Uncertainty avoidance has been thoroughly examined as an important factor in international business situations. For instance, Zinkhan and Balazs found uncertainty
avoidance to be a predictor of public confidence of advertising messages.
21 The Zinkhan and Balazs study, conducted in 16 European nations, found
that people’s trust in information about a product or service was directly related to
the national level of uncertainty avoidance.22 Likewise, Vitell, Nwachukwu, and
Barnes posited that a society’s level of uncertainty avoidance would influence how
tolerant of deviations or mistakes from the norm it was.23 A study of relevance
conducted by Armstrong showed that the dimension of uncertainty avoidance
pointed to “higher levels of the importance of ethical problems.”24 Armstrong
found that in high uncertainty avoidance nations, workers need written rules to
guide ethical decision making. Thus, an understanding of uncertainty avoidance
may help multinational corporations to formalize written codes of ethics for employees
in high uncertainty avoidance nations and create informal codes for employees
in low uncertainty avoidance nations.
Communication researcher William Gudykunst also explored this concept in
cross-cultural research.25 Gudykunst described high uncertainty avoidance cultures
as countries where people “try to avoid ambiguity and therefore develop rules
and rituals for virtually every possible situation. . . these cultures tend to be highly
ritualistic and/or very polite.”26 Conversely, low uncertainty avoidance countries
“accept dissent and taking risks.”27 This cultural orientation has implications for
communication, crisis, and public relations. Gudykunst warned, however, that no
single dimension is sufficient to truly understand the dynamics of a culture and
suggested that certain dimensions of culture complement and explain the other.
For instance, Hofstede’s work not only identified the high uncertainty avoidance
nations, but also linked the dimension of power distance to uncertainty avoidance.
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