Would you be helping to organise your company's social event?

Tsk, tsk, tsk. Is this a sign of our cultural strength (or cultural weakness, depending on how you want to look at it)?

Recently, when we thought up this poll to find out how the members would react when their companies organise a social event for the staff, we were surprised by the deep differences in this region.

The vast majority of people in the Philippines and Indonesia indicated that they would wholeheartedly contribute to organising their company's social event: 71 percent of those polled in the Philippines and an astounding 81 percent of Indonesians.

In Singapore, only 34 percent of those polled said that they would happily chip in to help but in Malaysia, the percentage sank even lower at 28 percent. We are wondering why the attitude of Malaysians and Singaporeans is so different from the Indonesians and the Filipinos. And incredibly too, 35 percent of Malaysians polled said that they would give excuses not to go to the event. In Singapore, it was only 10 percent.