Terry – “I saw some very nice, practical examples in Sweden”
Terry Wu/ Wu Xiaojun, born in 1974
Associate Professor, teaching crisis management and service management,
Donghua University, China
Management program: February 2009 – June 2009
Swedish host company: EON
“In China, CSR is not a new thing to some entrepeneurs. But most of them take it as some kind of slogan, they don’t put it into daily work. I saw some very nice, practical examples in Sweden; like Green Cargo, Scandic, SAS”, says Terry Wu.
She works as associate professor at a prestigious management university in Shanghai, and often uses the things she learnt during the program in her teaching.
“Whenever there is a chance to include CSR in my lectures, I give some good, practical examples from Sweden, and my students find it very inspiring”, she says.
Terry herself was also inspired by many things Swedish. Firstly, she found the country being surprisingly creative.
“I think you are very innovative - you’ve set up a lot of worldwide enterprises such as Ikea, Sandvik, even though you are only nine million inhabitants”, she says.
The Swedish system, where government agency Vinnova supports innovative entrepenurs, made her apply for a grant to do a research trip here.
“A new era of new technology will be coming soon, and all countries are preparing what to focus on. Shanghai needs to have some info on how to choose new, promising technology. I wrote my application based on the Swedish innovative system, and what we can learn from that”, she says.
And the application was successful – Terry was recently granted the money to investigate Sweden as a case, and will soon try to do a research trip here on the theme of innovation.
Another thing that Terry appreciated with Sweden, apart from the innovativeness, was the flat and democratic organizational structure of Swedish companies. This was something she integrated in her program project, which aims to bring CSR into the HR practice at Donghua University.
“In China, people in colleges are facing a very high pressure - the university has turned into some kind of industrial phenomenon. I don’t judge if that is good or not, but at any rate, there are many things to improve CSR-wise”, she says.
Among other things, Terry’s project aims to improve communication between scholars and leaders at her university. Another idea she has is to provide a mental treatment facility for the stressed employees at the university – something she saw at companies in Sweden, such as Green Cargo.
The interest from the management for her experiences in Sweden and for her project has been quite keen.
“Our dean asked me to give a lecture to all the teachers. I introduced the program and what I’ve learnt, and they were very interested. I also talked about my program, and my dean said that we will try to put more effort on these things”, says Terry.
The future will tell how much of her ideas will be implemented, but at any rate, the interest for Sweden seems to be on the rise at her school.
“They want to start a cooperation with Swedish universities, and they wish me to be the bridge”, says Terry.