April 2013.
Text © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

Though I’ve been in Sweden for just about a decade, I wonder if it is only I who have grown tired at the consistent gloomy headlines of the local Swedish newspapers when writing about the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III, the latest headlines reading – No more sailing for the East Indiaman.

I wonder if this sensationalization of headlines is but a low end marketing attempt to attract readership since there is a general consensus of the ship itself being an entity of high interest. But what these pessimistic headlines reflect however, is a probable trend of lack of confidence in what is considered a good investment for the city of Gothenburg, and a business opportunity that can generate great dividends to all. Continue reading “The global trade winds of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III” →