Collectivism, individualism and open innovation: introduction to the special issue on ‘technology, open innovation, markets and complexity’

Hofstede (1980) developed the culture study of organisations in addition to a theoretical framework to guide cross-cultural comparisons, so to say value survey module (VSM). In a great deal of research interest in cross-cultural psychology, the topic of individualism-collectivism has been focused on because of it has been proved to be a more concise, coherent, integrated and empirically testable dimension of cultural variation by VSM. Therefore, the 1980s has been characterised as ‘the decade of individualism-collectivism’. According to Hofstede (1980), individualism emphasise ‘I’ consciousness, autonomy, private right, individual initiative, universalism and so on. Collectivism emphasise ‘we’ consciousness, collective identity, duties and obligations, group solidarity, particularism. On the surface, these two concept are at the opposite side and cannot be viewed as an integrated one.