Question

Does culture affect innovation? Or is it the institutions? How does innovation lead to new technology and growth? Is there any relation between these concepts?

Answer 1

Innovation can be considered as a process with two main phases: innovation initiation and innovation implementation. At the initiation phase, useful and new ideas are generated that will be adopted and exploited at the implementation phase. Culture is viewed to be a crucial basis for innovation in several respects. However culture is not the only variable that influences innovation in a nation. Other variables such as financial institutions, education, policies, will influence too. However all those, are shaped by their people.

Culture unifies the behaviour of people, however also may create barriers between people, thus nowadays, innovation faces the consequences of culture for numerous reasons. People's behaviour and beliefs may block or contribute the process of implementing and developing new ideas. Culture affects innovation because it shapes the patterns dealing with individual initiatives, novelty, and collective actions, and understandings and behaviours in regard to opportunities as well as risks.

At the end, people’s cultural values beliefs and values facilitate education, create policies and develop institutions, thus there exists a relation between these concepts. Nowadays, in which innovation is an important critical component of being successful on a global scale, thus the cultural values and beliefs should adjust accordingly