Geert Hofstedes Concept of Uncertainty avoidance (UAI)

Ana- Maria Cozmiuc Madlina Drgan Group 925 Faculty of International Business and Economics We all agree that the world of today has reached a high development in technology. Due to this world-wide situation, many countries, nations and cultures have been brought together. This is very exciting and interesting as we are starting to know people all over the world though communication. We are trying to break some long-term build boundaries by living and working in a globalized society. It sounds great and exciting but, as we try to connect with people from other cultures, we might find ourselves in front of a wall without knowing how to break it. We

need to have knowledge about a persons culture in order to better understand him/her and in order to better communicate with that person. There are many scientists who tried to explain cultural differences and, in this paper we will focus on one of the most important contemporary theory in this area: Geert Hofstedes theory of cultural dimensions. Mainly, this theory describes the effects of a societys culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behavior, using a structure derived from factor analysis. The initial theory has been developed as a result of using factor analysis to examine the results of a world-wide survey of employee values by IBM in the 1960s and 1970s. The theory was one of the first that could be quantified, and could be used to explain observed differences between cultures. He first focused his research on the 40 largest countries, and then extended it to 50 countries and 3 regions, at that time probably the largest matched-sample cross-national database available anywhere.1 The original theory proposed four dimensions along which cultural values could be analyzed: individualism-collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance and masculinityfemininity. Independent research in Hong Kong led Hofstede to add a fifth dimension, long-term orientation, to cover aspects of values not discussed in the original paradigm. In the 2010 edition of Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind2, Hofstede added a sixth dimension, indulgence versus self-restraint, as a result of co-author Michael Minkovs analysis of data from the World Values Survey3. Further research has refined some of the original dimensions, and introduced the difference between country-level and individual-level data in analysis. In this paper we will try to explain the uncertainty avoidance cultural dimension (UAI uncertainty avoidance index). We will also try to explain how this concept can be used in worldwide business environment and you will also find an example to provide a better insight upon this cultural dimension. First of all, as a definition, the uncertainty avoidance is the extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these4. In short terms, it focuses on the level of tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity of a specific culture. In other words, it can also be said that this dimension measures a country or cultures preference for strict laws or regulations over ambiguity and risk. It also has been said that uncertainty avoidance it ultimately refers to mans search for Truth. It indicates to what extent a culture programs builds its members to feel either uncomfortable or comfortable in unstructured situations. Unstructured situations are novel, unknown, surprising, and different from usual. Uncertainty avoiding cultures try to minimize the possibility of such situations by strict laws and rules, safety and security measures, and on the philosophical and religious level by a belief in absolute Truth5. From our point of view, this dimension also shows the emotional extent of a specific society/culture. For example, a culture with a high UAI, by definition, it is more structured and tries constantly to have rules and regulations, laws and strict schedules to minimize the
1

Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, Oaks CA: Sage Publications Publishing House 2 Hofstede, G., Hofstede, J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations; Software of the mind (3rd edition). New York: McGraw Hill Publishing House 3 Minkov, M. (2007). What makes us different and similar: A new interpretation of the World Values Survey and other cross-cultural data. Sofia: Klasika y Stil Publishing House 4 Hofstede, G., Hofstede, J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations; Software of the mind (3rd edition). New York: McGraw Hill Publishing House 5 http://www.clearlycultural.com, accessed at December 10, 2012

appearance of the unknown. But, at one point, the unpredictable still appears. In that moment, that culture panics because it is not used with such a situation and does not know how to handle it. In all this time, it tried to avoid it, but, sometimes, that isnt possible. In that case, people belonging to that culture, are more emotional and start worrying a lot until there is a valid, complete and clear explanation and, more than this, until a solution for accepting or solving the situation has been found. Until then, usually it is a long process which is followed carefully step by step. On the other hand, countries with low UAI, we believe are less emotional, hence their economical and corporatist thinking development. They usually accept and feel comfortable in unstructured situations or changeable environments and try to have as few rules as possible. People in these cultures tend to be more pragmatic, they are more tolerant of change. Hofstedes findings on the uncertainty avoidance cultural dimension reveal the fact that countries which have a high/low UAI score have common characteristics. For example, countries/cultures with a high UAI score usually have a long history and have reached a stage in which the population is more homogenous. Also, it has been discovered that, in such countries, risks are taken very rarely or at all, even though everything is calculated thoroughly. More than this, people who live in such societies are more reluctant to new ideas and concepts, and they usually tend to reject them. On the other hand, countries/cultures with a low UAI score are young countries with a young history. In this case, the population is more heterogenic and diverse due to waves of immigration. This type of society is usually more opened to new and to innovation and taking risks is considered to be an embedded part of evolution. According to Hofstedes findings, Greece is the country with the highest UAI score, while Singapore finds itself at the opposite. Generally speaking, his studies reveal that Protestant countries and those with Chinese influences score low while Catholic, Buddhist and Arabic speaking countries tend to have a high UAI score.6 In the business environment, everyone needs to pay close attention. This is the place where cultural diversity can be best seen. For example, businessmen in countries with a high UAI have a very formal business conduct with lots of rules and policies. Differences in such environments are highly avoided and also, nervousness rises high levels of expression and emotion. In such an environment, you need to be clear and concise about your expectations and parameters. You shouldnt expect your ideas, ways or methods, even though they are good, to be easily embraced. You need to allow time to help develop an understanding of an initiative to help foster confidence in it. You also should prepare for rejection. Keep in mind that, if you are coming with something new, it might not be received as you expected. But be patient and make sure you have everything prepared in detail and backed up with facts and statistics. Also, if you feel like it, remember you are free to express your emotions through hand gestures and emotions.7 On the other hand, in a business environment with a low UAI score, you will see an informal business attitude and you will notice a tendency to easily accept risk and change because the concern is on a long term strategy not on what is happening on a daily basis. In this case, you shouldnt try to impose rules or structure unnecessarily, but rather to express curiosity when you discover differences. You should be flexible and open to new ideas and you should prepare to push through agreed plans quickly as they would be expected to be realized as soon as possible. Also, in this type on business environment, employees are usually let to execute their
6

Hofstede, G., Hofstede, J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations; Software of the mind (3rd edition). New York: McGraw Hill Publishing House 7 http://www.clearlycultural.com, accessed at December 10, 2012

tasks on their own, they have autonomy and space. Regarding emotions, you should try to be calm, minimizing your emotional response and contemplating situations before speaking.8 So, as you can see, there are described mainly two types of environments which are on opposite poles. Its not always like this in reality. Sometimes they mix and something in between rises. This is just a main presentation of how uncertainty avoidance dimensions applies in reality and how we need to behave in such an environment in order to better understand it and also to be better understood. The analysis of Hofstedes cultural dimensions is available for almost every country in the world. We will use our country, Romania, to exemplify the uncertainty avoidance dimension more clearly. We have attached below a chart with the Romanian culture explored through Hofstedes five cultural dimensions. As you can see, the score for LTE (long term orientation) is missing as there is no score available at the moment.

We can see here how the Romanian culture is seen as compared to other world cultures. From the point of view of uncertainty avoidance, our country has a score of 90. What this means is that we have a very high preference for avoiding uncertainty 10 . More clearly, this score tells us that Romanians dont like the unpredictable. Our individual motivation comes, first of all, from a feeling of personal security. We need to feel safe and this is trying to be assured in Romanian society by rules. These rules are, first of all, behavioral and can be seen through an inner motivation to be busy and to work hard, to be precise and to be punctual. If you take a moment and think about it, most of Romanians have this saying: Time is money. The saying is borrowed and Im sure other cultures also have it, but we say it very often, like a motivation for us to keep focused because we need this to keep certain on a daily basis. Besides these behavioral rules, we also have emotional rules and, both of these types of rules are strongly
8 9

http://www.clearlycultural.com, accessed at December 10, 2012 http://geert-hofstede.com/romania.html, accessed at January 5, 2013 10 http://geert-hofstede.com/romania.html, accessed at January 5, 2013

governed in Romania by religion. We still have rigid codes of behavior and belief religiously induced and, more than this, Romanians are very intolerable with any type of unorthodox behavior. All in all, the Romanian society is afraid of the unknown and of uncertainty. We know this because we live here but, through this high UAI score, other cultures can better understand how we are most of the time and why we act in a certain way. From our point of view, all Hofstedes analysis on countries are very useful because you can prepare yourself for an interaction with someone from a different culture. In this way, we can all better understand the other because there are lots of cultures in the whole world and each one of them has specific markers. Also, from our point of view, the scores on these five dimensions can tell you each countrys development stage and how it stands in the world-wide economical world because these cultural concepts are strongly related to the corporatist way of thinking. In conclusion, although there are many critics to his theory, the most common one being that its not world-wide applicable as he sustained, Hofstede created a powerful tool, especially in the business and management environment. In this area, his theory had practical results and was constantly used inside global corporations. His theory is still considered increasingly relevant for both economic and political reasons and also, although the world and its people are changing fast, we believe that cultural differences as expressed in his tool have not disappeared overnight and can still be seen, even though people are working on a common neutral multinational environment.

Bibliography

1. Hofstede, G. (2001).

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Culture's Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions and Organizations Across Nations, Oaks CA: Sage Publications Publishing House Hofstede, G., Hofstede, J., & Minkov, M. (2010). Cultures and organizations; Software of the mind (3rd edition), New York: McGraw Hill Publishing House Minkov, M. (2007). What makes us different and similar: A new interpretation of the World Values Survey and other cross-cultural data, Sofia: Klasika y Stil Publishing House http://geert-hofstede.com/romania.html, accessed at January 5, 2013 http://www.clearlycultural.com, accessed at December 10, 2012