Cultural Values Differentially Moderate the Benefits of Basic Education on Two Types of National Innovation Outputs

Abstract

The present study contributes to innovation research by distinguishing between national innovation in the knowledge and technology domain (knowledge and technology output) versus that in the creative industries (creative output), and examining how these two types of innovation would benefit from high-quality basic education in different cultural contexts. We argue that because creative output requires symbolic knowledge (i.e., negotiation of new meanings), it would benefit from a national context that has not only high-quality basic education but also favorable cultural values (low self-protective values or high self-expansion values). By contrast, knowledge and technology output requires analytic and synthetic knowledge mainly and thus would benefit from high-quality basic education regardless of cultural values. To test these ideas, we performed regression analyses using three archival datasets (the Programme for International Student Assessment [PISA], the Schwartz Value Survey, and the Global Innovation Index) of 32 nations. The results in general supported our predictions such that a high level of self-protective values dampens the positive relationship between quality of basic education and creative output only, but not knowledge and technology output. Implications of these findings were discussed.