Scholars have noticed the importance of innovation for a nation s wealth and the possibility
that some nations could be better at innovating than others. This study takes the Confucian
Dynamism dimension of national culture as focal lens to investigate how cultural values
influence the innovativeness of societies. A theoretical model is developed and tested with
data from 19 countries for the years 1996 to 2006. The results indicate that Confucian Dynamism
does influence national innovativeness. The results also lead to a revised model of how
Confucian Dynamism could influence national innovativeness. In addition this study offers
possible explanations of how Confucian Dynamism influences innovation on the individual- and
firm-level.
