Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of national culture on leverage speed of adjustment (SOA) across countries.

Design/methodology/approach

We use a partial adjustment model to estimate the impact of national culture (assessed using Hofstede's six cultural dimensions) on leverage SOA.

Findings

We find that culture does significantly affect the degree to which firms deviate from target debt level and the speed of adjustment (SOA) of leverage. High power distance, individualism and masculinity are associated with a slower SOA, while high long-term orientation, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence result in a faster SOA. Additionally, cultural characteristics affect leverage SOA differently when firms are underlevered versus overlevered and when firms have small versus large deviations from the target level of debt. We suggest that these effects can be explained by agency motives.

Research limitations/implications

The results of the study are based on available information for firms from 53 countries.

Originality/value

This study is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to examine the impact of national cultural traits on leverage SOA in international settings.

中文翻译：

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民族文化与杠杆调整

目的

本文的目的是探讨国家文化对各国杠杆率调整速度（SOA）的影响。

设计/方法/方法

我们使用部分调整模型来估计国家文化（使用 Hofstede 的六个文化维度评估）对杠杆 SOA 的影响。

发现

我们发现文化确实会显着影响公司偏离目标债务水平的程度和杠杆调整速度（SOA）。高权力距离、个人主义和阳刚之气与较慢的 SOA 相关，而高长期定位、不确定性避免和放纵会导致较快的 SOA。此外，当企业杠杆率过低和杠杆率过高以及企业与目标债务水平的偏差很小或很大时，文化特征对杠杆 SOA 的影响也不同。我们认为这些影响可以用代理动机来解释。

研究限制/影响

研究结果基于来自 53 个国家/地区的公司的可用信息。

原创性/价值

据我们所知，这项研究是第一个检验国家文化特征对国际环境中利用 SOA 的影响的研究。