Culture and innovation in the international context: a literature overview

The ecosystem perspective on innovation and business are becoming critical for organizational innovation, but there is a lack of theoretical consistency concerning the terminology of innovation ecosystem. To remedy this research gap, we introduce the innovation ecosystem in the international business (IB) context and enrich the research about innovation ecosystems. To fulfill our research goals, we conducted a systematic literature review of articles published in ABS journals during the period 1991–2018. Based on a systematical review of a total of 100 articles, we identified thematic differences within the literature related to how culture influences innovation in the IB context (e.g. antecedent/driver, output and commercialization of innovation) and proposed the concept of an innovation ecosystem. In addition, our study also finds that cultural factors run through every link of the innovation ecosystem in the IB context, which lays out the future research agenda.