International Business at TSE

Because the world is not flat.

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Birds of a feather flock together but rarely produce anything novel

September 26, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Interdisciplinary co-operation is highlighted in the mission of Turku School of Economics stating: “We produce high-quality intellectual contributions drawing on discipline-based and interdisciplinary scholarship… “ What does it mean in praxis?

Interdisciplinary co-operation can be an eye-opener. I have learned much more about innovation diffusion in an old cemetery in Britain than in all the tens of innovation-related conferences I have been visiting. Best insights into customer journey and customer experience I have gained from doctors and experts in psychology and philosophy. Anthropologists have taught me more about methods than all those method-related articles from my own field.

This is not to undermine my own disciplines. On the contrary, I am very proud of Innovation Management and International Business and feel that they are very suitable for dealing with complex contemporary issues. However, understanding human behaviour entails studying complex networked intertwined dynamical systems. Consequently, research problems become more multifaceted and multidimensional – leading towards more complex research designs. This is where interdisciplinary research settings are required.

However, interdisciplinary projects can be difficult mountains to climb. Disciplines are steeped in decades or centuries old traditions and worldviews. Researchers are experts who have socialised habits that are hard to unlearn. Interdisciplinary communication is demanding and it entails a high risk of misunderstanding. Therefore, partner selection in interdisciplinary projects is extremely important. Good interdisciplinary partners are a scarce resource worth gold.

One of the most important capacities of a researcher is continuous curiosity. Interdisciplinary projects feed the curiosity by opening new worlds and discomfort zones – and that is where the Eureka moments are born. If you want nice, neat and safe progress with well-focused topics, interdisciplinary projects may not be your cup of tea. Then do not expect disruptive ideas either. If you are fine with learning constantly new things and connecting your ideas to even unconventional fields you are lucky; you may not have the clearest career path but I guarantee that you will certainly have much more gratifying moments while wandering along it!

Birgitta Sandberg
University Research Fellow

GREETINGS FROM STANFORD UNIVERSITY, USA

August 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

I write this short blog to share with you a few of my experiences as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, California, USA. My time at Stanford was rather short (3 months), but it was indeed intellectually invigorating! I came here during the summer quarter, which is a much more quiet time of the year in Stanford University just like in Finland. However, as a very large University as Stanford is, the place is always full of different types of seminars, conferences, executive training programs, and other activities. In fact, I seized the opportunity to also participate in some of these activities for free (once I showed my Stanford ID card).

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Nordic Taste of International Business

June 28, 2018 / / 0 Comments

The interplay of economics and politics has shaped our modern world for as long as we know it. Historically, international business has gone through many nationalization and liberalization cycles. Lately, in the face of recent global political changes such as Brexit and conservative governments around the world, debate around international business and policy matters has been initiated again.  This is one of the few examples where Nordic Research School of International Business (#NORD-IB) comes into play. Continue reading

What should we take for granted?

May 16, 2018 / / 1 Comment

“It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”

– Alfred Whitehead, An Introduction to Mathematics, 1911

It is one of the more undisputed facts of human and social sciences that we humans make most of our decisions unwittingly.  First of all, we make decisions we don’t even acknowledge as such – like which foot to put forward first, when walking towards the door. Secondly, even when we do bracket out a moment of our existence and identify ourselves as making a Decision, we are swayed by biases, heuristics, emotions, intuitions to a degree where the instant of deciding is more or less just retrospectively justifying to ourselves the outcome we had already reached. Continue reading

On the roles of technology in international markets (and how receptionists substitute university teachers)

April 27, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Nadine, a receptionist, greets tourists in Singapore: “Hello, nice to see you!”. Nadine remembers all of your past conversations with her, and utilizes that knowledge to improve your service experience. But Nadine is not a super human; she is an android. New machine learning methods and faster computers enable robots to develop artificial intelligence. As a result, they can already remind patients of medication, coach patients and communicate with healthcare professionals. The rise of autonomous devices and other emerging technologies is not only fascinating but relevant. For instance, programmatic advertising is already a US 15 billion dollar market in which software decides which advertisement is shown to whom without ever speaking to a human being. This is no longer science fiction. Yet, business and management scholars have not paid attention to what robotization means for theories of marketing or international business. Continue reading

All things living are in search of a better world.

February 27, 2018 / / 0 Comments

This statement by Sir Karl Popper (Book Preface: In Search of a Better World, 1984) is one of the countless wisdoms he produced during his life. One devoted to understanding how problem solving and the correction of errors are two of the most important human activities for survival and progress. These behaviors are leading on one side to democracy (def., ‘government which can be removed without violence’) and on the other side to scientific progress, in that we remain doubtful about the theories we have, refute them when they turn out wrong, and critically adopt better ones when we conceive them. Continue reading

Building positivity through dialogue

January 29, 2018 / / 0 Comments

Emotion skills in the workplace have recently risen to be a topic of interest in the Finnish media. Just this month YLE reported that empathy and interaction are crucial skills called for in recruitment. Similarly, Helsingin Sanomat stated that in the future emotion skills will be the key to professional success. But when and how do these skills appear in practice? One instance where they can play a major role is during organizational change – for example following a cross-border acquisition. Continue reading

Eye on EIBA 2017: A reflection on a conference, and conferencing

December 21, 2017 / / 0 Comments

It is that time of year once again when many of us drop whatever we are doing, pack our bags, and fly off to see those whom we have often not seen since the last long, cold nights of December. Together we overindulge in fine food and wine, and engage in vigorous and sometimes heated discussion on many subjects from politics and religion, to the state of the economy. Of course, I am talking about the annual conference of the European International Business Academy, or EIBA for short. Continue reading

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