HOW DOES CULTURE CONTRIBUTE TO INNOVATION? EVIDENCE FROM EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

Anneli Kaasa and Maaja Vadi ()

No 63, University of Tartu - Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper Series from Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu (Estonia)

Abstract: Culture is deemed to be a crucial basis for innovation in various respects. The aim of this paper is to explore the relationships between different cultural dimensions introduced by Hofstede (2001) and the capability of initiating innovation measured by the number of patent applications using the sample of European countries at the regional level. As a novel approach, instead of using Hofstede’s original index scores, the measures for the cultural dimensions are based on the European Social Survey (ESS). We have learned that to be successful in patenting, a region should have power distance, uncertainty avoidance, family-related collectivism (as opposed to friend-related and organisation-related collectivism) and lower than average masculinity. In addition, the negative relationships between these cultural dimensions and patenting are stronger when there is a higher patenting intensity. However, culture alone does not serve as a guarantee for a high level of patenting intensity.

Keywords: innovation; culture; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2008
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-eec, nep-ino, nep-knm and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mtk:febawb:63

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