Social Capital and National Innovativeness – The Influence of Trust and Tolerance on the National Capacity to Innovate

Abstract

While national innovativeness is of pivotal relevance for economic development, so far, relatively little attention has been paid to the social drivers of innovativeness. Thus, the role of social norms and values as drivers of innovativeness is somewhat blurry. Tackling this gap, the article at hand reflects the concepts of social capital, trust, and tolerance, before a model of social capital and innovativeness is developed and tested empirically, followed by the presentation and discussion of the results and a brief conclusion