Portrait of an Entrepreneurial Trade Mission: Iceland goes to China

“No man is an island, entire of itself” (Donne, 1624). When the British metaphysical poet John Donne (1572–1631) wrote that, concepts such as entrepreneurship, marketing, tourism, and world trade were either not known or rudimentarily conceived. The scope and implications of these business forces for the health of countries would not be more fully realized for centuries to come. While Donne was not speaking directly to the issues of this research, it is significant, given the central focus of marketing on exchange, that what Donne wrote about in the context of human relations and the need of people to exist in interaction with one another has a connective interpretation to commerce. By extension, individual companies or organizations are not islands unto themselves as they face the make-or-buy and outsourcing decisions, industries are not islands as they must exchange for raw materials and labor, and countries are not metaphorical islands given the uneven distribution of raw materials around the planet. The relative geographic isolation of Iceland (2 hours by airplane from Great Britain), a small population base of approximately 300,000, and a location near the Arctic Circle underscores the need for trade and interaction with other countries as a means of creating and maintaining a vibrant economy.