The global trade winds of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III

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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.

The Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III cannot help but be a symbol of the international harbour city of Gothenburg, with its rich history of daring merchants traveling the world, establishing global companies and one that have since long twinned its future with cities like Shanghai in China.

That the ship could do with more money is nothing new. What we need to bear in mind though, is that money does not create ideas. It is ideas that create money.

That the ship should be made into a museum even after 2020 without consideration of its larger context would be shortsighted planning and a terrible waste of resources. An East Indiaman ship museum would immediately be compared to the Vasa museum in Stockholm by visitors who know little of the East Indiaman history, compared to the Vasa which has become a monument over time, and a prime example of publicly funded projects.

Ironically, the Vasa was too large, too unstable, catering to prestige rather than function, built to government specification, managed by bureaucrats and naturally sank just minutes after being launched, already in 1628.

The East Indiaman Gotheborg III was founded on a different heritage and set of values that in turn rendered a fully functioning sailing vessel that looks her most glorious when sailing in the open seas.

Photo: Jakob Rempe.
The Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III in its Europe Tour 2013, Leg 1 at sea.

The first East Indiaman Gotheborg came within viewing distance of its home harbour before she hit a rock and sank in 1745. The Gotheborg II foundered outside of Cape Town in South Africa in 1796, and the Gotheborg III made it all the way back home in 2007. This is the true entrepreneurial spirit of the ship, one that does not take a complete failure as a no, but just go for it again since it is the right thing to do, no matter!

Based on such authenticity and integrity, what benefits would anyone reap by turning the Gotheborg III into a museum that would still only be a country side mock-up version of the Vasa?

Tracing the journals that people keep about her, the documentaries and personal experiences of the crew onboard, the Gotheborg III is happiest when she has her people around her, who revel in learning from handling her ropes, her masts and her spirit of freedom.

Waters have more often than not united than divided, and the means for that are the ships – virtual or real. With this general enthusiasm and love for her comes the immense international goodwill for Gothenburg and Sweden set against the background of an increasingly polarized and fragmented EU.

China for example, doesn’t know much about Sweden as a country, but they know about the unique gesture of friendship that the entire project around the creation and sailing of the Gotheborg III was and still is.

While Stockholm might be the administrative heart of Sweden, the city of Gothenburg have always been the port city, with the complementary role of looking out into the world, with its international portfolio of shipping and trade.

As a testament to the entrepreneurial spirit of the city of Gothenburg, in 2011, Anneli Hulthén the Mayor of Gothenburg, received the award Entrepreneur for the World in the politicians’ category at the World Entrepreneurship Forum in Singapore.

The building of the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III began as an entrepreneurial effort with a clear purpose of trade and cultural exchange. There is no reason why it should not be kept true to its entrepreneurial roots. That is were she began and that is where she belongs. Even as business climates change over the years, Gothenburg is still where such business giants such as SKF and Volvo AB were born.

That the City of Gothenburg would stop sponsoring the Gotheborg III is not the same thing as that the ship would need to stop sailing. On the contrary. Gothenburg and West Sweden must see itself in an international context where bringing in business and work opportunities is a prime concern, and to not see the potential in using the Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III to its very purpose to which she was built, one could argue, is not very clever.

As a first step towards an integrated perspective of the future of the Gotheborg III, the true history of the ship – as being a private venture started by entrepreneurs, needs to be understood – in order for it to fully leverage its goodwill capacities.

The ship also needs to be run in such a way that other entrepreneurs are encouraged to flock around her so as to also leverage the platform of opportunities that she offers.

What is needed is not lamenting the constant lack of money, but rather the realization that there are no ‘costs’. A sponsorship or a business agreement is just an investment that when properly put to work pays huge dividends to Gothenburg, to western Sweden, to Sweden as a whole, and to an ever fragmenting Europe that needs everything it has to keep itself together.

If something, it is time that the East Indiaman Gotheborg III should be placed in the hands of those who can see and do anything with the larger context. One that goes beyond Gothenburg and of Sweden and is in line with for example the European Commission’s Europe 2020 Flagship Initiatives for ‘Smart Growth, Sustainable Growth and Inclusive Growth’.

Seen in that perspective, the Gotheborg III though a small piece in the overall picture of things, is much needed. And she is needed, alive and sailing!

As such, the open sea is where the Gotheborg III belongs, where she is more valuable as a sailing vessel than as a museum, beyond 2020.

From Twin Peaks to twin cities: quantum entanglement IRL

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Like many other cities in the world, Gothenburg, Sweden, has a “friendship city” (youhao chengshì) agreement, with the city of Shanghai.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

The ideas in this post covers at best, an intuitive and metaphorical exploratory mapping of some aspects of quantum physics theory, to phenomenon that can be observed in the material world so governed by the laws of nature. Perhaps a tall argument to make, but I’ll try here to figuratively map the concept of quantum entanglement onto the observation of its potential manifestation in international business, taking the the example of Twin Cities, defined as two cities in different regions that have made an agreement on for example cultural exchange and economic cooperation.

It is here not to apply the theories of quantum physics to the material world, because that cannot always be, due to that the quantum world has different laws than that of the physical world. But just to sketch an idea that what is now being observed and measured to accuracy in the quantum realm with its attached values, named phenomenon A’ {-V(N) to +V(N)} is perhaps manifested in the material world of classical physics as phenomenon A {-V(N) to +V(N)}, if one were to view it from a systems level perspective, here defined as the manner of progression of development.
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A village of Walden huts

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Innovate. Procreate.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

In a recent round-table session, the concept of ‘ideas’ was discussed and the question of whether ideas could in fact be stolen, and if so – is that a bad thing – was debated.

Two related thoughts were put forth. The first was from Henry D. Thoreau’s book Walden (1854).

“Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought.” (p. 343)

The other was Matt Ridley’s, The Rational Optimist (Review by Salinas), presented in his TedTalk (July 2010):

“It’s the interchange of ideas, the meeting and mating of ideas… that is accelerating the rate of innovation.”

The arguments simmered down to that while Thoreau’s Walden bravely postulated that we should not be afraid of being open to whole continents of new thoughts, the information society makes it possible for us to create whole villages of Walden huts, where the assumption is that the more open environment for the sharing of information and ideas, the better for all.
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There is [increasingly] no spoon

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“De río arriba Guayas” (upstream of the Guayas River) is where these Arríba chocolate bars originate. Ecuador’s lowlands produce some of the richest cacao on the globe, an heirloom of sorts for the country. Grown only in Ecuador, these chocolate bars are a seamless confluence of floral notes and fruits, jasmine and orange, just barely laced with a smoked earthen timber.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

Admittedly, I like broad sweeps and this is going to be one of the broader that I take. But please bear with me. We’ll eventually be back to the chocolate. Promise.

First we will need to go back a little bit in time to a scene in the 1999 movie, The Matrix, where a little boy flexes a spoon, bending it at will. He then looks up and says, “There is no spoon”.

Now, that is a point of view I will try to demonstrate that is increasingly worth being considered.
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Complex systems theory and the biological organization

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An abstraction of Michael Conrad’s (1970) Biological Organization on Clare W. Graves’ (1980) Levels of Existence.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2013

In reading about self-organizing structures for the relevance of theory applied to the field of international business (IB), I thought the ideas expressed by Michael Conrad in his paper entitled, Statistical and Hierarchical Aspects of Biological Organization (made accessible via NASA) was interesting when also applied to the theoretical constructs of Clare W. Graves’ Levels of Existence.

Conrad discusses the differentiation and uncertainty associated with the organization and variability in a biological organization’s compartmental structures, that are expressed in terms of certain entropy measures. In his paper, he tries to ascertain the most efficient operative level of a biological system, landing on the principle of static equilibrium that he uses vector models for representation.
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Lateralizing of influence between states as a means of preserving power

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The evening’s contemplation… the opening paragraph of Joergen Oerstroem Moeller’s article, “Economic Integration: the Future for Asia” in the Diplomatist’ special issue published on the occasion of the ASEAN-India mid-December 2012 meeting in New Delhi.

His article addresses what in my view is the need for a heterarchous organizational structure in state / regional governance, as a system to manage heterochronous developments within and between states. Where and how heterarchy can be effectively accomplished and operationalizable is a discussion point.

Throughout his numerous articles, Moeller’s perspective is consistent – lateralization of decision-making may on the outset seem a dissipation of power, but in reality, it could be the only way to preserve power. What is perhaps needed is a re-conceptualization of ‘power’ in the contextual understanding and recognition that the world shares one destiny.

“Over the last half century economic transactions have jumped out of the nation-state box and take place globally, while the political systems put in place to control economic activities are still mainly national and domestic. This schism between international economic transactions and national political systems exposes the impotence of policy-making and thereby undermines the legitimacy of the political system in the eyes of the citizens. This spills over into scepticism about the advantages of economic globalisation. The choice for politicians is to share decision-making with other nation-states or to lose influence, which is difficult to explain as it looks as giving away powers while in fact it is the only way to preserve power.” ~ J.O. Moeller, 2012.

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller is Senior Fellow, Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Academy. He was former Danish Ambassador to Singapore, Brunei Darussalam, Australia and New Zealand. He is also author to one of my favourite reads, How Asia Can Shape the World -From the Era of Plenty to the Era of Scarcities (2011, ref. video panel discussion of the book at SMU Singapore, chaired by Kishore Mahbubani).

A multifractal system perspective of culture in international business

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A plot of a multifractal wavefunction at the Anderson transition in 3D can be found as Fig. 1 of Vasquez, Rodriguez, and Roemer’s (2008), “Multifractal analysis of the metal-insulator transition in the 3D Anderson model I: Symmetry relation under typical averaging”. arXiv:0807.2217v1 [cond-mat.dis-nn]:

Coming from a social sciences background and continuing in the line of transformative theories, I could liken the wave particle duality to researcher’s interference, where the act of observing would in itself render a certain bias to the data collected and observed phenomenon simply because the observer becomes an entity to be considered in that which is being investigated and studied. Related then to this uncertainty principle is how in the field of international business, the concept of culture which is one of the most sensitive of concepts to be influenced by researcher perspective, where each researcher embodies his/her own values and belief systems, continues to be dominated by the western cultural dimensions construct in an era of increasing globalization and of advancing information communication technologies that render a blurring to traditional geographical boundaries. Social media platforms for example create an entirely new type of virtual landscape, bringing together people from different parts of the world, with different languages, values and beliefs.

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Transformative theories – when international business can benefit from quantum mechanics

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Pictures from Jason Padgett and Q.A.T.
Text and Photo © CM Cordeiro 2012

An evening thesis:

Beyond the eastern Yin Yang perspective of culture, visually represented above in a metaphoric nomogram, is the concept of a pluralistic, aperspectival view of the concept of Multiculturalism, that to some extent, I would liken to the “most favoured nation” (MFN) clause following bilateral trade agreements in the norms of GATT and WTO, which is that of reciprocity and non-discrimination. What I find interesting in these visual representation from quantum mechanics is how the aperspectival fallacy often referred to as “aperspectival madness” is negated / neutralized via a heterarchial construct – an organizational construct deemed most advanced and most difficult to achieve, that I would to some extent, liken to multilateral trade agreements in international trade and a true understanding of Multiculturalism that encompasses the reductionistic view of the Yin Yang concept, though not vice versa.

Bibliography
Van Den Bossche, P. 2008. The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization, Text, Cases and Material, 2nd edition. Cambridge.

The Yin Yang theory, a non-confrontational approach to culture

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Me, together with Professor Tony Fang, Stockholm University, School of Business. As I am right now working on a collaborative research project with Professor Fang, it was nice to listen in on his guest lecture at the Department of Applied IT, at the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

Tony Fang, who is Professor of Business Administration at Stockholm University, gave a guest lecture today at the Department of Applied Information Technology (IT), on his concept of a Yin Yang perspective to culture. In today’s Internet culture, where collaborative work can be done through Dropbox, Skype and via emails, that he was in Gothenburg proved a good opportunity for us to meet in person.

His talk was hosted by Professor Jens Allwood and Dr. Nataliya Berbyuk Lindström of the Department of Applied IT located at Campus Lindholmen, that is part of both the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology here in Sweden. And it was at Campus Lindholmen that I found myself spending the better part of this day in the company of old friends.
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Managing complexities, extending Singapore’s national defense strategy of “auftragstaktik” to its socio-cultural fabric.

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I read with interest, Peter Ho’s RSIS working paper no. 248 on “Governing for the future: what governments can do”.

It is a paper based on an adaptation of his speech delivered at the Australia-New Zealand School of Government (ANZSOG) Annual Conference 2012 in Wellington, New Zealand on 26 July 2012. Mr. Peter Ho is Senior Advisor to the Centre for Strategic Futures and Senior Fellow in the Civil Service College. He serves as an Adjunct Professor with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He is a Senior Fellow of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and was formerly the Head of the Civil Service in Singapore.

In brief, Ho outlined in his paper, how accelerating changes in the 20th century, for example such as population growth, rapid urbanisation in combination with technological innovation has come to result in complex interconnected environments that in turn give rise to unpredictable trajectories and “wicked problems” (Horst and Webber, 1973) or interesting problems that have no immediate / obvious solution.

Globally, there are many international diplomatic talks that revolve around “wicked problem” issues such as climate change, food, water and energy supply, all preferably within a sustainable economic development framework. At a local level in Singapore, Ho cited the example of the complex nature of extremist religious pursuits that led to the need for new warfare strategies that counter forces both material and cognitive in order to keep the nation secure and how Singapore was under the constant challenge to disarm extremist ideologies.

But whether facing global political-economic environmental changes or ideological extremism, Ho’s point was governments that have the agility and capacity to act swiftly in such circumstances will benefit and thrive in today’s complex environments. And my perspective is that it is in this aspect that Singapore’s regional geo-political position and albeit seemingly contradictory socio-economic policies have most of the time benefited the country and its people on multiple levels.

As a national security strategy in coordinating counter-terrorism for example, Singapore has continuously worked towards and adopted a multi-layered, integrated and holistic “Whole-of-Government” (WOG) approach, leveraging on the diverse strengths of existing agencies and ministries at various levels from strategy and policy to operations.
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