Dag Hammarsköld once said, “The present moment is significant, not as the bridge between past and future, but by reason of its contents, which can fill our emptiness and become ours, if we are capable of receiving them.” The Swedish culture is a lot like this quote, they take advantage of every moment that passes even if it’s not so significant, focus on the present not the past or the future.
In Sweden there is a high preference for a loosely-knit social framework in which individuals are expected to take care of themselves and their immediate families. In individualistic societies the employers and employees relationship is a contract based on mutual advantage, hiring and promotion and the decisions are supposed to be based on merit only.
The Swedish culture is more of a low-context culture, meaning they place less emphasis on personal relationships and more emphasis on verbalized, explicit explanations. Swedish individuals make criticism private for distinction. They believe when you make criticism public it is embarrassing.
Also, Sweden is a low-distance culture, where the power is evenly distributed throughout the citizens. In Sweden a person is expected to select friends and romantic partners not on the basis of class or culture but on the basis of such individual factors as personality, and appearance. Swedish individuals are expected to confront friends, their partner, and even their supervisor assertively; it’s based on a general feeling of equality that is consistent with assertive behavior.
The Swedish lifestyle is composed of the love of nature, good housing, environmental thinking and lots of other cultural things – all tied up with awareness of health and a strong sense of equal opportunity. They are considered a high ambiguity-tolerant culture. Efficiency is shared with a laid-back attitude, and old traditions are combined with the openness of new technologies and other things. The sense of heritage is mixed with open-mindedness for other cultures, due to the fact that one-fifth of the Swedish population has roots in other countries. Swedes travel a great deal, and speak other languages to be able to communicate with their extended families in other countries.
Sweden is a short-term orientation, they generally exhibit great respect for traditions, strong social pressure to “keep up with the Joneses”, impatience for achieving quick results, and a strong concern with establishing the truth.
Swedish people are classified as indulgent individuals. Indulgent societies maintain a more relaxed attitude in which practice counts more than principles and deviance from the normal is more easily tolerated. In societies exhibiting restraint, people believe there should be no rules more than what are necessary and if they are ambiguous or do not work they should be abandoned or changed. In Sweden, schedules are flexible, hard work is undertaken when necessary but not for its own sake, precision and punctuality do not come naturally, and innovation is not seen as threatening.
Finally, Sweden is a high-ambiguity-tolerant culture. They don’t feel threatened by unknown situations; uncertainty is a normal part of life, and they accept it as it comes. The Swedish culture is based ‘lagom’, which means not too noticeable, and everything is taken in moderation. Lagom ensures that everybody has enough and nobody goes without. Lagom is enforced in society by the “Jante Law” which should keep people ‘in place’ at all times. It is a fictional law and a Scandinavian concept which counsels people not to boast or try to lift themselves above others. Sweden’s prefer vague assignments without timetables.
In conclusion, Sweden is very diverse with their culture and how they treat things, and each other. They are flexible with their lives and they don’t take it for granted, Sweden’s live for the moment that they are in. Swedish folks live for themselves and don’t worry about how other people are living their lives. They are generally laid back and go with the flow.