Testing the Effects of Culture on Institutional Effectiveness and National Innovation Rates

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The project investigates the effect of national culture on the effectiveness of science and technology policies and institutions. Past research suggests that particular cultural features may promote innovativeness under some political or economic conditions (e.g., high levels of democracy) whereas other features may be more effective under other conditions (e.g., authoritarian regimes). The results of the research are important: if national culture matters, then simply budgeting more money for R&D, industrial infrastructure, and the promotion of entrepreneurship may not be sufficient to increase the national innovation rate of a country whose underlying cultural values are antithetical to innovative activity. Intellectual Merit: The critical innovation of this proposed research is to examine how culture may have an impact on innovative activity, scientific activity, and intellectual property rights. Most existing culture-innovation research uses qualitative case studies of firms or individuals, which are limited in their generalizeability. The research uses statistical methods to analyze the relationship between different cultural values, science policy and institutions, and national S&T performance. It analyzes data for dozens of countries over two decades, using several independent datasets developed recently to triangulate on both the independent and dependent variables. This study also controls for economic variables which constitute sources of omitted variable bias in prior research. In sum, it provides new insights into differences in national innovation rates across multiple countries over a long period of time and hence helps inform the debate on endogenous economic growth and national competitiveness in high-technologyBroader Impacts This project helps to explain why policies and institutions that are effective in one country fail to deliver scientific and technological progress in others. It therefore informs the innovation debates taking place within a variety of disciplines (economics, political science, business, industry studies), each of which often omits cultural analysis of innovation policies and institutions. The results also inform the policy process by helping policymakers determine to how to tailor policy solutions imported from abroad. The products of this research are disseminated online, at academic and policy research conferences, in graduate and undergraduate level courses, and in peer-reviewed journal articles.