Review of: "Universalism and Innovation: The Influence of Impartiality and Inclusiveness on National Innovativeness"

Overall Assessment This paper makes a genuine and commendable contribution to the growing literature on cultural determinants of national innovativeness.By situating the concept of universalism -understood as the impartial and inclusive treatment of outgroup members -within established cultural frameworks and linking it empirically to the Global Innovation Index (GII), the authors open a theoretically rich and relatively underexplored avenue of inquiry.The manuscript is well-motivated, philosophically grounded, and ends with a stimulating discussion connecting moral capital to social capital.The reviewers nd the paper worthy of further development and offer the following suggestions in the spirit of constructive scholarly dialogue.Strengths The most signi cant strength of the paper lies in its theoretical ambition.Whereas prior research on culture and innovation has relied heavily on Hofstede's dimensions -particularly individualismcollectivism and uncertainty avoidance -this paper introduces the moral dimension of universalism as an independent and theoretically grounded explanatory variable.The authors' decision to anchor this concept in the philosophical tradition of impartiality, drawing on Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, and Amartya Sen, lends intellectual depth that is rarely found in empirical cross-national studies.This philosophical scaffolding is not merely decorative; it serves to distinguish among conceptually distinct forms of universalism in a way that proves consequential for the empirical results.The use of three independent measurement instruments -Trompenaars' scenario-based universalism score, Schwartz's Moral Inclusiveness Score, and the behavioral allocation measure developed by Enke Qeios qeios.com