Page 259 - Cultures and Organizations

232 DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL CULTURES

Origins of Uncertainty-Avoidance Differences

Possible origins of power distance differ ences were explored in Chapter
3. The grouping of countries suggested that the roots of the differences
could go back as far as the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. In East
Asia it assumed roots in the even older Chinese Empire. Both empires left
a legacy of large power distances.

On uncertainty avoidance we again find the countries with a Romance
language together. These heirs of the Roman Empire all score on the
strong uncertainty-avoidance side. The Chinese-speaking countries Tai-
wan, Hong Kong, and Singapore score low on uncertainty avoidance, as do
countries with important minorities of Chinese origin: Thailand, Indone-
sia, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
The Roman and Chinese Empires were both powerful centralized
states, supporting a culture pattern in their populations prepared to take
orders from the center. The two empires differed, however, in an important
respect. The Roman Empire had developed a unique system of codifi ed
laws that in principle applied to all people with citizen status regardless
of origin. The Chinese Empire never knew this concept of law. The main
continuous principle of Chinese administration has been described as “gov-
ernment of man,” in contrast to the Roman idea of “government by law.”
Chinese judges were supposed to be guided by broad general principles,
like those attributed to Confucius (see Chapter 7).
The contrast between the two intellectual traditions explains the
fact that IBM employees from countries with a Roman inheritance scored
higher on uncertainty avoidance than their colleagues from countries
with a Chinese inheritance. It is another powerful illustration of the deep
historical roots of national culture differences. Their long history should

make us modest about expectations of fundamental changes in these value
differences within our lifetime.
Power distance differences in Chapter 3 were found to be statistically
related to geographic latitude, population size, and national wealth. No
such broad relationships could be found for uncertainty avoidance. The
relationship between UAI and economic growth varies depending on the
region and the period. It was negative in Europe for the period 1925–50,
because the strong uncertainty-avoidance countries were more actively
belligerent in World War II, and their economies suffered badly. After