The Influence of Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions on Attitude Towards Change and Innovation in Oganizations

As the COVID-19 pandemic has radically changed the business landscape in the last years, some organizations were able to adapt to the new environment and continue to function, some thrived, seeing unmatched growth, while others disappeared forever. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, adaptability had already been deemed to be an important organizational capability, which ensured an organization stayed relevant in the market. With the pandemic, the ability to adapt has become essential to the organizations’ survival. Additionally, a large body of research was dedicated to the importance of innovation, which has been shown to have a positive impact on organizations’ competitiveness, growth and overall results. While adaptability is a response to the changes in the external environment of an organization, innovation consists in the change being generated inside the organization. Thus, an organization reacts to change by being adaptable and generates change by being innovative. Given that both capabilities are of importance to an organization’s success, this paper performs a literature review of the factors influencing the organizations’ adaptability and innovativeness, specifically the cultural factors, based on the well-established Hofstede Cultural Model. The results show that both adaptability and innovativeness are influenced by the cultural dimensions in different ways. However, not all cultural dimensions can be influenced to the same extent, some being more malleable than others. This means that organizations must aim to influence the most malleable cultural dimensions in order to increase their adaptability and innovativeness, to improve their overall performance.