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

该项目调查了民族文化对科技政策和制度有效性的影响。过去的研究表明，特定的文化特征可能在某些政治或经济条件下（例如，高度民主）促进创新，而其他特征可能在其他条件下（例如，专制政权）更有效。研究的结果很重要：如果国家文化很重要，那么简单地为研发、工业基础设施和促进创业编列更多的预算可能不足以提高一个国家的国家创新率，因为其潜在的文化价值观与创新活动是对立的。智力价值：本研究的关键创新之处在于研究文化如何对创新活动、科学活动和知识产权产生影响。大多数现有的文化创新研究都是对企业或个人进行定性的案例研究，其通用性受到限制。本研究运用统计方法分析不同文化价值观、科技政策与制度与国家科技绩效之间的关系。它分析了几十个国家20年来的数据，使用了最近开发的几个独立数据集，对自变量和因变量进行了三角测量。本研究还控制了构成先前研究中遗漏变量偏差来源的经济变量。总而言之，该研究为长期以来多个国家的国家创新率差异提供了新的见解，从而有助于为关于高科技领域内生性经济增长和国家竞争力的辩论提供信息。更广泛的影响本项目有助于解释为什么在一个国家有效的政策和制度不能在其他国家带来科技进步。因此，它为在各种学科（经济学、政治学、商业、工业研究）中进行的创新辩论提供了信息，而这些学科往往忽略了对创新政策和制度的文化分析。研究结果还通过帮助决策者决定如何定制从国外引进的政策解决方案，为政策制定过程提供信息。这项研究的成果在网上、在学术和政策研究会议上、在研究生和本科生水平的课程中以及在同行评审的期刊文章中传播。

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.