Culture and regional innovation performance: an exploration in China

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between culture and regional innovation performance in China where innovation is deemed as a key for sustainable economic development. The diversity of China’s regional culture and its rising economic and innovative capability enhancement provides an opportunity for such an exploration. Design/methodology/approach This paper adopts the GLOBE’s nine cultural dimensions to empirically examine the relationship between culture and Chinese regional innovation performance through multiple regression analysis. Findings The study results find that performance orientation and gender egalitarianism have positive and significant influences on regional innovation performance, while institutional collectivism has a negative and significant influence. The remaining six GLOBE cultural dimensions show no significant effect on regional innovation performance. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research exploring the relationship between culture and regional innovation performance in a Chinese context by using GLOBE’s cultural dimensions that are deemed as a valuable empirical alternative to Hofstede’s cultural measures. The results of this study help further the understanding of the cultural influence in China’s regional innovation performance.