Cross-cultural response styles on the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory

The Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (RAI) has been a widely-used measu re including use in cross-cultural and cross-national studies over the past 20 years. However, researchers have generally neglected the issue of cross -cultural response styles and simply accepted differences in RAI scores as indicators of real cross-cultural differences. The present study examined t he KAI scores of Canadian and Japanese samples to identify any cross-nation al and gender differences in response styles. Overall, the results of analy ses at the subscale and item-level suggest possible differences in cross-na tional response styles but not to any substantial degree. It is suggested t hat cross-cultural and gender differences in response styles may be diminis hing, at least, in the industrialized nations. Several recommendations are presented to facilitate future study on this issue with the KAI.