The Influence of Culture on Rates of Innovation: Re-examining Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

This study examines the effect of Hofstede’s cultural values of individualism, collectivism, masculinity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, indulgence, and long-term orientation on national rates of innovation in 50 countries in 2019 by comparing Hofstede’s cultural dimensions with per capita number of trademarks and controlling for globalization, economic variables such as per capita income. To test the seven hypotheses, I used secondary data from the World Bank, the World International Property Organization, Global Innovation Index, and Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions websites as evidence of innovation rates, globalization, per capita income, and cultural values. Using the least squares multiple regression analysis, results suggest that country’s rates of innovation are most closely associated with the cultural values of uncertainty acceptance and long term orientation. The study also suggests that long-term orientation plays an important moderating role as it affects the strength of the association between uncertainty avoidance national rates of innovation, which might explain why some high uncertainty avoidance societies are still innovative. Finally, the relationship between the cultural values of individualism, power distance, masculinity, and indulgence and the country's rates of innovation was not significant.