Canadian Salad
A No-Nonsense Podcast On Culture And Immigration
Canadian Salad
The Salad of Chaos: Why We Fear (or Love) The Unknown
This week on Canadian Salad, Andrea and Hostion toss up a fresh conversation about uncertainty — why some of us need structure while others are totally fine going with the flow.
Drawing on Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of uncertainty avoidance and individualism vs. collectivism, they explore how comfort with ambiguity shows up in our work, families, politics, and even how we shop online. From Canada’s rule-following tendencies to China’s flexible “we’ll figure it out” mindset, this episode is full of cultural contrasts, laughs, and aha moments.
🎧 Join them for a funny, thoughtful, and totally relatable chat about how uncertainty shapes our choices — and what it says about who we are.
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I like salad. Do you like salad?
SPEAKER_04:Welcome to Canadian Salad, a fun, factual, and friendly podcast about culture and integration in Canada.
SPEAKER_02:I'm one of your hosts, I'm Ho Chen Ho from China, currently living in unceded territory of Musqueams Wamge as Newatu Nations.
SPEAKER_04:And I'm Andrea McCoy, an immigrant from the United States, broadcasting you from the unceded traditional territory of the Wakungan people, the song using final First Nations. And you're listening to Canadian Salad. It's another Tuesday, another Canadian salad.
SPEAKER_01:I know. Let's have some salad every Tuesday.
SPEAKER_04:Every Tuesday. How often do you eat salad, Hoshan?
SPEAKER_01:Actually, not a lot.
SPEAKER_04:I know me neither. Summertime, yes. But definitely not like in when it gets colder.
SPEAKER_01:Well, unless unless it's Tuesday, you know, Tuesday, every Tuesday is Canadian salad. That's what when are you talking about?
SPEAKER_04:True, that's that's right. Every Tuesday. It might not be a physical salad, but it is definitely a salad. And here we are. Yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And today this salad is gonna be about something we kind of talked about before, but just another angle. We've talked about true. We're gonna talk about Hosted as Hosted cultural dimension again.
SPEAKER_04:Oh yes, uh German philosopher. That was terrible French accent. And I don't think he's German, he's Dutch, right? Hello.
SPEAKER_01:I think he's Dutch, yes. Anyway, Hosted. Yeah, this famous asociologist. Um, we have explained in previous episodes that uh he developed a six dimensions, a model of six dimensions to measure culture. Yeah, and in our previous episode, we talked about two dimensions, which are oh my god, the two dimensions that we talked about. Power distance, power distance, yes, and what's the other one?
SPEAKER_04:You know what, folks? Just go and listen to uh episode two of this season, season three, episode two, and uh patriarchy, oh yeah, masculine feminine, masculinity and femininity, yeah. This is what happens when you get old and you don't eat enough salad potion.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. But anyway, yes, and today we're gonna explore the other two dimensions, which is uncertainty avoidance and individualism versus classicism.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:That's the two dimensions we're gonna explore today. Yeah, um, yeah, we're gonna explore what this dimension means, what are their real life examples, and how, and then how they interact with each other and why they matter in global terms.
SPEAKER_04:For sure. This is what I love about even Hofstead and some kind of framework is that I don't know that people recognize patterns or behaviors or and we only notice them maybe in comparison to other people. But what I love about having some kind of language around it is like, oh, this is how I operate, this is how I see my world or other people. And I think it helps us know how to navigate teams or or relationships or our global experiences. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:I think having framework to explain culture is always interesting because a lot of time I think when we discuss culture with other people who would let's say share different culture experiences with us, sometimes it's just like very general, right? No, I mean general, but also very example-based. It's like oh, we do this and you do that, it has to be based on specific incidents, but then having framework to explain or even to score, because um hostess culture dimensions actually have scores, so you know, even talk about oh, you're from individualistic culture, I'm from individualistic culture, but who is more individualistic? So, what are the examples? How is it measured? And hostess model gives that kind of framework, it just makes it so much easier to explain.
SPEAKER_04:It does, it does, yeah. Well, I'm excited. I'm excited, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So talk about individualistic. I know the biggest different, obvious different between you and me, like you're from a very individualistic culture, I'm from a very collective culture. Do you think like after learning so much about culture, do you think it become more collective?
SPEAKER_04:This is a tricky question because I am extroverted. And so I feel like sometimes I crave more collective lifestyle. Like I wish I could just walk down the street to my friend's house and just walk in the door. I also in the work that I do I'm thinking about what is what needs to be done for the collective good of people rather than just my own individual rights. And so I think being more, I don't know, it's hard to say. I feel like my extrovertedness has always made me more. I want to be a part of the group and I want the group to be a part of me. But I think if I apply that to maybe even just my engagement with politics, social activism, and even the things I'm teaching my son, I think I'm very much more collective minded than I am individualistic minded. How about you?
SPEAKER_01:I think I'm definitely well from a collective culture. I think I'm more individualistic slowly, leaving, especially living in an individualistic country like Canada. Um, I was talking to friends the other day that one of those younger living in China, like we go out with friends, we almost in some sort of group every day. It's unlikely you are just by yourself and doing your own thing. You're always with a lot of people, families and siblings, and a lot of tips, and you're always like forced to think in terms of what is good for the collective good. Yeah. Because you're always with people, you don't just make your own decision, you make decisions for everyone. And but moved in here, of course, that changed dramatically. A lot of time, like you even go out with friends, you have to schedule, everyone has their life, you schedule to meet them, which is like usually days advanced, not like the next day. You know, usually days advance. And a lot of time when you make decisions, you only need to think about what you want. Uh, people usually also kind of expect what you want to do, other than and sometimes when people do things that was like that's a way good example of food. When you go out, a lot of time is we each order what we want and we eat our food.
SPEAKER_04:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:But then in China we do family style, you order food for everyone, everyone, and then you just share the feast, exactly. So, like, even in terms of food, when you share food is a difference there. But now, of course, I've definitely go when I go out and eat food with friends. I also I know you know the default is I order food for myself.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we didn't share pho when we had pho together.
SPEAKER_01:But I would I would not mind.
SPEAKER_04:We did share appetizers, so you know we had a bit of both, like collectivism and individualism in our meals.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah. Anyway, it's a good year to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, because now we're gonna dive into it. Okay. Like uh, I think that's just I think a lot of us know individualism and collectivism that as one dimension. I think a lot of us, our list our listeners have an idea of it, but uncertainty avoidance, which um I think a lot of people will not have an idea exactly.
SPEAKER_04:It's a weird combination of of words uncertainty, avoidance, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, avoid uncertainty and avoid blurry situations. Yes, you know, but anyway, so uncertainty avoidance measures how comfortable a culture is with ambiguity, uncertainty, and unstructured situations. In high uncertainty avoidant cultures, people feel more threatened by unknowns and prefer rules, formal proceeding, procedures, planning, and structure. In low uncertainty avoidant cultures, ambiguity is more tolerated, um, rules are more flexible, and people accept change more readily. Yes. For some of the key characters of like high uncertainty avoidance culture, they prefer clear rules, laws, policies, you know, higher stress or anxiety when situations are ambiguous, definitely less tolerance for deviance or novelty, and very rigid structure, uh institutions, strong formality. And risk taking is not necessarily low, but ambiguity is uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_04:Sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and to individualism versus collectivism, the dimension captures how people see themselves in relationship to the group. Uh, individualistic culture, the self is a primary. People tend to look after themselves and their direct family. In collective cultures, individuals are embedded in the group, whether it's an extended family or in groups like your friend group or classmates or even colleagues. And they value loyalty, harmony, group goals, some key characteristics, including like for people for culture that are very uh individualistic, like decision making is all about autonomy.
SPEAKER_04:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:And communication is very direct, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and collective culture, uh communication are very like context sensitive, like it depends on context, yeah, yes, and conflict, for example, for interf for individual culture are very confrontational, yeah. And collective culture is avoidant, and for identity, of course, individualistic are very about me, about how I see myself, how what I want, and collective culture is about how the group is seeing themselves, how the group yeah, the group thinking, yes. So that's kind of the basic meaning and idea of what this two dimensions are. There is a lot of examples of how these kind of really manifest in real life. For example, in in in conflict styles. A good example is, for example, Japan. Japan is well, Japan is often considered very collective, uh, but also very high in uncertainty avoidance, right? So we just talk about like very like collective culture usually avoids conflict, but then the high uncertainty avoidance also makes, yeah, yeah. They don't like structure, yeah. They don't like conflict, but then they like rules and harmony. Yeah, they they like rules, yeah. Yeah, they like rules, they like structure, they like everything is set in stone. And if you if you let's say you cross the line, you disobey the rule, they're not gonna confront you very likely. They just maybe be passive aggressive about it. Yeah, they don't have to be confrontational.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting. Yeah, quick question are you do you avoid vague or ambiguous situations?
SPEAKER_01:I think I'm definitely more tolerant about it. I realize that. Like, for example, this thing happened to me actually a couple weeks ago. A friend asked me, I'll say a friend told me something like, Oh, we should hang out uh Thursday. I was okay. And uh, I mean the morning's good. I was okay, good. For me, it's great and figure it. Yeah, and then I think on on Wednesday, he gave me like a time. I was oh, let's say I think I wanted to play 11 a.m. And then I already went to sleep. I was doing a sleep at that time when I didn't see it. So I woke up uh and then saw and there's all the 11 when I woke up and it's like oh my god, it's 11 uh late. And then so he was pissed because he was like, Oh, I'll give you a time because I thought that we we need to set it a time, we never set a time. I was like, Oh, I for me, it's just I'm okay with not setting a time and just be ready at whatever time. And of course, he's more Canadian, so he definitely had high uncertainty avoidance, and I am definitely more okay with uncertainty.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and just like go with the flow kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_01:I'm going to Asia soon. My my plan, like I know some friends when they plan their travel, some friends actually did ask me, Oh, did you plan like every day where you want to go? Like it was like, I mean, I kind of every day I have like one thing or two things I want to do, but I never like set in stone I have to do it. Yeah, so I did plan something, but I'm not did not plan absolutely everything. So it's like a mix. I feel like I'm a mix of both like low and high uncertainty avoidance.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and then um this two dimensional also affects, for example, leadership style. Uh, for example, China is a very collective culture, and unlike Japan, it's very low in uh uncertainty avoidance, that means they are okay with ambiguity. Um, in these kind of group-centric societies, leaders are often open to let uh to lead with flexibility and ambiguity. For example, like if there's certain rules and procedures that are set in the company, employees will always think that it's okay to ban. Like you if you know, I know there's there's things I'm not supposed to do, but then if a situation happened, we just expect the leader to be okay to ban those rules because a certain uh situation arised. And I think another good example is also like for some traffic signs. Like people always see it as a suggestion rather than actual things to operate.
SPEAKER_04:No, that's not the limit, that's just the guide. That's just a suggestion. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that's also led to uh situations. For example, I know it's not necessarily a great uh kind of cultural phenomenon in China, but it's a very common. Let's say there's certain things I need to do to finish, need to get done, but the government procedure might take too long. Then a lot of people will like visit, maybe bring some gifts, then they visit the leader of that department and they give him some gifts. Cool and cold, yeah, bribe bribery. Interesting, and then then they will maybe just approve it faster.
SPEAKER_04:And it's like commonly accepted, call is a common thing that people do, which is very collective, which is very like um, but for an individualistic purpose.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I don't know. I feel like yeah, but it's like also that flexibility and that ambiguity that the whole culture just accepts. Oh, you are a leader, I need something, so I need to kind of visit you, I'm gonna give you some gifts, and then you have to bend the rules for me. And it's like commonly accepted.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting, yeah. No, that's true.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So this leadership style, yeah. Yeah, the other thing I want to discuss is also about innovation and change. How it in in these two dimensions very different. For example, in a low uncertainty avoidance culture, for example in China, they are maybe uh the easier to accept kind of disruptive innovations. Yeah, but that innovation has to fit in collective goals.
SPEAKER_04:In yes, okay, interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But in the cancer, yeah, which is not uh necessarily the easiest. So innovations are always good and people are more accepted of things changing, things new technology happened here and there, but you have to definitely not like it has to be work in a very collective measure. There was a sort of collective element in it, obviously. So be good, a greater good for the group to use, not for personal. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And you have to be justified by the group.
SPEAKER_04:Ooh, yeah. I'm just thinking about Canada. I'm just thinking about resistance to change, whether that might be using pronouns, whether that might be not using certain words anymore, or having women in leadership. Or, you know, there's just a lot of things that I think there's a lot of tradition in Canada. Like this is so even done doing stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Canada's high in uh uncertain avoidance, right? Right. And that all Canada's a great example, actually, high uncertainly avoidant countries that actually usually resist change. Because again, they love widget rules and structure that's in place. So to change it is always slightly more difficult. Yes. Um unless it's like, of course, it's justified, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, like even if we look at Trump's threats to to Canada to like say, hey, you're the 51st state, I'm gonna stop all these tariffs, like Canada infrastructurally is trying to like look inward more. And that that is hard because so many relationships, so many partnerships, so many I mean, we have agreements for NAFTA, like we have these like transnational kind of projects that we have been doing for years. And so to all of a sudden be like, oh, how do we turn this internally? Or how do we find external partners that are not the US? I mean, that's not something you can do overnight. And and some people, I don't know, are are resistant to it because this is just the way we've done things and it's worked.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but it doesn't work anymore. I know, and then then it has to change, but then to at the same breath, although we can see what we talk about is how high uncertain uh avoidance, uh uncertain avoidance would limit us for change. But if you look in the state, you also look into how individualistic also helps with change. Like Trump. Trump wanted to change certain things, it changed based on what he wants, not necessarily what the country or the collective needs or wants, right? So, in a very high individualistic cultures, if someone, a leader, for example, a high leader, want to make certain things change, he can also just work it that way because they have the authority and they want it that way. Whether if that same thing can happen in countries like China or Japan, even the leader wants certain things, you should need to go through like the party, have the collective has to be okay with it, unless you're, of course, you're in a dictatorship kind of situation that maybe is slightly easier. Right, right. But what Trump does is definitely less likely to be done in a lot of collective cultures.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, for sure. Oh, for sure. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Like the Philippines now is like they are throwing their government off because how the government had been operating in such corruption.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Well, even South Korea, they've been through many. They've cycled through many, it just in the past five years. I I don't even know how many it's been, but they've cycled through quite a few. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I know, but the thing is, no offense to the states, but a lot of things that the Koreans you can offend them, it's okay. Okay. But I'm just saying all the corruption, like Korea, one of the presidents got uh thrown off because it's because they hire he hired a lot of his family in the government, and people don't like that. And then Trump is literally hiring every one of his family in the office. Yeah, but that is also says like how interfetistic culture that's okay. People somehow it's oh well interferenceistic, he's a good thing. That's what you do want.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But in collective culture, no, you are the president, but we didn't you like your family. Yeah, we did not agree on that.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting, yeah, yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_01:For example, yeah, that's yeah. And the last I want to talk about is work and stress, which I found a very interesting research. I really excited to share. It really talks specifically, it talks about these two dimensions about individualism and about uncertainty and avoidance, how it affects how work affects us. Yeah. Yeah. So this research paper that I found in a journal of organizational behavior titled Societal Individualism, collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance as cultural moderators of relationships between job resources and strain.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:This study looked at how different job resources, job resource means like whether you have control over your work, whether you have support from your boss, you from your boss, job resources in the sense of the freedom you have your job and the help that you get.
SPEAKER_04:I see the supports to enable you to get a chance to do that.
SPEAKER_01:The support that you can do. Exactly. That's called in this research, they just under yeah, they use job resources as one word to include all of them. So they look at how different job resources reduce stress and burnout at work. And whether this changes depends on the country's culture, which specifically is the country's individualistic score and the uncertainty avoidance score. And here is the founding, which is interesting. For overall, so in all countries, generally more job resources means more job freedom, more job support, it gets happier workers and less people want to quit. And that's true no matter where you are, what you know culture you're from. But there is slightly different. Um there's a some degree of difference how it actually helps based on whether you're individualistic or whether you're uh uncertain avoidant country. For someone in in very individualistic countries like the US, like the UK, like Canada, like Australia, job freedom is even more efficient at reducing thoughts of quitting.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01:So compared to collective countries, individual individualistic countries, if you if people feel like they have more freedom at how to do their job, it actually helps them even more to reduce stress and reduce thoughts of quitting. Yeah, I guess and being involved in decision making actually compared to collective culture is less helpful than expected.
SPEAKER_04:Really?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So like in collect individualistic culture country, I would assume actually reading, yeah. I would assume like being involved in decision making, I would assume helping people to feel this kind of autonomy at work, maybe help them even want to stay in work and happier at work, but actually in the individual cultures, not so much compared to collective culture. People actually feel like happier if they are involved in decision making, if they are from a collective culture compared to individuality culture.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So if you know your company, you want your employee to be happier, you should actually focus on giving them more freedom over how they do their job rather than trying your best to involve in every decision making. Yeah, that will actually help the better.
SPEAKER_04:Which the pandemic allowed some of that. Organizations realized, oh, actually, if you're motivated, you just get the work done. That's all we really care about. How you do it is fine. But that is that is interesting because I, yeah, I've worked some with some organizations, and one particular organization, I did like an internal communications survey, and a lot of people said they didn't know what the organization was doing when. They didn't know where their job was going, if they had any opportunities to advance. Like there was just so much uncertainty and so much stress because they just they wanted to know. They wanted to know exactly how did their role fit into the overall goal of the organization, and do we have enough money to keep going and down the future? Like it was a nonprofit. So I can see where not having that information, at least here, at least with some, it is it it can increase that stress a whole lot more for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but I think that's part of the job control about having the resources helping because the general founding is having more job resources, having more support, having more freedom helps people to feel happier at work. But in decision in terms of decision making for specifically individual stick culture, it doesn't really help them that much to feel happy and grounded in their work. And I think knowing whether the organization has enough whether they have enough money necessarily is about getting involved in decision making, if you get what I mean. Yeah, I think the other dimension about high uncertainty avoidance countries like Japan, Greece, Portugal, job controls again means whether they have freedom over their job and being involved in decision making help even more in reducing turnover intentions. So in high uncertainty avoidance country, country who like rules, they love having freedom and their job and love being involved in decision making.
SPEAKER_04:Which makes sense you're you're closer to that information, you have more autonomy. So you can do that. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. So I also because it's high uncertainty avoidance, clear goals and feedbacks also work better in improving job satisfaction.
SPEAKER_04:For sure.
SPEAKER_01:They just like everything that's clear, yeah. So to sum up, freedom and autonomy, like job control, works best in culture that values individualism uh or structure, like high uncertainty and avoidant cultures. Yeah, like Canada. People like the freedom and like the autonomy, yeah. But but with sources like decision making, involvement or like feedback doesn't necessarily work the same everywhere. It really depends on culture. In individualistic culture, not so much, but in collective culture, it works really well, yeah, and also work really well in like high uncertainty avoidance country, just not so much in uh low uncertainty avoidance country.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting, interesting.
SPEAKER_01:So that is one of the founding which I found it very interesting.
SPEAKER_04:That is interesting. That's a cool I can't wait. I'd like to look at that research too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we will send the link there.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, it'll be in our show notes, our website. Yeah, you can all our links are there. We're not pulling stuff out of our nose, especially Hoshen.
SPEAKER_01:No, we don't, we don't.
SPEAKER_04:It's a lovely nose, but you don't want pulling stuff out of there.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and then the last point I kind of wanted to explore is about real-world applications of the knowing this kind, these two specific dimensions, for example. Like it's important to know this because I think it affects how we operate in a really global team and business. I think, especially in Canada, a lot of our colleagues are from everywhere. So, like knowing how individualism, collectivism, uncertain avoidance works, it can help us manage an international team, knowing whether a culture value structure versus flexibility, yeah, whether people are, you know, care more about individual inputs or group harmonies, it can help us to delegate, to communicate, and to motivate um our employees, our colleagues, and our friends in some way.
SPEAKER_05:For sure.
SPEAKER_01:And that also, same thing also applies to education and training, right? How we learn, whether some people like a very rigid structure of uh curriculums, or they like to study on their own. They just give them a general guideline and they make their own day schedule. Yeah, um, whether they like open task and explore exploratory learning curriculums, or they want word-by-word lectures that also affects us. And I think another thing is conflict or solutions. In collective culture, context, we do not like confrontations, we don't talk about uh the conflict right in front with our people. We may so you might need a third person, you might need a little coffee date to talk about conflicts and how do we solve it? Why don't they just like point it out right there between the two people? Whether individualistic culture, maybe it's okay to just you know have the two people who had conflicts to talk it out.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, so there's different ways of uh resolving that. And the last thing also I find a very interesting research where I want to share is about another real way uh application, is about how online marketing works in different cultures, specifically again the two dimensions that we mentioned. This research is by Cornell University, the research uh the paper titled Individual Level Culture Effects on multi-perspective, I trust in B2C means business to customer e-commerce. So the paper is specifically measured, measured how e-commerce, okay, business to customer e-commerce, yeah, how the trust like an online trust is built, or how it affec and how individualist culture or collective culture affects the trust on e-commerce.
SPEAKER_04:Interesting, interesting. Yeah, so what do they find? Was individualistic more.
SPEAKER_01:So the finding is the finding is a person's culture traits, how much they design certainty, again, or we'll talk about uncertainty avoidance, and whether they're individualistic or not, change how strongly stimuli, like privacies, emotions, or social cues, the kind of things that we use on like websites, would lead to trust. So whether website mobilize emotion as a tool, or mobilize social cues as a tool, or whether they have strong privacy settings, kind of all whether these all these different stimulides can affect trust on a website.
SPEAKER_05:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:In other words, the same website feature does not evoke the same level of trust. Depends whether people are from an individual culture, collective culture, whether they're high certainty avoidance or low certainty and avoidance. So that's the finding. And then here is the specific findings. For first, uncertainty avoidance. For people who have who uh live in a high uncertainty avoidance culture, things that reduce ambicurity, like for example, if they have very strong privacy setting, we have really specific explanation of how privacy protected in your website, usually you have a stronger position, a stronger positive effects on customers' trust. So if interesting, yeah, yeah, yeah. If it's easier to target to make sure your web, yeah. And then emotion fact, emotional factors, like whether your website invoke the feeling of joy, invoke the feeling of love, family, or even fear, they're more influential when people are more sensitive to uncertainty, means people are from like certain high certainty and avoidance cultures. So emotions as a greater tool to use. So emotion reactions weigh more heavily on trust for high certain uncertainty avoidant individuals. For example, in Japan, I assume that means for each somebody, if you try to target Japanese customers, your website should have very specific explanations of privacy selling and make it very front and center and make sure that your ad and your website invoke some sort of emotion to help them to purchase or trust your website.
SPEAKER_03:Interesting. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:And that same rule will not apply, for example, to China, because we have very low something avoidance. So those two things will not have worked for us. But what interesting, yeah, and then the other thing we measure is individualism and collectivism, how it shapes the social influence, how he guides social influence for websites, for example. Social cues, for example, whether your website has certain features that evokes a social engagement, whether, for example, maybe some websites have social networking features, and you can easily talk to someone or you have a lot of feedbacks. You have like a common section, people can talk to each other. These kind of social cues features play a stronger role in building trust for people who are more collective. Because in in collective cultures, people are more influenced by others.
SPEAKER_04:Got you. Yeah, so this is so fascinating. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's fascinating. So if you want a business more appealing to collective culture audience, make sure you have like comment section people can talk to you so people can easily leave a comment. And then maybe even get people to talk to back-end people or even talk to each other or different customers. Make sure there's some sort of thing that they can see collective opinions, uh collective comments, some sort of networking, social networking features there. And of course, for those high on individualism, the social cues are less strong drivers of trust. So that kind of feature doesn't really matter to them. That's my finding. And that's the topic.
SPEAKER_04:Which is another reason why, like, we are a great dynamic team. If you need to do business training, you can contact us. Hello at CanadianSalo.ca. We are definitely open and willing to be paid for that knowledge, transfer, and information.
SPEAKER_01:But exactly, it could know a lot.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, but it does raise a lot of questions. And again, I feel like if tying it back to the beginning, I don't know that we understand how we communicate. And sometimes we just need a way to map out how we see the world and how we function in not only just how we were our countries of origin, but where we are now, because it definitely you can see where there's miscommunication or people aren't purchasing as more, or the high turnover rate in the organization is keeps happening because we're not in tune with the needs of the cultures that people embody. Which is very much the core of how we function and how we operate unconsciously all the time. And so if we're not aware of that, then we will come into these higher work stress, more conflict, less purchase on our website. It definitely makes a difference. And I don't think people really get how it impacts everything that you do.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, absolutely. And that's another reason why these kind of cultural dimensions are important, because without this framework, we also will not know how to categorize different culture, how to interact. Yeah. So yes, that's why I think we sometimes need this kind of framework. Reading it. We do.
SPEAKER_04:And this podcast. So And this podcast, exactly. You're welcome, everyone. Yes, you're welcome. Absolutely. A highly individualistic person with a highly collectivistic person. And we probably even have difference on uncertainty avoidance like here much. We definitely do. Lower. I'm much higher. I'm just like, nope, I want to know. I want to know. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm definitely lower, absolutely.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So that's the salad. That's the salad. And to end our salad episode, we are going to do a Canadian salad pop quiz on this very topic, which I'm very, very excited to ask you my question.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, please ask my question.
SPEAKER_04:I go first.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, you go first.
SPEAKER_04:All right. So, in comparing the average credit card debt, okay, which credit card debt, if you think about it, in some ways, uncertainty avoidance, like we almost guarantee we're taking out credit because we just know that we'll be able to pay it back. So I'm just curious who do you think has a higher credit card debt? Canada or China?
SPEAKER_01:Definitely Canada. Absolutely Canada.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yes. Um it's true, it's true. So which I think is very, very interesting. Canada has the highest household debt level among G semicontries with an average of$3,929 on their credit cards, and an average of$72,950 in debt, which includes total debt like mortgage, credit card, lines of credit, car loans, personal loans. So that's the average in Canada. So if we look at China, um, we can see that in China, let me just ooh, average credit card debt in China is only$1,728 US dollars. So definitely lower. And anyway, it the article goes into what contributes to the factors of credit, and typically it's middle class people who don't have a lot of money, right? Which can be said of the same Canada, but you will see that there is more debt when you are richer, obviously. So anyway, so that's that that was the quiz. So yeah, it it really does paint a picture of even that, because you are borrowing money that you don't have, and you're also thinking, Well, I can pay that back, which is interesting. It's a lot of faith, it's a lot of for people who are from a more like they assume, but there's no guarantee, so it's uncertain too like credit.
SPEAKER_01:It's uncertain, but I think some sometimes some sense also is kind of certain because Canada is a more stable, more like a country with more welfare, people are more taken care of, they don't have to worry about it.
SPEAKER_04:So maybe that's like medical bills, for example.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and China people are less stable country. You don't know where sometimes people don't even like maybe some sickness. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I think that's what yeah. This is why you're amazing and uh just your perspective. Yeah, yeah. So well, there you go, folks. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for watching. Oh, wait, yeah, you got a question. Sorry. I have a question. Oh my god. I was ready to end it without your question. I'm sorry. Okay, go.
SPEAKER_01:My question is very interesting because I found it accidentally. Um, do you know which country is the least individualistic?
SPEAKER_04:The least individualistic.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because it has a zero score in individualism. That's how not.
SPEAKER_04:It's so collective. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01:I find it very fascinating. Zero is crazy.
SPEAKER_04:Zero. Oh, it's gotta be a warm climate culture, I would imagine, maybe. I'm gonna say, ooh, ooh. I'm going to say, oh, I don't know. I'm gonna say Guatemala.
SPEAKER_00:Guatemala?
unknown:I don't know.
SPEAKER_00:The answer is nah. It's Nigeria.
SPEAKER_04:Do you have a hint for oh, it's Nigeria? I was gonna ask for a hint for what continent. Nigeria has zero individual.
SPEAKER_01:Nigeria. Yeah, they are a completely collective culture, which is crazy.
unknown:Wow.
SPEAKER_04:I'm thinking about all our Nigerian friends. It's interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, they do like to travel in groups.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, they do, and they always came together in the class as a personalities that were much more individualists.
SPEAKER_01:Individualism.
SPEAKER_04:Maybe that's why they're here.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe in Canada.
SPEAKER_04:True. Very cool. Oh, that's very cool. Well, we'll include that link. Follow us. Uh, we are on social media. We're on TikTok, Instagram, and Blue Sky. So if you want to just drop us a note, you know, how you resonated with this, or maybe things that you disagreed with, or even just share, just drop us a DM, or you can go to our website, canadiansala.ca, and you can send us an email with the same information. Hello at CanadianSala.ca. So thank you so much for joining and listening. Please do write a review and leave us a comment.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. I know. We will love to hear. Just a little five star.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, we'd love to hear from you, and we'd love for to have you join us next week. All new episode every Tuesday. Thank you so much, Hoshin. Thank you so much, listeners, and we will see you soon.
SPEAKER_01:We'll see you soon.
SPEAKER_04:Bye.
SPEAKER_01:Bye.
SPEAKER_03:Canadian salad is written and produced in British Columbia, Canada by Hoshan Ho and Andrea McCoy. Theme music is by Navir Avetyan from Pixabay.
SPEAKER_02:This has been the good Jranklin production.
