Innovation and Culture: A Systematic Literature Review

How Culture and Innovation are linked?

Does Culture Facilitate Innovation?

Table of Contents

Abstract 3

Introduction 4

Research Methodology 5

Reporting the findings 6

Power distance 6

Individualism and Collectivism 6

Masculinity and Femininity 7

Confucian Dynamism 7

Uncertainty Avoidance 7

Indulgence 8

Discussion and Conclusion 9

References 10
Abstract

Today, technological progress has led to economic competition which has made researchers
develop sustainable economic competition. Governments all around the world have encouraged
to build an innovative society, which has resulted in the rise of innovation and technology. This
writing represents the systematic literature view of culture's impact on innovation and whether its
factors facilitate or restrict innovation. In this writing, articles from the past 30 years in
organizational and national culture are used to conduct a systematic literature review. In the
findings, the diverse relationship between culture and innovation is highlighted. This writing
provides a useful reference for the business in terms of the role of culture in operations of both
internal and external management. Also, this writing offers an interesting landscape and is
implicit for academia. The findings are carried out from a review of cultural influence on
technology.
Introduction
The factors of culture have always put an implication for advancement in technology. The areas

of business and management have always given great value to culture in the past few years. For

economic and business progress, the effect of cultural factors on innovation has been considered

the major influencer (e.g., Verspagen, 2006; Rohlfer and Zhang, 2016). Since a large number of

articles have been published on how culture’s effect on innovation, so it is hard to find an

organization without an idiographic cultural environment. Certain limitation can be observed on

this topic as it is observed in most studies one of which is theorizing (Anderson et al., 2014). To

overcome this deficiency, this writing gives a map of this topic and highlights the practical gaps.

The objectives of writing include describing the conceptual image of culture and innovation,

systematically analyzing the empirical progress of cultural impact on technology, and providing

a detailed insight into cultural influence on innovation for development (Tranfield et al., 2003).

The first section of this writing is the methodology that is employed to conduct the

systematic literature review and the research strategy is given. The second section includes the

findings of this writing along with the relationship dimension between culture and innovation. In

the third section, the implication of the writing is discussed with some fundamental direction,

and finally, the conclusion of the systematic literature review is given.

Research Methodology

Directing toward the purpose of this writing, the method of the systematic literature review is

used to study the publication and article on culture and innovation since it gives clear

engagement to conduct research on a particular idea (e.g., Macpherson and Holt, 2006; Deng,

2012).

Firstly, articles published between 1990 to 2017 were taken into consideration since this

time is suitable as wide relevant data. After this, databases like, ProQuest, EBSCO, Web of

Science, and Science Direct were utilized to search critique articles which are mostly used as

search sources for academic articles. In the second stage, certain keywords like culture,

innovation, and creativity were used in the search bar of articles to find out potential content

from them. Though there are some deficiencies in the use of this method, it is quite helpful when

there is a variety of references to review in a short period (Pittaway et al., 2004). In the third

stage, filtered data was collected with the help of EndNote. In the last stage, title, abstract, and

conclusion of the articles were evaluated from the selected references to construct the systematic

literature review.

A total of 345 articles were retrieved from the search results and with the help of

EndNote, the irrelevant articles were removed and after filtration, the remaining sources were

226. With the help of Macpherson and Holt's (2006) criteria, the filtered article was evaluated.

Categorization criteria were implicated in the research methodology to conduct the systematic

literature review of the impact of culture on innovation. Some key features of this criteria include

the standard way to categorize the selected literature, improvision of purpose judgment, and its

future application for conducting research.

 Under categorization criteria, the abstract and conclusion of the selected articles were

evaluated on the basis of which 136 articles were categorized as the primary source while 90

articles were subjected to secondary source on the basis of concepts and theories in the abstract

and title of articles in the second stage of selection. In addition to this, aspect within the

boundary of review scope was another parameter to select references. For example, if the

literature is on the impact of culture on innovation in the area of the business organization if it

does not contain a clear reference to the organization, the literature for not included in the final

articles. Through such a stepwise process, 14 articles were selected as the final references for

conducting the systematic literature review.

Reporting the findings

In this portion of the writing, the findings from the selected 34 published articles are presented.

The process of systematic analysis is used to report the findings of the data. These include:

Power distance

It can be defined as how the less power full individuals in a unequally power distributed society

consider this inequality and up to which level they acknowledge it (Schwartz, 1999; Hofstede,

2010; House et al., 2002). Generally, it is considered that there exit fewer firm hierarchies in the

culture where power is distributed so unequally. In this regard, it is easy for the people to break

the barriers of power and display a strong level of creativity in ideology (Shane, 1992; Erez and

Nouri, 2010; Kassa and Vadi, 2010; Bradley et al., 2013). In a culture in which there is power

distance, the people lack to make decisions and solve problems on innovativeness. It lowers their

understanding of innovation and thus decreases their incentives for problem-solving with

technology (van Everdingen and Waarts, 2003; Waarts and Van Everdingen, 2005; Hsu et al.,

2010). Irrespective of this fact, the studies relieve that power distance culture increases

innovation performance.

Individualism and Collectivism

Individualism is regarded as the lack of ties between the people in the society. In individualism, a

person focuses on his/her necessities and relations rather than others. On the other hand,

collectivism can be considered family, peers, or society where ties among people are strong. In

individualized culture, people make decisions independently for achieving their aims which also
increases the foster risks in doing so but at the same time, it enhances the entrepreneurial skills of

the person which induces creativity in the individual (Allred and Swan, 2004; Bradley et al.,

2013). This promotes innovation and facilitates progress in it. Moreover, this type of culture is

more directed towards culture as the individuals try to compete with each other which results in

the advancement of the innovation. In contrast, in collectivized culture, people are intended

detrimental in terms of culture (Jones and Davis, 2000).

Masculinity and Femininity

A society that is prioritized over masculinity is more oriented toward achievements and goals as

compared to a feminine society (De Mooij and Hofstede, 2010). There is a certain reason behind

this statement. In a masculine society, people are more confident, goal-oriented, positive, and

always ready to take on challenges and solve problems which are because of their strong

assertive and initiative behaviors. Thus, such a society is more oriented toward innovation and

advancement (Efrat, 2014). So, technology will be more innovative in a masculine society

(Rhyne et al., 2002). However, at the same time, such a society is also oriented toward negative

innovation activities since the feminine society is pivoted in the people's prioritization with a low

level of conflicts, comprising of high trust and a friendly environment.

Confucian Dynamism

It refers long term orientation toward future rewards, more particularly thriving and advancement

of the society (Hofstede, 2010, p. 239). The Confucian dynamism incorporated with positive

roles should be more advanced in the innovation as most of the developments in technology
require long-term planning along with quite a handsome amount of investment as Confucian

dynamism incorporates long-term orientation (Jones and Davis, 2000; Rujirawanich et al., 2011).

The use of House et al. (2004) framework shows that long-term orientation put a positive impact

on innovation along with medicating the relationship of innovation-related individuals on the

global level (Rossberger, 2014).

Uncertainty Avoidance

It includes the extent to which individuals of a society are reluctant towards the innovation due to

dependent on the social norms because of the threat posed by the uncertainty and enigma in

advancement (Hofstede, 2001; House et al., 2002). On contrary, a society with weak uncertainty

avoidance is subjected to acceptance of competitive environments which is necessary for

advancement and creating innovative ideas for new products and systems (Jones and Davis,

2000; Erez and Nouri, 2010; Bradley et al., 2013; Lim and Park, 2013; Efrat, 2014).

Indulgence

It is related to gratification which is the pleasure of living life and control of human desires

(Hofstede, 2011). Though are very little research conducted on indulgence, the research of

Griffith and Rubera (2014) is effective for analysis of the relation between design innovation and

market technology. The study shows the positive impact of innovation and technology on the

changes in the market with increase. However, it also shows a decline in this relationship with an

increase in indulgence, and hence more highlighted research is required to evaluate the

connection between innovation and indulgence for future applications.

Discussion and Conclusion

This study was incorporated with the research conducted on the cultural impact on innovation in

the past. The findings of this systematic literature review show that there exist certain factors that

influence the impact of culture on innovation in terms of different cultural dimensions. These

factors have an overall impact on innovation. More specifically, the role of cultural dimensions

in distinct innovation processes like the new product/service development, management

innovation, leading and administering innovation, and process/operation innovation, is

highlighted in this study (Lyons et al., 2007; Kalyar and Rafi, 2013). The research gaps, issues,

and challenges for future application were identified by applying for a systematic literature

review.

On the basis of research conducted between 1980-2020, it is concluded that with time, the

topic of cultural impact on innovation has been developed significantly. At the start, most of the

studies were based on theoretical values and there was a limitation to systematically

investigating the impact of cultural dimensions on innovation. But in the recent years, since there

has been an increase in the importance of emerging markets globally, and the economic

environment has become more competitive, high demand in the impact of culture on innovation

and advancement is being conducted in which meta-analysis is being incorporated to conduct the

relationship between cultural dimension and innovation.

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