How culture and government shape entrepreneurial innovation: the case of Korean and UK online gaming firms

This paper examines institutional sources of product innovation with reference to the onlinegaming sector of Korea and the UK. It examines the combined impact of formal andinformal institutions and their interaction with multiple case studies. Despite the growingimportance of innovative products in contemporary entertainment (including interactivegames), the ‘informal’ source of innovation has attracted limited attention. By closelylooking at the idea exploration, generation and selection process (where creativity plays amajor role), we intend to find out how values and public policy affect product innovation. This study shows that the value of Korean and UK online gaming firms (regardless of theirdifferent socio-economic contexts) plays an important role in generating product innovation. An additional point is that Korean firms are likely to take advantage of government policysupport to overcome inadequate institutional settings in conjunction with the initialconditions of online game development.