The cultural dimensions of sustainable development: A cross‐country configurational analysis

Our research emphasizes the need to explore the importance of cross-country cul-tural differences in shaping sustainable development. We employ the fuzzy set Quali-tative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyze cross-national data, focusing on therelationship between Hofstede's six cultural dimensions and the sustainable develop-ment goals (SDGs) index of 82 countries worldwide. The empirical evidence sustainsthat the culture influences the modalities through which countries reach sustainabledevelopment. We identified four configurations of cultural dimensions associatedwith high levels of sustainability performance. The analysis informs that there aremainly two possible configurations: the first is characterized by low power distance(PDI) and high individualism, while the second is characterized by high PDI and lowindividualism. Given the existence of multiple modalities for reaching the same goal,we derive some policy implications to advise policymakers and governments on howto improve the sustainable development of their countries, taking into considerationtheir cultural characteristics