[2] According to Geert Hofstede, "The fundamental issue here is how a society deals with the fact that the future can never be known: Should we try to control it or just let it happen?
Countries displaying strong uncertainty avoidance index (UAI) believe and behave in a strict manner.
In contrast, low uncertainty avoidance cultures accept and feel comfortable in unstructured situations or changeable environments and try to have as few rules as possible.
[3] Some of the highest uncertainty avoidance countries include Finland, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, and South Korea.
[8] David S. Baker and Kerry D. Carson performed a study to evaluate uncertainty avoidance among field sales personnel.
Additionally, it can be inferred from the study that customer trust is higher in countries with high uncertainty avoidance.
[10] It is also believed that the uncertainty avoidance index (UAI) has a significant effect on consumers' acceptance of unfamiliar brands in the retail market.
Eliane Karsaklian has studied the effect UAI has on consumers' attitudes towards familiar and unfamiliar brands in different cultures (specifically American and French).
On the other side of the spectrum in cultures with low uncertainty avoidance citizens tend to be very interested in politics as it serves as a tool for change.
[14] Ellen Giebels, Miriam Oostinga, Paul Taylor, and Joanna Curtis conducted a study in February 2017 on the impact between police-civilian interactions.
In cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, teachers are not necessarily viewed as all knowing and the learning is open minded with less focus on facts.
[16] In the study of Transformational Leadership, Creative Self-Efficacy, Trust in Supervisor, Uncertainty Avoidance, and Innovative Work Behavior of Nurses done by Bilal Afsar and Mariam Masood in Mansehra, Pakistan, there were two groups of nurses to see how the relationship among transformational leadership relate to their work behaviors in self-efficacy, trust in superiors, and uncertainty avoidance.
The first study hypothesized that there is a correlation between transformational leadership, trust, and uncertainty avoidance that takes a toll on the successfulness or effectiveness of their work behavior.
The second study hypothesized that the correlation between transformational leadership, trust, and uncertainty avoidance is due to self-efficacy.
With a strong and effective transformational leader, leader that finds a change that needs to be done and makes the change following a specific path with the help of members in the group, providing them with what is necessary to work with; makes their work behavior more successful when nurses have a high level of trust and uncertainty avoidance.
[17] The nurses from Study 1 were from public sector hospitals where they were allowed to test out new ideas without the fear of losing their job.
Both studies turned out to have the same conclusion, where there were high levels of trust and uncertainty avoidance, transformational leadership had a higher relationship with innovative behavior.
The leadership wouldn't work if there was a high level of trust and low uncertainty avoidance or the opposite.