Innovation in Isolation? COVID-19 Lockdown Stringency and Culture-Innovation Relationships

Abstract

In a bid to curb the spread of COVID-19 in 2020, several countries implemented lockdown procedures to varying degrees. This article sought to examine the extent to which country-level strictness, as measured by the Government Response Stringency Index (2020), moderated the relationship between certain cultural dimensions and estimates of national innovation. Data on 84 countries were collated for Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (2015), and from the Global Innovation Index (2020). Owing to the robust relationships between innovation and the dimensions of uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and individualism, these were used in moderation analyses. In general, power distance was inversely related to innovation, whereas individualism was directly related to it. Results indicated that collectivist and high power distance countries showed lower innovation, irrespective of levels of government stringency as a response to COVID-19. On the other hand, among individualistic and low power distance countries, lower innovation was associated with increased stringency (e.g., blanket restrictions on movement). Higher innovation was observed when such countries had a less severe government response. The dimension of uncertainty avoidance was not significantly associated with innovation at the country level. The implications of lockdowns on general innovation, its inputs, and outputs are discussed in the context of cultural dimensions and country-level policies.

COVID-19 concerns in cyberspace predict human reduced dispersal in the real world: Meta-regression analysis of time series relationships across American states and 115 countries/territories

“…Because mobility changes were also the consequences of the societal responses to COVID-19 lockdown policy ( Saha et al, 2020 ), the government stringency index from The University of Oxford ( https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/covid-19-government-responsetracker ) was controlled, as this index has been widely used to account for the stringency of COVID-19 policy ( Kapoor et al, 2021 ; Sorci et al, 2020 ; Wang, 2021 ). For weeks whose stringency indices were not available, the values were fixed to 0.…”

Leading Innovative Work-Behavior in Times of COVID-19: Relationship Between Leadership Style, Innovative Work-Behavior, Work-Related Flow, and IT-Enabled Presence Awareness During the First and Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…Innovative work-behavior consists of three behavioral tasks: idea generation, idea promotion, and idea realization ( Janssen, 2000 ). However, the restrictions and stringencies that have been imposed by national governments to avoid the risk of infection with the coronavirus may have affected employees’ innovative work-behaviors ( Kapoor et al, 2021 ). Aside from the communication challenges that arise resulting from remote working ( Martins et al, 2004 ), employees may feel uncertain due to the changes caused by the pandemic which may have hampered their innovative work-behavior ( Montani and Staglianò, 2021 ).…”

Worry much? Preventive health behaviours related to worry across countries amid COVID-19

“…Each of these highlights the potential role of cultural differences, while one ( Muurlink and Taylor-Robinson, 2020 ) looks at the intersection of gender and culture. Finally, recent work has stressed the importance of culture in determining how stringency of COVID-19 responses could be associated with innovation as well ( Kapoor et al, 2021 ). This study contributed to the ongoing understanding of health behaviours in a pandemic, but included variations in cultural contexts within which such behaviours take place.…”