> One manifestation of equality in Sweden is that most companies are less layered and implement what’s called flat hierarchy. Employees are trusted to be invol

> One manifestation of equality in Sweden is that most companies are less layered and implement what’s called flat hierarchy. Employees are trusted to be involved directly in the decision making process rather than being instructed by layers of supervisors. Of course as companies grow larger, they can not be kept completely flat forever, but in regular big companies, hierachies are in many scenarios too excessive and counter-productive. As someone from a very hierachical society like China, I really enjoy working in Swedish companies, partly because I am not that interested in climbing up the management ladder but more interested in having a better technical career. In China, managers enjoy much higher social status than engineers because of the power that hierachical organization enables. Many good engineers are “forced” to take on a management position even if it turns out to be a bad fit and waste of talent. In my opinion, one of the reasons that Sweden became an innovation center in the world is because engineers can just focus on their technical career without getting too much social pressure to become something else. Interesting observation. If people are promoted to their "level of incompetence", perhaps not promoting people is indeed a solution...