A cross-country analysis of the factors driving innovation performance in the Global South

This article examines the effect of various enabling factors that influence the innovation performance of the global south countries by analyzing the Global Innovation Index-2020, as little was known about their innovative behavior. Unlike previous studies, this article investigates what factors drive innovation performance in the global-south countries by examining the other factors unrelated to the input subset of GII. Multiple regressions were employed using cross-sectional data from 86 countries to explore the relationship while controlling for GDP per capita, R&D expenditures, R&D personnel, income gap, population, income level, government category, and regions. The robust results indicate that innovation performance was significantly linked with e-participation, efficiency enablers, and democracy. Inconsistent with previous studies and the hypotheses of this study, e-governance, economic freedom, and governance effectiveness remained indifferent to national innovation performance, ceteris paribus. These results suggest that improving developing countries' e-participation, efficiency enablers, and democratic culture, which represent policy planning and institutional structure, would significantly contribute to increasing innovation behavior and economic development.