The Influence of national culture on national innovativeness in select African countries

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dc.contributor.authorKimbowa, P. H.
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-14T09:12:09Z
dc.date.available2025-04-14T09:12:09Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.descriptionFull - text thesis
dc.description.abstractThe world today has become a global village and as such companies no longer simply compete within their home markets but on the international scene as well. Therefore, in order to effectively operate and prosper in foreign markets, firms need to understand the different cultural orientations given that culture drives strategy. Strategy scholars suggest that innovativeness grows the knowledge economy, and greatly boosts competitiveness while ensuring prosperity in not only firms but countries as well. Economics scholars concur that developing countries face genuine obstacles to innovation, and this is precisely why they remain underdeveloped. The situation is rendered more complicated because the developing world presents very diverse situations in terms of levels of development and culture. Hence, the difficulty to innovate at the national level is a major challenge in many African countries. This research study sought to determine the influence of the cultural dimensions of long-term versus short-term orientation, masculinity versus femininity, indulgence versus restraint on national innovativeness in select African countries. The study was anchored on the theory of Competitive Advantage of Nations to underpin the variable of national innovativeness as well as game theory to underpin the variable of national culture. Secondary data was collected from Hofstede’s cultural dimensions framework as well as from the Global Innovation Index. The study carried out four pre-diagnostic tests namely multicollinearity test, variance inflation factor test, Breusch and Pagan LM test as well as the Wald test which showed that the dataset was discontinuous, multiple, large, panel data. This research study utilized Pairwise correlation coefficient and random effects regression analysis to rank Hofstede’s cultural dimension scores of time orientation, masculinity versus femininity and indulgence versus restraint against the Global Innovation Index scores (GII) for the select African countries whose data was readily available on both indices so as to determine the influence of national culture on national innovativeness in select African countries. The data was processed and analysed using STATA statistical package, version 14. The results/ findings suggest that cultural dimensions have a significant influence on innovation, and that countries with more feminine, long-term oriented, and restrained cultures tend to have higher levels of innovation compared to those with more masculine, short-term oriented, and indulgent cultures in the select African countries. The study recommends that by understanding the influence of national cultural dimensions on national innovation, countries can better develop policies and strategies that promote innovativeness and creativity, ultimately driving economic growth, creating jobs, inclusive and impactful development and shared prosperity. The study encountered some limitations such as reliance on secondary data, narrow focus on national factors leaving out individual and organisational factors that could also have a huge bearing on innovativeness. Keywords: Innovativeness, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, long-term versus short-term (LTO), Masculinity versus femininity (MAS), Indulgence versus restraint (IND).
dc.identifier.citationKimbowa, P. H. (2024). The Influence of national culture on national innovativeness in select African countries [Strathmore University]. http://hdl.handle.net/11071/15665
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11071/15665
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherStrathmore University
dc.titleThe Influence of national culture on national innovativeness in select African countries
dc.typeThesis
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