Individualism, Creativity, and Innovation

Katharina Hartinger ()
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Katharina Hartinger: Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany

No 2313, Working Papers from Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

Abstract: Individualist societies are more innovative, but little is known about the underlying individual behaviors. I use international labor-market and patent data to show that individualism—the cultural dimension that emphasizes individual achievements over collective action—positively affects individual innovation. Comparing migrants from different cultural origins within the same destination country and using variation in individualism at the country, region, and person level, I find that more individualist migrants select into more innovative occupations—including research, creative jobs, and ambitious entrepreneurship. Individualists also engage more readily in knowledge diffusion on the job—even when accounting for occupational selection—by investing more time in active learning. Taken together, those innovation choices account for 44 percent of the individualism productivity premium. Individualism also positively affects patenting behavior as a direct innovation output measure.

JEL-codes: D91 J24 O31 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 66 pages
Date: 2023-09-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul, nep-ent, nep-ger, nep-ino, nep-lma, nep-tid and nep-ure
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https://download.uni-mainz.de/RePEc/pdf/Discussion_Paper_2313.pdf First version, 2023 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jgu:wpaper:2313

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