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The Accounting Review Vol. 89 No. 3 2014

Influence of National Culture on Accounting Conservatism and Risk-Taking in the Banking Industry

Kiridaran Kanagaretnam1; Chee Yeow Lim2; Gerald J. Lobo3

1 York University · 2 Singapore Management University · 3 University of Houston

Abstract

Using an international sample of banks and country-level indices for individualism and uncertainty avoidance as proxies for national culture, we study how differences in culture across countries affect accounting conservatism and bank risk-taking. Consistent with expectations, our cross-country analysis indicates that individualism is negatively (positively) related to conservatism (risk-taking) and uncertainty avoidance is positively (negatively) related to conservatism (risk-taking). We also find that cultures that encourage higher risk-taking experienced more bank failures and bank troubles during the recent financial crisis. Data Availability: Data are available from the sources identified in the text.

DOI
10.2308/accr-50682
Volume
89
Issue
3
Pages
1115-1149
Language
en
Sources
openalex bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref

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