IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/corfin/v23y2013icp1-22.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How does culture influence corporate risk-taking?

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Kai
  • Griffin, Dale
  • Yue, Heng
  • Zhao, Longkai

Abstract

We investigate the role of national culture in corporate risk-taking. We postulate that culture influences corporate risk-taking both through its effect on managerial decision-making and through its effect on a country's formal institutions. Further, we postulate that the influence of culture is conditioned on the extent of managerial discretion as measured by earnings discretion and firm size. Using firm-level data from 35 countries and employing a hierarchical linear modeling approach to isolate the effects of firm-level and country-level variables, we show that individualism has a positive and significant association, whereas uncertainty avoidance and harmony have negative and significant associations, with corporate risk-taking. Greater earnings discretion strengthens and larger firm size weakens the association of culture with corporate risk-taking. We conclude that even in a highly globalized world with sophisticated managers, culture matters.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Kai & Griffin, Dale & Yue, Heng & Zhao, Longkai, 2013. "How does culture influence corporate risk-taking?," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 1-22.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:23:y:2013:i:c:p:1-22
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2013.07.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929119913000655
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2013.07.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Galai, Dan & Masulis, Ronald W., 1976. "The option pricing model and the risk factor of stock," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(1-2), pages 53-81.
    2. Sam Han & Tony Kang & Stephen Salter & Yong Keun Yoo, 2010. "A cross-country study on the effects of national culture on earnings management," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 41(1), pages 123-141, January.
    3. La Porta, Rafael & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1997. "Legal Determinants of External Finance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1131-1150, July.
    4. Licht, Amir N. & Goldschmidt, Chanan & Schwartz, Shalom H., 2007. "Culture rules: The foundations of the rule of law and other norms of governance," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 659-688, December.
    5. Beckmann, Daniela & Menkhoff, Lukas & Suto, Megumi, 2008. "Does culture influence asset managers' views and behavior?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 67(3-4), pages 624-643, September.
    6. Rafael La Porta & Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes & Andrei Shleifer & Robert W. Vishny, 1998. "Law and Finance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(6), pages 1113-1155, December.
    7. Lewellen, Katharina, 2006. "Financing decisions when managers are risk averse," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 551-589, December.
    8. Low, Angie, 2009. "Managerial risk-taking behavior and equity-based compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(3), pages 470-490, June.
    9. Kose John & Lubomir Litov & Bernard Yeung, 2008. "Corporate Governance and Risk‐Taking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(4), pages 1679-1728, August.
    10. Demsetz, Harold & Lehn, Kenneth, 1985. "The Structure of Corporate Ownership: Causes and Consequences," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(6), pages 1155-1177, December.
    11. Djankov, Simeon & La Porta, Rafael & Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio & Shleifer, Andrei, 2008. "The law and economics of self-dealing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 430-465, June.
    12. Alesina, Alberto & Devleeschauwer, Arnaud & Easterly, William & Kurlat, Sergio & Wacziarg, Romain, 2003. "Fractionalization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 155-194, June.
    13. Gungoraydinoglu, Ali & Öztekin, Özde, 2011. "Firm- and country-level determinants of corporate leverage: Some new international evidence," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(5), pages 1457-1474.
    14. Luzi Hail & Christian Leuz, 2006. "International Differences in the Cost of Equity Capital: Do Legal Institutions and Securities Regulation Matter?," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(3), pages 485-531, June.
    15. Acharya, Viral V. & Amihud, Yakov & Litov, Lubomir, 2011. "Creditor rights and corporate risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(1), pages 150-166, October.
    16. Bhagat, Sanjai & Welch, Ivo, 1995. "Corporate research & development investments international comparisons," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(2-3), pages 443-470, April.
    17. Patrick M. Kreiser & Louis D. Marino & Pat Dickson & K. Mark Weaver, 2010. "Cultural Influences on Entrepreneurial Orientation: The Impact of National Culture on Risk Taking and Proactiveness in SMEs," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 34(5), pages 959-984, September.
    18. Mariassunta Giannetti & Yishay Yafeh, 2012. "Do Cultural Differences Between Contracting Parties Matter? Evidence from Syndicated Bank Loans," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(2), pages 365-383, February.
    19. Claessens, Stijn & Djankov, Simeon & Nenova, Tatiana, 2000. "Corporate risk around the world," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2271, The World Bank.
    20. Liang Shao & Chuck CY Kwok & Omrane Guedhami, 2010. "National culture and dividend policy," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 41(8), pages 1391-1414, October.
    21. DeFond, Mark & Hung, Mingyi & Trezevant, Robert, 2007. "Investor protection and the information content of annual earnings announcements: International evidence," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 37-67, March.
    22. Guido Tabellini, 2008. "Presidential Address Institutions and Culture," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 255-294, 04-05.
    23. Henry L. Tosi & Thomas Greckhamer, 2004. "Culture and CEO Compensation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(6), pages 657-670, December.
    24. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    25. Nuno Fernandes & Miguel A. Ferreira & Pedro Matos & Kevin J. Murphy, 2013. "Are U.S. CEOs Paid More? New International Evidence," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(2), pages 323-367.
    26. Laeven, Luc & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Bank governance, regulation and risk taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 259-275, August.
    27. Licht, Amir N. & Goldschmidt, Chanan & Schwartz, Shalom H., 2005. "Culture, Law, and Corporate Governance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 229-255, June.
    28. Chuck C Y Kwok & Solomon Tadesse, 2006. "National culture and financial systems," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 37(2), pages 227-247, March.
    29. Leuz, Christian & Nanda, Dhananjay & Wysocki, Peter D., 2003. "Earnings management and investor protection: an international comparison," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 505-527, September.
    30. Kai Li & Dale Griffin & Heng Yue & Longkai Zhao, 2011. "National culture and capital structure decisions: Evidence from foreign joint ventures in China," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 42(4), pages 477-503, May.
    31. Rajgopal, Shivaram & Shevlin, Terry, 2002. "Empirical evidence on the relation between stock option compensation and risk taking," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 145-171, June.
    32. Haugen, Robert A & Senbet, Lemma W, 1981. "Resolving the Agency Problems of External Capital through Options," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(3), pages 629-647, June.
    33. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    34. Coles, Jeffrey L. & Daniel, Naveen D. & Naveen, Lalitha, 2006. "Managerial incentives and risk-taking," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(2), pages 431-468, February.
    35. Zhang, Haiwen, 2009. "Effect of derivative accounting rules on corporate risk-management behavior," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 244-264, June.
    36. Randall S Schuler & Nikolai Rogovsky, 1998. "Understanding Compensation Practice Variations Across Firms: The Impact of National Culture," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 29(1), pages 159-177, March.
    37. Bargeron, Leonce L. & Lehn, Kenneth M. & Zutter, Chad J., 2010. "Sarbanes-Oxley and corporate risk-taking," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1-2), pages 34-52, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shen, Zhe & Sowahfio Sowah, Joseph & Li, Shan, 2022. "Societal trust and corporate risk-taking: International evidence," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    2. Stephen P. Ferris & David Javakhadze & Tijana Rajkovic, 2019. "An international analysis of CEO social capital and corporate risk‐taking," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 25(1), pages 3-37, January.
    3. Gupta, Deepika R. & Veliyath, Rajaram & George, Rejie, 2018. "Influence of national culture on IPO activity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 226-246.
    4. Cassell, Cory A. & Huang, Shawn X. & Manuel Sanchez, Juan & Stuart, Michael D., 2012. "Seeking safety: The relation between CEO inside debt holdings and the riskiness of firm investment and financial policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(3), pages 588-610.
    5. Pascal Gantenbein & Axel Kind & Christophe Volonté, 2019. "Individualism and Venture Capital: A Cross-Country Study," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 59(5), pages 741-777, October.
    6. Dale Griffin & Omrane Guedhami & Chuck C Y Kwok & Kai Li & Liang Shao, 2017. "National culture: The missing country-level determinant of corporate governance," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 48(6), pages 740-762, August.
    7. Jin, Yi & Gao, Xin & Li, Donghui, 2022. "The effect of individualism on bank risk and bank Performance: An international study," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    8. Sabri Boubaker & Pascal Nguyen & Wael Rouatbi, 2016. "Multiple Large Shareholders and Corporate Risk†taking: Evidence from French Family Firms," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 22(4), pages 697-745, September.
    9. Ashraf, Badar Nadeem & Zheng, Changjun & Arshad, Sidra, 2016. "Effects of national culture on bank risk-taking behavior," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 309-326.
    10. Roxana Mihet, 2013. "Effects of culture on firm risk-taking: a cross-country and cross-industry analysis," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 37(1), pages 109-151, February.
    11. Ahsan Habib & Mostafa Monzur Hasan, 2017. "Firm life cycle, corporate risk-taking and investor sentiment," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 57(2), pages 465-497, June.
    12. José María Díez-Esteban & Jorge Bento Farinha & Conrado Diego García-Gómez, 2019. "How does national culture affect corporate risk-taking?," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 9(1), pages 49-68, March.
    13. Chui, Andy C.W. & Li, Xiao & Saffar, Walid, 2021. "National culture and the choice between bank debt and public debt," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    14. Chui, Andy C.W. & Kwok, Chuck C.Y. & (Stephen) Zhou, Gaoguang, 2016. "National culture and the cost of debt," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 1-19.
    15. Illiashenko, Pavlo, 2019. "“Tough Guy” vs. “Cushion” hypothesis: How does individualism affect risk-taking?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    16. Kusnadi, Yuanto, 2015. "Insider trading restrictions and corporate risk-taking," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 125-142.
    17. Jiang, Tianjiao & Levine, Ross & Lin, Chen & Wei, Lai, 2020. "Bank deregulation and corporate risk," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    18. Wei-han Liu, 2019. "National culture effects on stock market volatility level," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1229-1253, October.
    19. Xu, Weidong & Gao, Xin & Xu, Hao & Li, Donghui, 2022. "Does global climate risk encourage companies to take more risks?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    20. Yang, Tianna & Hou, Wenxuan, 2016. "Pay-performance sensitivity and risk-taking behaviors: Evidence from closed-end funds," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 274-288.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Formal institutions; Harmony; Individualism; National culture; Corporate risk-taking; Uncertainty avoidance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G31 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Capital Budgeting; Fixed Investment and Inventory Studies
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:corfin:v:23:y:2013:i:c:p:1-22. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jcorpfin .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.