The Relationship Between Culture and Human Development

Abstract

The human development is used to evaluate the richness of human life, focusing on the people, on their opportunities and choices, rather than simply on the richness of economies. As for national culture, it is understood as a set of characteristics that distinguish members and that may influence all aspects of social and individual life. This study hypothesizes that national culture, measured using Hofstede's six cultural dimensions, has an impact on corruption and on innovation, and that less corrupt and more innovative nations create better welfare conditions and human development for their habitants. To test the proposed framework, data were obtained from Hofstede's, Transparency International, Global Innovation, and United Nations Development Programme websites for the year 2012. Using PLS-SEM, the results show that cultural factors play a smaller role on determining innovation than corruption, and that decreasing corruption is more important to improve human development than increasing innovation.