DIMENSIONS OF NATIONAL INNOVATION CULTURE IN CROATIA

Abstract

Faced with the challenge to increase the level of innovation inscience and technology many societies have developed anational innovation system as a form of public policy programs.If innovative culture is crucial for the adoption and developmentof new technologies, it is of great importance to explore the conceptand possibly find out which type of culture is more innovativethan others. Presented in the paper are the results of the firstempirical study of innovation culture in Croatia based on a surveyon the representative sample of Croatian population. Drawingon Hofstede's concept of dimensions of national culture,Croatian national innovation culture is operationalized as a set ofvalue orientations and norms (uncertainty avoidance, individualism,masculinity - femininity, long-term or short-term orientation,and power distance). Four scales based on Hofstede's dimensionswere constructed, which mainly support the content validity of hisconcept. They could be used to measure differences in innovativecapacity between groups and regions. The analysis shows the presenceof multiple dimensions of innovation culture in Croatia thatmight hinder innovation capacity, but this doesn't necessary leadto the conclusion that we can identify one type culture elementsas the only model for strengthening the innovative culture.