Page 243 - Cultures and Organizations

216 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

world with regard to uncertainty avoidance and masculinity, some other
provisos should also be made.
Safety or security is likely to prevail over other needs where uncertainty
avoidance is strong. Belongingness (human relationships) will prevail over
esteem in a feminine culture, but esteem prevails over belonging in a mas-
culine culture. Thus, the supreme motivators—other things such as type of
work being equal—in Figure 6.1 will be achievement (of self or group) and
esteem in the upper right-hand corner (United States, etc.); achievement
and belongingness in the upper left-hand corner (Sweden, etc.); security and
esteem in the lower right-hand corner (Japan, Germany, etc.); and security
and belongingness in the lower left-hand corner (France, etc.).

In this classification Maslow’s five categories have been maintained,
but they have been reshuffled according to a country’s prevailing culture

pattern. An additional question is whether other needs should be added
that were missing in Maslow’s model because they were not recognized in
his mid-twentieth-century U.S. middle-class cultural environment. Can-

didate needs identified in the previous chapters include respect, harmony,
face, and duty.
Table 6.4 summarizes the key differences between weak and strong
uncertainty- avoidance societies related to work, organization, and motiva-
tion. Again most real situations will be somewhere in between.

Uncertainty Avoidance, the Citizen, and the State

In countries with strong uncertainty avoidance, there tend to be more—
and more precise—laws than in those with weak uncertainty avoidance.
Germany, for example, has laws for the event that all other laws become
unenforceable (Notstandsgesetze), while Britain does not even have a written

constitution. Labor-management relations in Germany have been codifi ed
in detail, while attempts to pass an Industrial Relations Act in Britain have
never succeeded.
In countries with weak uncertainty avoidance, a feeling prevails that
if laws do not work, they should be withdrawn or changed. In countries
with strong uncertainty avoidance, laws can fulfill a need for security even

if they are not followed—very similar to religious commandments.
Establishing laws is one thing; applying them is another. Legal experts

from the World Bank, in cooperation with law firms in more than a hun-
dred countries, have amassed information on the practical duration in each