Abstract
National culture is among those societal factors which could influence research and innovation activities. In this study, we investigated the associations of two national culture models with citation impact of nations (measured by the proportion of papers belonging to the 10% and 1% most cited papers in the corresponding fields, PPtop 10% and PPtop 1%). Bivariate statistical analyses showed that of six Hofstede's national culture dimensions (HNCD), uncertainty avoidance and power distance had a statistically significant negative associa-tion, while individualism and indulgence had a statistically significant positive associationwith both citation impact indicators. The study also revealed that of two Inglehart-Welzel cultural values (IWCV), the value survival versus self-expression is statistically significantly related to citation impact indicators. We additionally calculated multiple regression analyses controlling for the possible effects of confounding factors including national self-citations, international co-authorships, invest-ments in research and development, international migrant stock, number of researchers ofeach nation, language, and productivity. The results revealed that the statistically significant associations of HNCD with citation impact indicators disappeared. But the statistically significant relationship between survivals versus self-expression values and citation impact indicators remained stable even after controlling for the confounding variables. Thus, the freedom of expression and trust in society might contribute to better scholarly communication systems, higher level of international collaborations, and further quality research.
Highlights
Scientists do not just collect data, they design experiments to collect the data and they refine and interpret both the data and experiments
In our search of the literature, we found only three studies which focused on the correlation between national culture and citation impact, citation impact is one of the most important metrics to measure the research performance of individuals, groups of researchers, institutions or world nations
The findings show the associations of national culture and two citation impact indicators (PPtop 1% and PPtop10%) as dependent variables, before and after controlling for confounding variables of national self-citations, international co-authorships, investments in research and development, international migrant stock, number of researchers of each nation, language, and productivity
Summary
Scientists do not just collect data, they design experiments to collect the data and they refine and interpret both the data and experiments. Prior research has shown that various economic, demographic, and policy-related factors could influence the scientific performance of nations (measured in terms of citations and other indicators). The citation impact of nations may be resultant to many factors such as allocated expenditures to research and development, number of researchers of a country, and the level of national selfcitations (Waltman, 2016). These factors should be controlled in the statistical analyses of the relationship between impact and culture. We estimated the associations of national culture dimensions with citation impact of nations after controlling for country-level data on openness of nations (international migrant stock), academic openness (international co-authorships), national self-citations, number of researchers, investments in research and development, language, and productivity
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