Late payments have long been a problem for enterprises, and the situation only escalated following the recent global economic crisis. Even though new legislation has been adopted at the European level, the problem of late payments has not improved. The aim of the study presented in this paper was to find out whether late payments can be explained by enterprises’ ethical culture. The analysis of ethical culture was performed by Kaptein’s (2008) measurement instrument. Of the six dimensions that could be confirmed with our sample, three correlated statistically significantly with late payments: sanctionability, feasibility and transparency. Sanctionability refers to the likelihood that unethical behavior will be sanctioned and ethical behavior will be rewarded; feasibility refers to the creation of conditions that allow employees to meet normative expectations; and transparency refers to the degree to which incorrect behavior is visible to those who can have an influence on changing such behavior. The more sanctionability and feasibility are expressed in enterprises, the better their payment discipline; the more transparency is present, the worse the payment discipline. Furthermore, our research showed that the size of the enterprise, liquidity (current ratio) and financial leverage (debt to asset ratio) have no statistically significant influence on the payment discipline of the observed enterprises.

中文翻译：

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道德文化解释了逾期付款

长期以来，逾期付款一直是企业的难题，而且这种情况只是在最近的全球经济危机之后才逐步升级。尽管欧洲已经通过了新的立法，但是拖欠付款的问题并没有得到改善。本文提出的研究的目的是找出是否可以用企业的道德文化来解释滞纳金。道德文化分析是通过Kaptein（2008）的测量仪器进行的。在我们的样本可以确认的六个维度中，三个维度与延迟付款在统计上显着相关：可制裁性，可行性和透明度。可制裁性是指不道德行为将受到制裁并得到奖励的可能性；可行性是指创造允许员工满足规范性期望的条件；透明度是指那些对改变行为有影响的人看到的不正确行为的程度。在企业中表达的可制裁性和可行性越强，其支付纪律就越好；透明度越高，付款纪律就越差。此外，我们的研究表明，企业规模，流动性（流动比率）和财务杠杆（债务与资产比率）对被观察企业的支付纪律没有统计学上的显着影响。在企业中表达的可制裁性和可行性越强，其支付纪律就越好；透明度越高，付款纪律就越差。此外，我们的研究表明，企业规模，流动性（流动比率）和财务杠杆（债务与资产比率）对被观察企业的支付纪律没有统计学上的显着影响。在企业中表达的可制裁性和可行性越强，其支付纪律就越好；透明度越高，付款纪律就越差。此外，我们的研究表明，企业规模，流动性（流动比率）和财务杠杆（债务与资产比率）对被观察企业的支付纪律没有统计学上的显着影响。