Methods

Hypothesis 4b: The relationship between innovation and growth is stronger in countries with high levels of collectivism than in countries with low levels of collectivism.

2.3.4. Assertiveness To our knowledge, assertiveness has not been related to entrepreneurial behaviour in previous studies. Assertiveness stresses a preference for competition, an emphasis on results over relationship and having a ‘can-do’ attitude (House et al. 2007). The strong emphasis of competitiveness and aggressiveness suggests a high responsiveness to the environment and to competitive threats (Lumpkin and Dess 2001). At the level of the business owner, assertiveness helps to implement innovation, because assertiveness helps to shape the environment to one’s advantage in order to achieve results, and it emphasizes initiatives to establish a competitive market position. Moreover, assertiveness is related to the emergence of leadership (Stogdill 1948) and, specifically, it is associated with an emphasis on employees’ initiative and support (Brodbeck et al. 2000). Such a leadership style should help successful innovation implementation.