ABSTRACT
While employee creativity is an increasingly studied topic (Zhou & Shalley, 2003), there is limited research investigating it outside of Western cultures or comparatively across cultures. Nonetheless, journalists frequently invoke connections between culture and creativity, although not always in consistent ways. For instance, one New York Times article suggested that the Japanese culture may suppress creativity in scientific discovery (French, 2001), yet a subsequent article on other trends in Japan asserted that “a tradition of tinkering and building has made Japan welcoming to experimental ideas, no matter how eccentric” (Fackler, 2007). This more optimistic assessment of creativity in Japan is not sheer imagination. A recent study ranks Japan as the most innovative country in the world in terms of the amount of time needed for new products to take off (Chandrasekaran & Tellis, 2008). To foster a more nuanced popular understanding of cultural influences on creativity, it is worthwhile to integrate and summarize what research has learned thus far.
