Hofstede Uncertainty Avoidance Research Articles

A test of Hofstede's model of culture following his own approach

PurposeRecent studies exposed serious issues with Hofstede's popular model of culture, especially his uncertainty avoidance (UA) and masculinity-femininity (MAS–FEM) dimensions. However those studies did not focus on work-related issues as in Hofstede’s research.Design/methodology/approachWe followed Hofstede’s approach to his dimensions more closely than anyone before in a large cross-cultural study. We used data from the nationally representative International Social Survey Program (over 50,000 respondents from 47 countries), measuring work goals and work-related stress in a way similar to Hofstede's.FindingsUA and MAS–FEM, as measured and described by Hofstede, did not replicate. They lack internal consistency and the items that target them are not associated with Hofstede's UA and MAS–FEM indices. Instead, some of those items follow a very different and sound logic, invalidating Hofstede's UA and MAS–FEM theories. Our study provides additional evidence that UA and MAS–FEM are misleading artifacts of Hofstede's IBM database, with no analogues outside IBM. An improved, recently reported version of individualism-collectivism (IDV-COLL) replicated nearly perfectly, solidifying the validity of that dimension of national culture. A revised version of long-term orientation, called flexibility–monumentalism (FLX–MON) also replicated well.Research limitations/implicationsWe discuss lessons for the cross-cultural field, including cross-cultural management, as well as policy-making by national governments, to be drawn from the controversial story of Hofstede's model. We advise a stronger focus on empirical confirmation and replication rather than excessive faith in fascinating, yet unproven theory.Practical implicationsTo avoid further confusion, we advise researchers, consultants and managers to reconsider the use of Hofstede's UA and MAS–FEM and focus on the valid dimensions in the revised Minkov-Hofstede model.Social implicationsA number of national governments recently launched large-scale studies of their national cultures, based on Hofstede's model. The goal of those studies was to involve culture in the design of social and economic development policies. Studies of this kind should be founded on empirically sound models or else they can result in the formulation of flawed policies.Originality/valueThis is the first study of large samples from many nations showing that even when Hofstede's method is followed closely by focusing on work-related issues, UA and MAS–FEM do not emerge from the data, and this is not because of data deficiencies but because the logic of UA and MAS–FEM is demonstrably flawed. Our study also demonstrates new methods for the replication of IDV-COLL and FLX–MON, though without claiming that they are superior to existing ones.

National culture and (dis)trust in banks: Cross‐country evidence

AbstractWe examine to what extent a specific aspect of national culture—uncertainty avoidance—can explain cross‐country variations in (dis)trust in banks. Relying on data from the World Values Survey, we find that trust in banks is lower in countries that score high for Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index. Similarly, with Global Findex data, we find that financial exclusion due to a lack of trust in banks is high in high uncertainty avoidance cultures. These results highlight the need for a more culturally aware approach when designing consumer protection measures for the banking sector.

Exploring the effect of uncertainty avoidance on taking voluntary protective security actions

In this paper, we investigate the main and qualifying effect of Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension (i.e., a culture's acceptance of ambiguous or uncertain situations) of national culture on an individual's protection motivation intentions (using protection motivation theory) to adopt an information security control voluntarily. Uncertainty avoidance is particularly relevant to protection motivation theory and voluntary security related actions, because individuals often perceive high levels of ambiguity related to the threat and the mitigating control that can be adopted voluntarily. The voluntary action that we investigated in this paper is the adoption of password managers due to the perceived uncertainty associated with the threat of having poor password management practices and the ambiguity related to the efficacy of adopting a password manager to mitigate this threat. Using a survey of 227 nationally diverse individuals, we found that uncertainty avoidance qualified the impact of perceived threat vulnerability and perceived threat severity on protection motivations to adopt a password manager voluntarily. In our data, the differential effect of uncertainty avoidance on perceived threat vulnerabilities was greater for those individuals reporting a below average level of uncertainty avoidance relative to an above average level of uncertainty avoidance, but we found the opposite qualifying effect on perceived threat severity. Counter to what we hypothesized, we found that the effect of uncertainty avoidance on protection motivations was negative. These results generally hold for the core and full PMT models. Our study suggests that a one-size fits all approach to security awareness education and training (especially for voluntary security actions) may not be appropriate due to the differential effect associated with individuals from different national cultures.

The Misconstruction of Hofstede's Uncertainty Avoidance Dimension: The Fallacy of Ecological Operation without Construct Validity at the Individual Level

ABSTRACTUncertainty avoidance (UA) is a key cultural dimension with high relevance for international marketing. Hofstede constructed UA at a national level from the variables stress, rule orientation, and employment stability. Using the 2010 European Social Survey (N = 42,964; 27 countries), we aim to empirically cross-validate the aggregation of these three variables into one categorical bipolar dimension looking at construct validity, reliability, interrater agreement, and a pairwise comparison on the ranked country means with Ryan REGWQ. Alas, the three variables do not exhibit even minimal internal construct consistency, which makes any ecological aggregation at a higher country level meaningless. We therefore recommend not using Hofstede's UA for international marketing decisions.

Does Culture Influence Risk Perceptions?

In an investigation of risk perceptions, this study found three distinct factors: risk perceptions associated with travel in general; risk perceptions associated with travel to the destination; and safety concerns associated with destination choice. This study also sought to examine tourists' risk perceptions from a cross-cultural perspective. Accordingly, the influence of cultural differences in terms of Hofstede's Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI), as well as destination past experience and sociodemographic characteristics on risk perceptions, were examined. The findings indicated that age, gender, and UAI significantly influenced risk perceptions. Specifically, there was a positive relationship between UAI and both travel risk perceptions and destination risk perceptions. Travelers without past experience visiting the destination were associated with higher destination risk perceptions and safety concerns than those with past experience. Furthermore, the findings revealed that destination past experience only played a significant moderating role in the relationship between age and travel risk perceptions.

The relationship between national culture and safety culture: Implications for international safety culture assessments.

In this article, we examine the relationship between safety culture and national culture, and the implications of this relationship for international safety culture assessments. Focussing on Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance (UA) index, a survey study of 13,616 Air Traffic Management employees in 21 European countries found a negative association between safety culture and national norm data for UA. This is theorized to reflect the influence of national tendencies for UA upon attitudes and practices for managing safety (e.g., anxiety on risk; reliance on protocols; concerns over reporting incidents; openness to different perspectives). The relationship between UA and safety culture is likely to have implications for international safety culture assessments. Specifically, benchmarking exercises will consistently indicate safety management within organizations in high UA countries to be poorer than low UA countries due to the influence of national culture upon safety practices, which may limit opportunities for identifying and sharing best practice. We propose the use of safety culture against international group norms (SIGN) scores to statistically adjust for the influence of UA upon safety culture data, and to support the identification of safety practices effective and particular to low or high UA cultures.Practitioner points National cultural tendencies for uncertainty avoidance (UA) are negatively associated with safety culture.This indicates that employee safety‐related attitudes and practices may be influenced by national culture, and thus factors outside the direct control of organizational management.International safety culture assessments should attempt to determine the influence of national culture upon safety culture in order that benchmarking exercises compare aspects of safety management and not national culture.Safety culture against international group norms (SIGN) scores provide a potential way to do this, and can facilitate the identification of best practice within countries operating in a low or high UA cultural cluster.

Do Immigrants Have Different Procedural Justice Perceptions of Personnel Selection methods? The case of native Israelis and immigrants from the former Soviet Union

Most prior research on perceived procedural justice vis‐à‐vis human resource management selection procedures focuses on comparisons between nations and between types of employees. So far, findings indicate slight, if any, differences between nations. Predicated on a random sample of 950 respondents – native Israelis and Israelis from the former Soviet Union – we find significant differences between the two groups concerning five selection methods, which we ascribe to inherent cultural dissimilarities. We attribute these differences to Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension. These results may elicit increased focus on inherent cultural differences among potential employees with the view of considering these differences in opting for selection methods in order to accommodate for existing cultural differences. This consideration appears particularly pertinent in culturally diverse workforces, given the increased proportion of immigrants.

Examining the Use of Hofstede’s Uncertainty Avoidance Construct as a Definition or Brief Comparison in Ethics Research

This research focuses on studies in the Journal of Business Ethics (hereafter JoBE) that used Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance construct. The JoBE is the foremost outlet for ethics research for most academic disciplines. We included research from the International Journal of Value Based Management (hereafter IJoVBM) and Teaching Business Ethics (hereafter TBE), which merged with the JoBE in 2004. There were 84 studies that used Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance construct as a definition or brief comparison. Understanding how uncertainty avoidance has already been used could provide opportunities for future research to further increase our understanding of differences in international behavior and/or perceptions. This research examines the use of Hofstede's cultural construct of uncertainty avoidance (hereafter UA) in international ethics research; however, while we only report on Hofstede's UA construct, the majority of the research we examined in this study included all of Hofstede's constructs. UA is a surrogate for a society's relative willingness to tolerate ambiguous outcomes. Hofstede's (1991, 150) UA construct was calculated as the combined score for a series of three questions dealing with: rules orientation, employment stability, and nervousness or stress at work. Rules orientation examines the rigidity of an individual's beliefs about following rules: Company rules should not be broken - even if the employee thinks it is in the company's best interests (150). The employment stability factor reflects the anticipated tenure for the individual's current job: How long do you think you will continue working for this company? (150). The stress-at-work factor reflects individuals' responses to the statement: How often do you feel nervous or tense at work? (150). Hofstede (150) defined culture as a set of likely reactions of citizens with a common mental programming. . . . reactions need not be found within the same persons, but only statistically more often in the same society. Consequently, Hofstede's UA construct is the average of the combined scores (Formula 1) of all individuals from each country. UA =300 - 30 (rule orientation) - (% intending to stay less than 5 yrs) - 40 (stress score) (1) The uses of Hofstede's cultural dimension of UA vary in the JoBE as well as in the IJoVBM and TBE. In this paper those varied uses are identified by distinct categories, which allows readers to quickly search and understand what information is available in these journals. In the process of our review, we grouped articles into two categories that differentially use UA - definitional and brief comparisons. With respect to the association between these articles and ethics research, those in our definition category briefly mention UA as part of Hofstede's (1980) original research and do not link to ethics research. Brief comparison articles attempt to describe differences between countries and some of these address ethics topics. 2. Methodology The first step in the data gathering process was to identify articles to examine from the JoBE, which has been published since 1982. We began by using the journal's online search function for 'UA'. To ensure that we identified all articles, we also used Google's Advanced Scholar searching for 'UA' in the JoBE. We included only original journal articles; book reviews, comments, discussions and rejoinders were not included in our analysis. While this journal has been published since 1982, the first use of Hofstede's UA construct was in 1990; so our study actually includes articles from 1990 through 2011 (e.g., a 22-year period). While we searched all

International Evidence on the Equity Premium Puzzle and Time Discounting

We elicit time discounting factors in an international survey. Our analysis reveals a significant relationship between time discount factors and historical equity premium across 27 countries. It implies that in countries where participants tend to be more short-term oriented, higher historical equity risk premiums are observed. This finding is consistent with the explanation of equity premium puzzle by myopic loss aversion. We investigate the mediational effect of time preference between Hofstede's Uncertainty Avoidance cultural dimension and equity risk premium.

Communicating crisis: how culture influences image repair in Western and Asian governments

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the differences in image repair strategies adopted by two governments that operate in the Western and Asian societies when faced with similar crises.Design/methodology/approachTextual analyses are presented of communication of Hurricane Katrina and Typhoon Morakot by the Taiwanese and US governments, respectively.FindingsFaced with similar accusations of slow response, the Asian culture, represented by the Taiwanese Government, used predominantly mortification and corrective action strategies. The Western culture, represented by the US Government, used predominantly bolstering and defeasibility and a mixed bag of other strategies such as shifting the blame and attack the accuser.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation of the study is that it depends on news reports, instead of news releases and speeches, for analysis. However, given the rapidity and volatility in the unfolding drama of each of the two crises, many of the comments made were to the media and not in prepared speeches. It is a limitation the authors accept.Practical implicationsStrategies reflected Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance and power distance dimensions. These dimensions should be considered when designing communication strategies in different cultures so as to be culturally sensitive and relevant.Originality/valueFew, if any, studies on image repair theory have addressed the role of culture in strategies used. This study fills the gap by integrating Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory.

Services cultural alignment in offshoring: The impact of cultural dimensions on offshoring location choices

AbstractEmpirical research on the growing wave of services offshoring has examined the impact of several key factors such as wages and personnel quality on firm choices of offshore locations. However, examinations of culture in services offshoring to date have largely been confined to the relatively coarse concept of aggregate cultural differences between the home and host countries. We propose that specific cultural attributes are more closely aligned with successful service provision. We empirically examine our theoretical development of service cultural alignment and investigate the impact of cultural dimensions on the location of service offshoring projects. In addition, we examine whether Western and Asian firms have different cultural preferences in terms of the location of services offshoring projects. We find that host countries with lower levels of Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance as well as higher levels of individualism and power distance are able to attract greater numbers of service offshoring projects, even after controlling for macroeconomic, linguistic, and risk‐related factors. We did not find that Western and Asian firms have different cultural preferences in this regard. We discuss implications of the findings with respect to theory, managerial practice, and governmental policy.

The Effects of Uncertainty Avoidance on Brand Performance: Marketing Creativity, Product Innovation and the Brand Duration

This paper investigates the link between brand performance and cultural primes in high-risk, innovation-based sectors. In theory section, we propose that the level of cultural uncertainty avoidance embedded in a firm determine its marketing creativity by increasing the complexity and the broadness of a brand. It determines also the rate of firm product innovations. Marketing creativity and product innovation influence finally the firm marketing performance. Empirically, we study trademarked promotion in the Software Security Industry (SSI). Our sample consists of 87 firms that are active in SSI from 11 countries in the period 1993-2000. We use the data coming from SSI-related trademarks registered by these firms, ending up with 2,911 SSI-related trademarks and a panel of 18,213 observations. We estimate a two stage model in which first we predict the complexity and the broadness of a trademark as a measure of marketing creativity and the rate of product innovations. Among several control variables, our variable of theoretical interest is the Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance cultural index. Then, we estimate the trademark duration with a hazard model using the predicted complexity and broadness as well as the rate of product innovations, along with the same control variables. Our evidence confirms that the cultural avoidance affects the duration of the trademarks through the firm marketing creativity and product innovation.

The impact of the perception of risk on international travellers

AbstractThe primary objective of this paper is twofold: (i) to investigate the impact of perceived risk on the tendency to travel internationally; and (ii) to explore if there is any difference in the perception of risky places among three clusters segmented based on the Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index. The sample population of the study consists of 1180 international travellers visiting Hong Kong in the fall of 2003. The research findings show that the majority of travellers are more likely to change their travel plans to a destination that has elevated risk while the minority reports they are more unlikely. These findings suggest that international travellers appear to be sensitive towards the occurrence of any type of risk in their evoked destinations. Differences were also observed from one continent to another in terms of the influence of perceived risks. The final note is that travellers from different national cultures may have varying degrees of the perceived risk. Implications both for theory and practitioners are also discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

TOURISM BEHAVIOR TOWARD DISASTERS: A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON

The current study extends the author's previous study in which Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension (1991) was applied to the case of the September 21st earthquake in 1999, the largest natural disaster of the 20th century in Taiwan. The study assessed how the behavior of Japanese and United States tourists has been affected. The results indicate clear differences in rebound status between Japanese and American visitor arrivals that are remarkably consistent with Hofstede's conceptualization – the Japanese tended toward uncertainty avoidance more than the Americans.

Uncertainty avoidance and facework: A test of the Hofstede model

This study tested whether Hofstede's Uncertainty Avoidance dimension of culture is an important predictor for understanding national differences. To determine this, an analysis of survey data was carried out in six countries: Chile, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Sweden and the United States. This replication study tested Hofstede's conclusions of 1980 and 2001 about the role of uncertainty in facework, the action taken to maintain or gain face. As hypothesized, multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) results showed that, while controlling for social desirability effects, uncertainty avoidance influences ritualistic, harmonious, and aggressive facework strategies in an embarrassing situation. Therefore, this successful replication of Hofstede's assertions as applied to facework confirms that uncertainty avoidance exerts a significant influence on facework communication strategies.

Cross‐cultural tourist behaviour: a replication and extension involving Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension

AbstractHofstede's five cross‐cultural dimensions have been broadly applied in the literature. Money and Crotts recently applied the dimension of uncertainty avoidance to a matched sample comprised of low uncertainty avoidance German and high uncertainty avoidance Japanese tourists, finding their behaviours consistent with those behaviours predicted by Hofstede. This study both replicates and extends their research across a representative sample of first time leisure visitors to the USA representing 58 nations. It was found that visitors from high uncertainty avoidance cultures exhibited behaviours consistent with those of the Japanese in the Money and Crotts research, whereas visitors from low‐uncertainty avoidance cultures behaved similarly to their German subjects. Such findings, across a broad sample population, validate the original research through a more rigorous test of its propositions, provide increased confidence regarding their generalisability, and further contribute to our understanding of the influence of national culture on tourist behaviour. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley &Sons, Ltd.

Dimensions of national culture and corporate adoption of IT infrastructure

Corporate adoption of information technology (IT) infrastructure is a critical management issue that may be affected by national culture. Prior research has shown that dimensions of national culture affect development of national IT infrastructure as well as adoption and impact of IT applications. This study explores the impact of two dimensions of national culture (uncertainty avoidance and power distance) on the adoption of a type of IT infrastructure (frame relay). A multinational survey was carried out, and it yielded useable responses from 153 businesses from 24 countries. The results demonstrated that businesses from higher uncertainty avoidance countries were less likely to adopt frame relay. A one-point increase in Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index for the country of incorporation was associated with a 3% lower likelihood of adopting frame relay. Power distance was not significantly correlated with adoption of frame relay. These results highlight the relevance of dimensions of national culture as factors affecting corporate adoption of IT infrastructure. Implications for practice and further research are presented.

Cultural determinants of economic growth: Theory and evidence

Shortcomings of neoclassical growth theory and growth accounting are viewed as a challenge for cultural economics. Recently, new growth theory has introduced several growth determinants and has closed the gap between theoretical and empirical research. Whether this development leaves space for cultural determinants in explaining economic growth is in the center of this paper. The theoretical analysis shows how an endogenous growth model can be used to explain the impact on economic growth of cultural determinants. The empirical part uses indices from cross-cultural studies to extend recent cross-country growth regressions. Among other Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index is shown to be significantly correlated with economic growth.

The Cultural Convergence of MBA Education Across Australia, Singapore and Malaysia

A commonly held view among international researchers is that markets and cultures are growing closer together. This cultural convergence is believed to result from the homogenising effect of technology transfer. One force which emerges from technology transfer is the convergence of education, in particular management education This study examined the MBA experience as a factor potentially causing cultural convergence. Students in five MBA programs in Australia, Malaysia and Singapore were surveyed on cultural dimensions using Hofstede's (1980) Values Survey Module to determine whether there was cultural convergence between Hofstede's cultural dimensions and the three countries. The results indicated that there was convergence between Hofstede's Uncertainty Avoidance and Power Distance distributions for the three countries.