Möbelriksdagen Conference - Nina Lundqvist
Nina Lundqvist, master student in Leadership and Management in International Contexts did represent Juniorledarskapsakademin at Möbelriksdagen in Växjö. This is her summary:
Möbelriksdag was a conference where people working in and around furniture industry in Sweden, especially Småland gather and share knowledge and views to each other. I, as a student studying leadership and management, participated to the conference because I was interested in the furniture industry since I previously worked at an office furniture company in my home country Japan. As a student, it was such a wonderful experience to participate to a business conference where diverse people from different organisations gather and discuss. At school you can learn many theories, but at this kind of occasion you can see what is happening out there in real world, and what kind of issue is getting attentions in practical situations.
Comparing to the furniture industry’s conference in Japan, this one had very much emphasis on sustainability and cooperation. The word sustainability was not only mentioned but was a main focus of most of the seminars. Sweden is already leading the furniture industry worldwide, but this long-term perspective of real people working here gave me impression that Swedish furniture industry is going to continue leading the world. Cooperation was another emphasis. The participants were of course from companies working somehow with furniture, but also municipalities and university. I was surprised to see this cooperation between different companies and sectors, and I thought that sharing knowledge and views from different sectors and perspectives is probably one of the reasons behind the industry’s current success.