This study investigates the relationship between personality factors, cultural practices, and innovativeness on the national level. Hitherto no study has been done which considers these factors simultaneously. We argue that the relationship between national aggregated personality factors and the level of national innovation is mediated by national cultural practices. Our model is based on three arguments: First, Five Factor theory and cultural theory state that the national personality profile of a country influences its cultural practices. Second, personenvironment-fit theory argues that personality factors can best manifest themselves in an appropriate environment. Third, in contrast to the individual level, we argue that on the national level cultural practices may not act as a moderator but as a mediator. Based on the triangulation of three datasets, we subsequently test our model on a sample of N = 33 countries. Our results demonstrate that innovation-relevant national personality profiles are closely linked with innovation-relevant national cultural practices. Further, we show that national cultural practices mediate the relationship between national personality profiles and national innovativeness. Additionally, we reveal that the recently proposed relationship between nationally aggregated personality profiles and national innovativeness virtually disappears as soon as national cultural practices are integrated into the model.

Despite the popularity of assessment centers (AC) in South Africa, no recent study exists that describes AC practices in that region. Given this research gap, we conducted a survey study that analyzes the development, execution, and evaluation of ACs in N ¼ 43 South African organizations. We report findings regarding AC design, job analysis and job requirements assessed, target groups and positions of the participants after the AC, number and kind of exercises used, additional diagnostic methods used, assessors and characteristics considered in constitution of the assessor pool, observational systems and rotation plan, characteristics, contents, and methods of assessor training, types of information provided to participants, data integration process, use of self-and peer-rating, characteristics of the feedback process, and features after the AC. Finally, we compare the results with professional suggestions to identify pros and cons in current South African AC practices and offer suggestions for improvement.

The present study aims to provide insights into the leadership–innovation relationship on the national level by considering national-level contingency factors. We argue that the impact of a prevailing leadership style on innovation is mediated by economic and political factors and innovation-related cultural practices. Moreover, it is argued that the educational level of a country is related to the prevailing leadership style and economic factors. We propose a model and test its explanatory power with a sample of 55 countries using variance-based structural equation modeling. The results show that the prevailing leadership style has no direct relationship with national innovation but is mediated by the abovementioned factors. The results also show that the level of education within a country is positively related to participative leadership and negatively to team-oriented leadership. Furthermore, the level of education is directly related to economic and political factors and indirectly to national innovation.

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