ABSTRACT
The objective of this chapter is to investigate the influence of national culture on the implementation and practices of Continuous Improvement. The analysis is focused on the European sample of the EuroCINet survey. The data consist of the responses of 629 managers in positions related to production or quality. The influence of culture is operationalised using two of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions: power distance and uncertainty avoidance and the countries involved in the research have been clustered according to these dimensions. New aggregate variables are developed to describe CI responsibilities and practices, descriptive statistics are calculated, and t-tests of difference are conducted. The findings of the comparative study show that there are significant differences in the implementation of Continuous Improvement in the different power distance and uncertainty avoidance clusters.
