[shae]

I'm a US Citizen who was self-employed in Sweden for about six years (1999-2006). I was very frustrated at how hard it was to get things to 1. where I was approved to do work and 2. get feedback so I could 3. get paid.

On the other hand, now that I'm back in the US I get tired of the continual rat race and wish I had as much vacation as everybody else got in Sweden. The US doesn't give decompression time, but Sweden didn't allow for as much deep focus time.

Mind you, I also had communication problems. I expected people to clearly say yes or no and then stick to that. The Swedish politeness took awhile to interpret.

[daenney]

These observations, though perhaps interesting, have nothing to do with the article from what I can see. They relate more to the immigration process in Sweden and how to get a work permit and consecutively a personnummer and bank account.

[the_rosentotter]

The 'politeness' he mentioned is very relevant to the cultural issues the article discusses.

It's a consensus culture. Finland is even worse. Disagreeing with the group is a huge taboo, something that will make a meeting room go very uncomfortably quiet very quickly.

Of course it has its advantages, like everything it is a trade-off, but in terms of being entrepreneurial I think it is a big reason why entrepreneurship is held back in the Nordics. You can't just fight it out with ideas and then shrug it off like I see in other places - for better or worse people are more sensitive and 'correct' in intrapersonal dealings.

Don't know why it's like that, I hear Canada is the same. Perhaps the cold climate means people mingle less, and so social occasions are meant to reaffirm social cohesion, to the exclusion of airing differences.

Oh yeah, it's also 'socially correct' to outwardly acknowledge and reject the Law of Jante-effect - which just leads to criticism being even less tolerated; you're just jealous, narrow-minded, etc. if you are critical of anyone.

[tominous]

As a counterpoint to Finland being a consensus culture, they also have "management by perkele" [1]. In particular Linus Torvalds has said his direct style is part of Finnish culture [2].

[1] http://www.rmci.ase.ro/no11vol1/Vol11_No1_Article13.pdf

[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/linus...

[durandal1]

Not sure entrepreneurship is held back, Stockholm for example is doing alright by most metrics.[1]

It's almost as if free education, universal healthcare and time to sit down and think would be pretty good for innovation.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnol...

[derstander]

> Perhaps the cold climate means people mingle less, and so social occasions are meant to reaffirm social cohesion, to the exclusion of airing differences.

I know this article and comment is about the Nordic countries. But I'm not sure this reasoning is generalizable across countries/cultures. In my experience, climate doesn't seem to be the driver in the US. I'm not sure whether or not New Englanders are more sensitive, but folks from other parts of the country seem to find us more gruff than e.g. down south or in the southwest. ;)

[T-A]

> Perhaps the cold climate means people mingle less, and so social occasions are meant to reaffirm social cohesion, to the exclusion of airing differences.

My pet hypothesis is pretty much the opposite: until a century ago or so, these countries were quite poor, most people lived on farms, often far from neighbors, and for at least six months every year, anyone "nasty" enough to be expelled from the group was likely to be dead within days if not hours. So the "dissent gene" was weeded out.

[contrahax]

I think they were actually referring to working conditions, not immigration (getting approved to begin work, getting feedback, etc.)

[shae]

Yes, I had no problems getting permits, I was describing the business culture.