A CULTURAL INSIGHT FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER: AN INTERPRETATIVE MODEL OF INNOVATION SPREADING AT LOCAL LEVEL

Our paper aim is to clarify the influence of national culture on innovation spreading at local level, by examining how two GLOBE’s cultural dimensions - namely, Uncertainty Avoidance and Future Orientation – may affect both donors’ propensity, and receivers’ inclination to transfer and share their own knowledge. Adopting a knowledge perspective, innovation spreading has been interpreted as the output of a knowledge transfer process depending on individuals’ inclination to take risks, share responsibilities, and accept others’ idea, thus suggesting the conditions upon which innovative systems could arise. According to the above considerations, a theoretical model for the emergence of Innovation Spreading at local level has be suggested, taking into account the donor’s propensity to transfer knowledge and the receiver’s disposition to acquire it. The review of literature about knowledge transfer and the linkage between national culture and firms’ innovativeness has been used to develop our theoretical background. GLOBE’s scores for Uncertainty Avoidance and Future Orientation have been used to identify the countries which should be more oriented to diffuse innovation at local level. A comparison with the European Innovation Scoreboard data have been, lastly, developed to discuss the proposed theoretical model, opening suggestions for further researchers. Even if many contributions are given on the linkage between culture and innovation, nobody has still defined which cultural dimensions affect donor’s intentionality and receiver’s inclination to transfer and absorb knowledge, thus highlighting the relevance of our paper.