Cross-Cultural Research

Innovation constitutes a key factor for the economy and the competitiveness of societies. Using the Hofstede model of national culture, previous studies investigated the influence of different cultural dimensions on national-level innovation. These studies provided for mixed evidence regarding the influence and weight of each cultural dimension in innovation. By considering possible explanations for these inconsistent results, the present study (N = 106 countries) showed that only two cultural dimensions seem to be consistently associated with innovation. Cultures that view change as necessary (long-term oriented) and are more accepting of norm violations (displaying low uncertainty avoidance) tend to promote innovation. These results shed new light on the way cultural tightness and social regulation processes can affect innovative behaviors.

Although research on the influence of religion on entrepreneurial entry has progressed substantially, the conceptual and empirical approaches are still far from being conclusive. To advance, we utilize the big our religious dimensions to examine how internal (believing and behaving) and external (bonding and belonging) religiosity may affect the propensity of individuals to be self-employed rather than paid employees. Together, we test if the country’s level of religiosity moderates the relationship. Drawing on the recent World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017–2021), we analyzed data from a sample of 39,606 working adults in 49 countries. In general, we found that the self-employed consistently exhibit stronger religiosity of behaving, bonding, and belonging than paid workers. However, the moderating effects suggest that religiosity at the country level prevails over individual religiosity—consistent with the idea that social environment is a more dominant factor even in individual decision making.

The study extends the approach of the Stereotype Content Model to ethnic stereotype content beyond intergroup relations within societies by exploring the North-South hypothesis for competence and warmth. This paper claims that the “desperate” (resource-poor and unpredictable) of lower-latitude climate regions and “hopeful” (resource-sufficient and stable) ecology higher-latitude climate regions translate into typical aggregate attributes and are afterward generalized to the status of all their residents. Further, people use this information as a diagnostic for judgments about the economic value or burden of ethnic groups in their society. Based on the data about aggregated means of competence and warmth for 77 ethnic groups in 38 regions, the multivariate models show that ethnic groups from warmer climates and from lower wealth countries are given lower evaluation in both competence and warmth stereotypes. However, ethnic groups from more northerly countries are also given a lower evaluation in warmth. Ethnic stereotypes reflect both features of ethnic groups in countries of origin (e.g., the North-South polarization) and group characteristics carried by ethnic groups in new contexts (i.e., intergroup relations). Thus, reactions to ethnic groups seem to differ partly depending on countries of origin mixed in people’s minds with information about geography, climate, and national wealth in the social perception process. Stereotypes associated with ethnic groups across countries to some extent track the stereotypes associated with the ecologies in which these ethnic groups are assumed to predominantly live. This highlights the importance of the establishment or expansion of policies and programs regarding international inequality.

The Internet provides a medium for the rapid mobilization of dissatisfied citizens and potentially contributes to various forms of political instability, including terrorism. However, the spread of the Internet may not lead to a higher intensity of terrorist attacks because direct perpetrators rely on close personal offline ties, and the national security agencies derive symmetrical benefits from Internet development as terrorists. In addition, the number of connections proxies a general level of country development, which is associated with less terrorist activity. We analyze the relationship between the number of Internet connections and the intensity of terrorist attacks using time-series cross-sectional data from the Global Terrorism Database from 1970 to 2018. Estimation of negative binomial regression models demonstrates an inverse relationship between Internet proliferation and the number of terrorist attacks, which holds for democracies and is absent for autocracies. Our results suggest that Internet proliferation is not a decisive factor in terrorism activity. Its impact on terrorism depends on the type of political regime and the level of socio-economic development.