Page 225 - Cultures and Organizations

198 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

tions, institutions, and relationships that makes events clearly interpretable
and predictable. Paradoxically, they are often prepared to engage in risky

behavior in order to reduce ambiguities, such as starting a fight with a
potential opponent rather than sitting back and waiting.
The analysis of the IBM data shows a correlation between the strength
of uncertainty avoidance in a (developed) country and the maximum speeds

allowed in freeway traffic in that country. The relationship is positive:
stronger uncertainty avoidance means faster driving. Faster driving, other
things being equal, means more fatal accidents, thus more risk. However,
this is a familiar risk, which uncertainty- avoiding cultures do not mind run-
ning. Their emotionality provides them with a sense of stress, of urgency,
which in turn leads to wanting to drive faster. The higher speed limits in
stronger uncertainty- avoidance countries show, in fact, a priority of saving
time over saving lives. 8
In countries with weaker uncertainty avoidance, there is less of a pre-
vailing sense of urgency, and therefore, there is more public acceptance
of a lower speed limit. Not only familiar risks but also unfamiliar risks
are accepted, such as those involved in a change of jobs or in engaging in
activities for which there are no rules.

Uncertainty Avoidance in Replication Studies:
Project GLOBE

The GLOBE study, introduced in Chapter 2, included items intended to
measure a dimension called uncertainty avoidance, once “as it is” and once
“as it should be.” As we argued, GLOBE’s questions were formulated so
differently from ours that they could hardly be expected to measure the
same thing. Our analysis of GLOBE’s “uncertainty avoidance” confi rms

this argument, and it produces a number of surprises.
First of all, across forty-eight overlapping countries, our UAI corre-
lates strongly negatively with GLOBE’s uncertainty avoidance “as is” and
weakly positively with GLOBE’s uncertainty avoidance “should be.” There
is a strikingly strong negative correlation between GLOBE’s uncertainty
avoidance “as is” and “should be” scores. 9
In countries where we measured a strong uncertainty avoidance (high
UAI, validated against societal stress, neuroticism, need for rules, and
other factors to follow in this chapter), GLOBE measured weak uncer-
tainty avoidance “as is.” Examples of GLOBE’s questions used are “In this