The Program Evaluation Standards in International Settings

10 Sandy Tautworld and exploit it in order to further personal or group interests. Values include ambition,success, and competence. High Harmony cultures accept the world as it is and try to preserve itrather than to change or to exploit it (Berry et al., 1997, Vol. 3, p. 100).Uncertainty AvoidanceHofstede (1980, p. 110) describes this dimension based on three indicators, “ruleorientation, employment stability and stress level.” In an extension of Hofstede’s research, Bond(1987) found some evidence that undermines the universality of this cultural value (Berry et al.,1997, Vol. 3, p. 99), but at the same time his study replicated Hofstede’s other three dimensions.However, other researchers have continued to use the uncertainty avoidance dimension.Other cross-cultural psychological concepts used here to describe differences betweencultures are:Direct vs. Indirect CommunicationGenerally, direct communication predominates in individualistic cultures whereascollectivist societies communicate indirectly (Gudykunst & Ting-Toomey, 1988). Selfdisclosure(giving personal information to others they don’t know) is associated with directcommunication styles. A crucial variable in collectivist cultures is whether communicationoccurs with members of the ingroup or with members of an outgroup; communication will bemore direct (more self-disclosure) among ingroup members compared to communication withoutgroup members. In contrast, there are no differences in self-disclosure between ingroup andoutgroup in individualistic cultures (Gudykunst et al., 1992).High-Context vs. Low-ContextClosely related to the above mentioned communication issue is the distinction betweenhigh-context and low-context cultures. Members of collectivist cultures emphasize theimportance of context information in explaining others’ behavior more than people inindividualistic cultures. This also makes adapting to the context an important part of highcontextcommunication patterns prevalent in collectivist cultures. In addition, UncertaintyAvoidance (UA, see above) influences the degree to which communication follows rules andrituals (high UA means highly ritualistic), especially for outgroup communication/interaction.Lastly, Power Distance (PD) also determines interaction/communication styles; high PD meanslow levels of egalitarian cooperation between people with different amounts of power. Sinceoutgroup members are outsiders, they tend to have less power than insiders (see Berry et al.,1997, Vol. 3, p. 142).