Joe Amato began teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU) in Marshall, Minnesota where he was a founder and chair of the History Department. He taught a range of courses in European intellectual and cultural history with a particular interest in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, German, Italian, and French histories and European rural life, as well as taught ethics and introductory social science courses. Joe has given countless lectures and talks on a variety of subjects in the region, throughout the state, Midwest, and at national conferences. Reading and speaking a variety of European languages—Italian, French, Russian, Spanish, and German (and some Biblical Greek)

He is widely traveled in Western Europe from the British Isles and the Netherlands to southern Italy, Greece, and Sicily.

Jelle is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for people, cultures, technology, design, and food. With his company Zeropoint he works with virtual teams from Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Together with his colleague Bart van Loon, he has been dealing with virtual teams for the last 7 years.

2016 Year-End Podcast and Videocast

Thank You!

With this podcast, I want to thank everyone that came to my website.

All the listeners of the podcast and the watchers of the recently added videocast.

Also a big thank you to the readers of my books.

And last but certainly not least a real BIG thank you to my clients.

And a personal thank you to my VA Sheilah, who's been helping me almost 24-7 with my work: "Thank You!"

What did we do in 2016?

There were a lot of very interesting guests for the podcast and videocast this year. Every time I'm amazed at how far culture actually stretches in our everyday lives.

Many of the guests have inspired me to write articles that I've published this year. But also world events have triggered articles.

The website got an amazing 50% more visitors in 2016. Almost every article and podcast attracted more attention.

I've also made a new layout/design for the landing page. Check it out: https://culturematters.com

There must have been more... Just browse around the website.

What can you expect in 2017?

I'll continue with the videocast of course. Although I know a couple of potential guests might not have video or might not even have a good Internet connection (watch this space, there are interesting guests coming!)

Webinars are also new for Culture Matters. I tested a couple in 2016, but in 2017 I will go full out, also with specific topics like "How to work with remote teams". All for free of course. If you want to check out what's available, go here.

A new book will see the light in 2017. It will be a book about Cultural Competence tips. Tips from real people giving real tips. It will be available in e-book form and in print version.

And of course, all the things that will come up in 2017 itself.

To wrap things up: Thanks for all your support in 2016. I'd be grateful if I can count on you in 2017 and beyond.

 

Interview Links

Links that are mentioned in this episode:

Paúl Sojo the fantastic singer that sang the song at the end of the podcast and videocast: [email protected]

Culture Matters YouTube Channel

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Palle is a Danish podcaster and radio journalist traveling to every country in the world.

Mathilde is a 24-year old Master’s student at Copenhagen Business School within the field of business, language, and culture. She is currently doing an internship in Paris for a company that provides business assistance to Danish companies in France and helps Danish companies overcome the cultural barriers that exist between the two countries.

Odi (his calling name) just completed his Master degree program at Anglia Ruskin University, Uk, Cambridge, where he took a class in Intercultural Communication to help him realize his dream to make Nigeria a better country.

Natasha Aks is specializing on doing business in Russia and communicating effectively with Russians. She has been exposed to different cultures, studies, and work-wise, for the last 16 years, having lived and worked across the world, in Russia, the US, Germany, and in the UK. Natasha gained her practical business experience, having worked in media industries for over 11 years. Natasha’s work included acting as a mediator between Russian, Kazakh, Ukrainian, and English teams, bridging any possible gaps, identifying and resolving issues and problems, and, ultimately, making projects happen. Now she consults on doing business in Russia from the communications perspective and is a published author of a series of articles about doing business in Russia.

So, What is Uncertainty Avoidance?

[4-mins read]

In this article about 'What is Uncertainty Avoidance, I will address the following points:

What is meant by uncertainty avoidance?

Hofstede's cultural dimensions.

High uncertainty avoidance.

Low uncertainty avoidance.

Uncertainty avoidance examples.

From all of Professor Hofstede's cultural dimensions, I find uncertainty avoidance the most difficult one to explain.

The reason for this is that most people seem to associate this fourth of Hofstede's cultural dimensions with only formal rules and not with the many more informal rules that a society has.

But before we continue let's start with a definition. For this, where else to go for that other than Wikipedia?

What is Uncertainty Avoidance?

"In cross-cultural psychology, uncertainty avoidance is a society's tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. It reflects the extent to which members of a society try to cope with anxiety by minimizing uncertainty."

However, to a lot of people, the above is just an academic definition. For that reason, when it comes to Hofstede's cultural dimensions, the other three are easier and better defined (I'm talking about Power Distance, Individualism, and Masculinity).

Given this, here is my take on how to explain this using easier language:

There's a saying that says: there are only two things in life certain: Death & Taxes.

About the rest, we're not sure.

Therefore some countries look at this and say: "Fine, that's all I need to know; I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." Because of this attitude, these countries will score relatively low on this dimension.

On the other hand, some countries say: "If the only things certain in life are death and taxes, I need more predictability. I want to know what is around the curve". These countries will score relatively high on this cultural dimension.

Three Problems With Hofstede's Cultural Dimension

There are three major problems with this dimension. These add to the complexity of really understanding this.

Everyone thinks that their country has a lot of rules. This is, however, a very subjective viewpoint. Objectively there are vast differences in the number of rules a country has. Some countries really have fewer rules than others.

The second issue is that most rules that we have are not formal rules. To have a maximum speed limit is a formal rule. How we meet and greet is not a formal rule, but it is a rule. This also goes for the "rule/ritual" of wine tasting in a restaurant.

The last issue is that countries that score high, might not always follow the formal rules. There are simply too many of them. And therefore, the individual could choose the rule that fits his current situation best.

High Uncertainty Avoidance

My experience is that Western Europeans and North Americans view Mediterranean countries as quite relaxed. Hence low scoring on this dimension. Whilst the opposite is actually true. Mediterranean countries are all high uncertainty avoidance countries.

Italy, Greece, and Spain all have a relatively high uncertainty avoidance score.

What they see is that Mediterranean countries are somewhat chaotic. So, the perception of someone from the West is that if a country is chaotic, then their score cannot be high uncertainty avoidance.

In other words, if the perception of someone from the West is that the "other" country is chaotic and/or not very organized, they will interpret that as being a low-scoring country. Or: It's chaotic and unorganized, so there must be few rules, right?

But the opposite is often true.

Countries that may look disorganized from the outside usually do (!) have a lot of rules. Cultures that score high on uncertainty avoidance often have so many rules that people do not know what rules to stick to (because there are so many). So they pick and choose the rules that make the most sense to them at that moment. And just to make sure, I'm talking about official rules only here.

Uncertainty Avoidance Examples

Henrik Jeppesen visited every country in the world just before his 28th birthday.

Stephen Frost is Head of Diversity and Inclusion for KPMG UK. He served as Head of Diversity and Inclusion for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games from 2007-2012. He was educated as a Hertford College Scholar at Oxford University and a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University. He also teaches inclusive leadership at Harvard Business School and an extended class at Sciences Po in Paris. He advises several organizations and governments worldwide and is the author of the book The Inclusion Imperative.