Ovnhallen in Frederiksberg is packed when Robert Strand launches his book Nordic Capitalism: Lessons for Realising Sustainable Capitalism.
Read this article in Swedish on Arbeidsliv i Norden
This is where Royal Copenhagen porcelain factory once fired its wares. Today, it is the Copenhagen Business School’s (CBS) large event and lecture venue.
Ahead of the launch, Robert Strand sits down for an interview with the Nordic Labour Journal. When asked what sparked his interest in the Nordic region, he answers:
“My ancestors settled in Wisconsin near the Mississippi River in the USA after leaving Telemark in Norway in 1861. Like many others they were impoverished at the time.
“Fast-forward just three or four generations later, Norway and the Nordic region are among of the most prosperous places in the world. That rapid advancement from poverty to shared prosperity is what piqued my curiosity in the Nordics. How did they do it?”
Looked for answers behind Norwegian prosperity
With a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) and while working for corporate America, Robert Strand enrolled in an evening course in economics.
When the professor showed a chart over different countries’ growth versus their tax burden, the Nordics stood out. Here, higher taxes did not equal lower economic growth.
“I asked why and was told the answer is that Norway has oil. So does Venezuela, but with very different outcomes.
“So how come Norway developed their resources so that they benefit all of society and Venezuela did not?”
Different leadership
Strand came to Trondheim in 2005 on a Fullbright scholarship to spend a year at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU. Driven by his curiosity, he travelled around Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark to try to understand how the Nordic business community worked.
“At the time, I was particularly interested in different approaches to leadership. In the USA we’re used to leaders who are expected to have all the answers and act as a commander.
“In the Nordics I saw leaders who encouraged cooperation, asked questions without pretending to have the answers and tried to be a facilitator striving for consensus.”
In his book, Strand makes further comparisons between Nordic and American leadership styles, and writes:
“Overall, Nordic business leaders embrace a role as lobbyists for society first, and their companies second, to act as stewards rather than extractors, aiming to shape the rules of capitalism so that smart policies and sound governance can advance sustainable development.
“As a result, the Nordic region is home to a notable concentration of companies recognized globally for their sustainability performance.”
Ongoing exchange
In 2006, Strand headed back to the USA to rejoin corporate America in Minnesota, near where he grew up, lived and worked and continued to study subjects like economy, law and public policy, while continuing to develop his interest in the Nordics.
“I joined the University of Minnesota as an adjunct faculty member, and in 2008, I got the chance launch a new course and bring American students to the Nordic region to explore sustainability and corporate responsibility.
“They were able to meet government officials, academics and businesspeople and also visit successful companies, trying to understand the broader context to what I now call the Nordic capitalism. The course was a great success.”
Robert Strand keeps this type of exchange going using the platforms now available to him and has now led over 1 000 American students on Nordic study tours.
One of those platforms is CBS, where he completed his PhD in corporate social responsibility in 2012 and is now a part-time associate professor. Each summer, he teaches a course called “Sustainable Capitalism in the Nordics”.
The other platform is the University of California, Berkeley. In 2014, Strand was offered the role of executive director of the Center for Responsible Business at UC Berkeley, and he moved his family to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Hubs for Nordic cooperation
Seven years later, in 2021, Robert Strand led the efforts to launch the Nordic Center at UC Berkeley.
The Nordic Center was originally rooted with hubs at the center for responsible business at the Haas School of Business and UC Berkeley’s renowned Scandinavian Department, which offers courses in Nordic languages and in Nordic history and culture.
“We are expanding the Nordic Center’s reach across campus, and will be adding hubs at the master for climate solutions based at the college of natural resources and UC Berkeley’s newest college, the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society (CDSS).
“The aim is for the Nordic centre to become a hub for globally recognised sustainability leaders, enabled by markets that reward environmentally and socially responsible business models and thus offering the leap forward that the world now needs.”
Mutual interdependence
Robert Strand’s starting point is how regulation and capitalism need each other. In his book, he writes that markets are not natural phenomena like gravity.
They are instead built “through deliberate public policies, including taxation, that define their scope and functionality”.
He mentions carbon tax as one example, which the Nordic countries introduced way back in the early 1990s, which established market incentives for companies to reduce their carbon emissions.
Strand also identifies other components of the Nordic capitalism model which he misses in the American model.
He mentions trade unions that provide security for employees and also influences wage setting, flexicurity that combines labour market flexibility with comprehensive social security through a blend of labour market flexibility and strong social security in the pursuit of full employment.
This system protects workers through safety nets and retraining while enabling business adaptability, all anchored in tripartite cooperation between unions, employers and the state.
“The Nordics are also high in rankings like the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the World Happiness Report. I believe this is because the Nordic model is deliberately created for the many, not the few. It shows that societies that are committed to equality can also support globally competitive economies.”
Nordic strawberry as a symbol
All the book launch attendees on this warm June afternoon were given their own copy of Strand’s book. The cover features a small, red strawberry, ripe and ready to be eaten.
The reason he chose that image, explains Robert Strands, is that he views Nordic strawberries as a symbol of the type of capitalism found in the Nordics – they are considerably smaller than strawberries in his home country – and something that everyone can take part in.
“There is a quiet humility in the Nordic strawberries’ simplicity and naturalness. Modest in size, yet reliably good – perhaps not unlike the Nordic nations.’
In his book, he explores further his thinking about what makes Nordic capitalism different:
- “A robust business sector organized for long-term value creation grounded in stewardship, stakeholder cooperation, and good governance; workplaces where employees are treated with dignity;
- effective labor unions; universal education rooted in critical thinking; efficient healthcare systems; subsidized childcare; efficient public transportation systems; welcoming public spaces; excellent public libraries;
- a commitment to democratic participation, with efforts to ensure high voter turnout and a genuine representative democracy; and policies that internalize negative externalities, such as carbon taxes, aligning markets with sustainability goals – to show how Nordic societies have used the tools of democracy and capitalism to build systems where prosperity is broadly shared.
It is factors like these that have made Robert Strand reflect on an axiom of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
“A human being should never be treated merely as a means, but always as an end in themselves.”
Robert Strand wants his book to ignite hope and to be a practical guide for how Nordic capitalism can be implemented in other countries.
“It’s not about a ‘we – me’ but a ‘we – me – we’.”
