Talking About Sweden

The country I have chosen to talk about is Sweden, my home country. People first came to this country about10,000 years ago. They traded goods with the roman empire and were hunters and gatherers for the first couple of thousand years. The name “Sweden” means “The land of Svea” and comes from a 500 A.D powerful war tribe. Sweden, as well as the other Scandinavian countries are very well known for its Vikings. These people lived between the 8th – 11th century and sailed the world while raiding and invading cities and villages all over the northern part of Europe.

Today, Sweden has a population of 10 million people, which is 0.13% of the worlds population. The capital of Sweden is Stockholm and is located in the middle east part of the country. It has a total area of 528,447 square km, which makes it the third-largest country in Western Europe after the countries Spain and France. Sweden consists of 63% forest, and 9% lakes and rivers. The currency is Swedish Krona, 1 USD is 8.8 Swedish Kronor. It has a US $50179 per capita as of last year statistics. The Swedish Krona is a floating currency that is not pegged to any currency. Swedes rarely use cash, because we swipe our cards everywhere, which is making us more and more to a cashless society.

There are many religions in Sweden, but the main religion is Christianity, with Evangelical Lutheran in focus. Children start school at six years of age and goes to mandatory school for nine years. Though, after that, the majority of students continues their studies to a three years upper secondary school, and after that, about a third of the students continues to higher education at universities in Sweden, but also abroad in other countries (Top facts about, 2018).

Sweden has a very strong natural culture when it comes to a lot of things. An example of this is a tea or coffee break, called “Fika”, which is an integral part of the national culture. This means that a few times every day, we sit down with our colleagues or family members, depending on what day it is and where you are, to enjoy a cup of coffee and a pastry. This is so important to swedes, that a lot of companies in Sweden even have payed “Fika breaks” a few times every day. Fika is considered to play as a social institution and it is very common to go for a Fika on a first date for an example.

Another important event in the Swedish culture is the annual Crawfish Party. This tradition takes part in August and people drink alcohol and eat crawfish with dill and potatoes and sing songs. This annual event was from the beginning only celebrated by the nobility during the 1500s, but today, because of mass importation of the crawfish which dramatically has pushed the price down, this event is celebrated by all levels in the society.

The Swedish attitude is known for its open-mindedness. Swedes are in general very welcoming when it comes to people with different sexualities or people from other religions. An example of the Swedish attitude is “The Jante law”, which is an unwritten law amongst the swedes. This is something all swedes lives after, and basically means that we are all equal and that no one is better than the other. It is not common to brag about your possessions or money, hence of the Jante Law. It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO or a waiter, we are all considered to be equally valuable in society. To make The Jante Law clearer, every year Sweden publish everybody’s tax return to be shown for the public. So, if you wanted to, you could easily look up what your neighbour or second cousin made in income. This is a way to demonstrate that no one is better than the other.

A big part of the Swedish manners is for example, you can not enter a Swedish household with your shoes on. That would be considered being rude and disrespectful towards the persons house that you are stepping in to. Another important thing to remember when it comes to the Swedish manners is that swedes are known for being very restricted and not very talkative, which makes it understandable that swedes are very fond of their personal space and gets very uncomfortable if someone intrudes that space.

The equality between men and women is also something that is a strong belief in the Swedish society and plays a big role in the country’s values. Sweden is one of the world leading countries when it comes to gender equality. An example of this is that parents are entitled to get 16 months of payed parental leave, and out of these 16 months, the man in the relationship is required to be home with the new born child at least 3 of these months.

Sweden is a constitutional monarchy. We have our current king at the throne, Carl XVI Gustaf, who has been on the throne for the past 45 years. This is the most amount of years that any king has ever been at the throne in Sweden. In Stockholm, we have the royal palace which is considered to be the one of biggest palace in the world that still is used for its original purpose, though, the palace of Versailles is slightly bigger. The construction of the royal palace took place in 1967, right before the construction of Versailles (Sweden: 12 Interesting,2016).

The Swedish welfare system, also called The Swedish model, was developed during the 1930s. This system allows all citizen to have access to publicly financed child care, education, health care, help for the unemployed, and at least five weeks of payed vacation every year. In order to have these benefits, all Sweden citizens must pay around 33-35% tax of their income to the government. This rate varies depending on what area in the country you live in, and also how much money you make.

This is a country with parliamentary democracy, which means that the public is the main force of the power. Sweden has elections every fourth year. The last election was held in 2014 and elected the current Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. A new election will be held this year during fall (The Swedish system, 2018).

In Sweden, the political decisions are made at three different levels, these are; the central government, the county councils, and municipalities. There is also another level of decision making since Sweden is a part of the European Union, which plays as a level above the central government. Sweden has been a part of the European Union since 1995 but has to this day still not decided to adapt the euro as the national currency. Since Sweden is a part of the United Nations, we have agreed on the EU free trade area, this means that the free trade agreements within the European countries saves consumers billions of dollars in taxes, tariffs, and customs checkpoints.

Sweden is a mixed economy that is seen as highly competitive and successful. Sweden is rated to be the seventh most competitive country in the entire world, and regarding to the World Bank, Sweden is ranked to be the tenth easiest country in the entire world to trade with (Sutherland, 2018).

Something that is very unique for this country is that Sweden has some radio and television channels that is not owned or ruled by the government. The citizens have to pay a yearly fee in order to make these channels run, and they are seen as a form of public service. The reason for these channels is to work for the democracy as a non-bias way to give the people information. As you might understand, democracy is very important in Sweden. In order to protect the democracy, four fundamental laws were created. These laws play as a framework whenever decisions are made in the country. It is also worth mentioning the very low level of corruption in Sweden, in fact, Sweden is one of the most non-corrupt countries in the world (Sweden’s four fundamental, n.d).

In Sweden, everybody has to pay tax on their income. Depending on where in the country you live, this rate differs from around 33%-35%. Even though that seems to be a pretty high rate, it is important to know that all citizens have free healthcare, free education, pension provided, child care, payed parental leave etc for all citizens that are required to pay tax. Sweden has always been a very neutral country when it comes to war and politics. Some of the politicians in this country got jobs internationally as mediators between clashing countries because of the countries’ well-known trait as excellent peace keepers.

In the world, Sweden is the 32nd largest export economy, with exports around $133 billion and imports around $131 billion, which is resulting in a positive trade balance of $2.39 billion. The Swedish GDP is $514 billion and its GDP per capita is $48.9k (O, n.d.).

What Sweden is most known for exporting is cars, with an annual export rate of around $7.22 billion. This country is also known for exporting refined petroleum ($6.19 billion), packaged medicaments ($5.77 billion), vehicle parts ($4.97 billion) and kaolin coated paper ($2.95 billion). Sweden’s the top export destinations are Germany, Denmark, the United States, Norway and the United Kingdom (O, n.d.).

As for the imports, the goods that Sweden is importing the most are cars ($8.97 billion), vehicle parts ($5.5 billion), crude petroleum ($5.46 billion), refined petroleum ($4.78 billion) and computers ($3.52 billion). The countries that Sweden imports the most from are Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Belgium-Luxembourg. The countries that Sweden can border by the sea is Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Russia. Finland and Norway are bordered by land (O, n.d.).

Sweden is the 4th most complex country in the world, with an ECI (Economic Complexity Index) of 1.86. The number of exports with comparative advantage are 320 products. This means that the share of global exports is greater than the expectations from the size of the export economy, and from the dimension of a product’s global market (O, n.d.).

Sweden is well known for its sustainable development, and many countries sees Sweden as a role model in this area. In the early 1990’s, Sweden shifted from oil to district heating. This might be the most important reason in explaining the how Sweden managed to reduce greenhouse gas, both in the service sector and in the housing sector. Today, more than 80% of Sweden’s apartment blocks gets their heat and their hot water through district heating. Also, leftovers from timber factories such as bark, branches and sawdust from the local forest industries, is burned to generate power and heat. This was a big success in order to lower the CO2 emissions. Urban farming is also a very common thing in Sweden. Many Swedes share a piece of land in order to grow fruits and vegetables. These pieces of land are spread out all over the country and plays a big part in sustainable development. Instead of buying some fruits and vegetables, many Swedes do their best to plant and harvest that themselves. Also, many of the offices and other buildings use solar energy to heat the buildings during the colder part of the year, in the summer, they try to use peoples body heat and the sun to keep the buildings warm, instead of using any energy demanding heat option (7 examples of, 2016).

Regarding the Sweden and its tariffs, this country applies to the European customs laws and regulations. It also applies to common customs tariffs from the US and other countries outside of Europe. Products entering Europe needs to be declared to the customs When products enter the EU, they need to be declared to customs according to their classification. The custom duty may vary from 0-20% on industrial products that are imported to Sweden. When it comes to importing food, the duty rates can be higher since they are based on the weight of the goods. In order to know how much to pay in customs, you need to keep the following things in mind; the transaction value which includes the product price, transportation price and insurance price. Most imported goods to Sweden are also an issue to a VAT, which is a value-added-tax. The value-added-tax rate is generally 25%. It can have a lower rate of 12% certain services such as food, and 6% for books and magazines (G, n.d).

In Hofstede’s research, the first part in the cultural levels I want to discuss is the power distance. Sweden has low scores on this dimension. What characteristics Sweden in this part is that Sweden is very independent, they use hierarchy only for the convenience and also, Sweden has strong beliefs in equal rights. Teamwork is crucial in the Swedish culture, and managers really depends on the knowledge of their team members. In Sweden, you call your managers (this includes teachers) by their first name. Communication is very direct between people (Sweden, n.d).

When it comes to individualism, Sweden scores 71. This means, as an example, that people are expected to take care of themselves, and their direct family members only. In an individualistic society, offence will cause a big amount of guilt and also a loss of the self-esteem. The employee and employer’s relationship are founded on mutual benefits. Any decisions that includes hiring and promotions, are supposed to be based on merit only. There is a very low rate of corruption in Sweden because of this (Sweden, n.d).

Sweden scores 5 on the masculine vs feminine dimension. Therefore, Sweden is considered to be a Feminine society. For a feminine country, it is important to keep the personal life and the working life balanced. To apply it on a manager, the manager should be supportive and understanding to the employees, and any decision made should be achieved through involving everybody at the working place. As a manager in a feminine country, you should strive for the equality of your employees, and make sure they have quality in their working lives. Any conflicts that may arise should be resolved by negotiations and compromises, which Swedish people are known for; discuss issues until a mutually beneficial agreement has been made. The entire Swedish culture is grounded around something called “lagom”, and that basically means that things should not be too much, nor too little, everything should be in fairness. The term lagom makes sure that everybody has enough, and that nobody goes empty handed.

The next level is uncertain avoidance, which Sweden has a very low score on. This means that Sweden maintains a more laid-back attitude when it comes to life. Even though being on time is very important for swedes, they love to have flexible schedules and they don’t do more work than they have to do. As much as swedes likes to have a good job and work, it is also important to embrace and live life and be happy. Also, any new innovations are not seen as a threat.

Sweden is a country with long term orientation. This means that Sweden puts a lot of thought on planning for the future. An example of this could be the excellent sustainable development Sweden is working for, that is really promoted as a way of life. Sweden also puts a lot of thought and work into making sure that when you retire, you will have a good life. Most swedes start to privately save money for their retirement already in their 20s (Sweden, n.d).

Works Cited

1. 7 examples of sustainable development in Sweden. (2016). GreenMatch.
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3. O. (n.d.). Country Profile: Sweden. Observatory of Economic Complexity. Retrieved from https://oec.world/en/profile/country/swe
4. Sweden. (n.d.). Hofstede Insights. Retrieved from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country/sweden/
5. Sweden: 12 Interesting facts about Sweden. (2016). Swedish Nomad.
6. Sweden's four fundamental laws. (n.d.). Sweden Abroad. Retrieved from https://sweden.se/society/swedens-four-fundamental-laws/
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8. The Swedish system. (2018). Sweden Abroad.
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