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This study proposes a model to measure national intellectual capital that can be easily replicated for trend analysis. Key dimensions include human capital, market capital, process capital, renewal capital, and financial capital.

With longitudinal data spanning the period from 1994 to 2005, this study compares the national intellectual capital of 40 countries based on an IC map of 29 indicators.

The overall intellectual capital ranking of the five Nordic countries is: 1 Sweden, 2 Finland, (3 Switzerland), 4 Denmark, (5 USA), 6 Norway, and 7 Iceland in the 40‐country list.

The results confirm the general perception that the Nordic countries have a high degree of national intellectual capital. The research findings clarify the status of national intellectual capital of the Nordic countries, thereby providing valuable information for stakeholders and policy makers to formulate effective strategies for building sustainable national competitiveness. In order to do this, it is necessary to elaborate on the proposed IC framework and to gather relevant and valid IC indicators.

The results of this study can provide a map for the Nordic countries – and other countries – as they prepare for future challenges, such as those associated with globalization and its implications on potential wealth creation. A deeper study of why and how might be a part of forthcoming studies.

This study attempts to probe within a multi‐dimensional perspective the nature and type of daily innovation practices of small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) located in Taiwan. The relationship between innovation and organizational performance will also be explored.

Data of interest were collected through a telephone survey. From the 2000 Directory of Manufacturing and Service Industries in Northern Part of Taiwan, companies with a total employee number less than 200 (the definition of an SME in Taiwan) were the population. Telephone calls to 877 firms were successfully completed with a response rate of 87 per cent.

Eighty per cent of the surveyed companies conducted some sort of innovation, the two major types of innovations were technological and marketing innovations. Innovation has a weak link with company sales. Administrative innovations have surfaced to be the most crucial factor in explaining sales rather than technological innovations.

Creating a successful innovation platform to serve as a base for non‐technology‐related innovations may prove to be the most critical catalyst to capitalize on innovation efforts. The research results also provide some insights for companies that are not sure how to integrate innovation into their business operations.

This study unveils the innovation practices of this novel economy and particularly focuses on the less explored SMEs in an Asian context.

The concept that creativity climate facilitates innovation outcome is well‐received, yet it has not been widely tested in non‐Western countries. To fill the gap between concept and practical value, this study adopted the eight‐dimensional model of organizational creativity climate proposed by Amabile and associates with the aim of investigating the cross‐level relationship between creativity climate and employee‐perceived innovation in an Asian work place, i.e. Taiwan.

Using survey data of 398 employees from different companies of Taiwan, the effect of organizational creativity climate on innovation was explored. Furthermore, the mediating effect of employees' work motivation was also examined.

By employing hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), statistical analysis indicates that 27 percent variance of perceived innovation could potentially be explained by creativity climate. Five out of the eight dimensions, namely, organizational encouragement, supervisory encouragement, work group support, sufficient resource and challenging work, relate significantly to perceived innovation with the mediation of work motivation.

As most companies are reluctant to reveal their objective innovation data, the authors had to rely on self‐reported data that are inevitably subjective in nature. Moreover, the fact that only 13 organizations were sampled may weaken the generalizability of the findings to more diverse business contexts.

The findings of this study contribute to advancing organizational climate research and innovation management in a non‐Western country. In addition, by surveying this topic in an innovation‐active context, i.e. Taiwan, this study uncovers rich information on organizational creativity issues for interested parties and for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which societal culture has a moderating effect on the business benefits of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

A cross-national research design was conducted using survey data collected from 164 firms in Taiwan and 196 firms in Canada.

We found societal differences in the positive influence of CSR on corporate image and employee commitment. Specifically, we found that the relationships between CSR (customer-oriented and employee-oriented) and corporate image were stronger for Taiwanese firms than for Canadian firms. In addition, employee CSR was found to be more strongly associated with higher employee commitment in Taiwan than in Canada. While customer CSR was associated with enhanced customer loyalty, this relationship was similar for firms in both countries.

Multi-informants for data collection and longitudinal research design in future research would be required for further understanding of the relationships among the variables in this study.

This paper suggests that the business benefits of customer and employee CSR practices may yield relatively greater competitive advantages in East Asian countries where CSR is not as established or taken for granted as in Western countries.

This study draws on the strategic perspective to investigate the value of CSR practices yielding different business benefits in contrasting cultural contexts.