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This paper aims to examine the extent to which the cultural dimension of individualism/collectivism matters for international differences in climate change policy performance. This study postulates that individualistic societies, relative to their collectivistic counterparts, are more likely to address global climate change.

The main hypothesis is tested using data for a world sample of up to 92 countries. To achieve causal inference, this study isolates exogenous sources of variation in individualistic cultures, based on blood distance to the UK and historical pathogen prevalence.

The core results suggest that individualistic countries are characterized by greater climate change policy performance. This study also finds evidence that individualism affects climate change policy adoption through enhancing governance and female political representation. Subnational analyses based on data from the World Values Survey indicate that survey participants with an orientation toward individualism tend to self-report positive attitudes to pro-environmental policies.

The main findings help improve the understanding of the deep origins of climate change policy performance, which is relevant for formulating policies that help mitigate the consequences of changing climate conditions.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper is the first study to link cultural traits of individualism and climate change policy performance across countries.

This paper seeks to determine whether family ties and structure correlate with the ethical and moral values that are important underpinnings of economic activities.

The analysis uses data from the World Values Survey (WVS). Given the multilevel nature of the data in a cross-country setting, the paper utilizes a multilevel linear mixed-effects model with maximum likelihood estimation.

Families with strong ties and those with traditional family structures are less tolerant of unethical conduct and have more restrictive moral values than households where ties are weak and the household is not married. There also appears to be a bi-causal relationship in the data.

This paper considers a broad array of values in a cross-country setting and utilizes a multilevel modeling approach that has not been done in studies linking both family ties and structure.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-12-2021-0730.

This paper aims to identify distinct consumption patterns among Asian consumers and examine how these relate to cultural antecedents and key human values.

This study uses a large, representative sample of almost 7,000 Asian consumers in 10 culturally varying markets, using latent profile analysis (LPA) to identify the consumption profiles.

The findings empirically demonstrate that the two profiles are “inner-directed nationalistic frugals” (IDNF) and “outer-directed self-eekers” (ODSS). IDNF consumers spend more time and money on education and prefer ethnocentric consumption. ODSS consumers emphasize individuality, self-expression, seeking novelty and impressing others. Consumers with more collective values in Schwartz's typology tend to demonstrate the IDNF pattern; those with more individualistic values demonstrate the ODSS pattern. The distribution of IDNF and ODSS profiles is influenced by demographics, religion and geographical region: IDNF is greater than ODSS in Southeast Asia; ODSS is greater than IDNF in East Asia; IDNF is roughly equal to ODSS in Northeast Asia. IDNF tends to be found among older and more religious consumers, while ODSS is the opposite. Importantly, in the more religious Southeast Asian countries, even younger consumers are more IDNF than ODSS.

This research uses an exploratory and discovery-oriented approach; future research can use more confirmatory approaches to systematically examine the relationship between cultural dimensions (e.g. individualism-collectivism) and consumption patterns.

For their brands to grow in Asian markets, marketing practitioners are advised to use multiple brands to segment Asian consumers based on their values, demographics, geographical location and what religious/faith traditions they follow.

This is the first paper to identify consumption profiles in Asian markets using LPA without prior conceptual biases and relate them to cultural values and demographic variables.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential link between Sweden’s high reliance on equity capital financing among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and its recognition as the most innovative economy in Europe according to the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS). This paper examines the idea that the high levels of trust within Swedish society can explain why private equity financing is more prevalent among Swedish SMEs.

To test these ideas, the authors use data from the Survey on Access to Finance for Enterprises to measure the private equity reliance of firms. The authors also use the EIS to measure the innovation capacity of nations and various aspects of SMEs’ innovation activities. Finally, societal levels of trust are measured through the World Value Survey.

First, the authors find that European countries with a higher proportion of SMEs relying on equity financing tend to be ranked as more innovative by the EIS. Second, the authors find that the correlation between a nation’s share of SMEs relying on equity financing and their level of innovation activities is marginally stronger for product innovations than for business process innovations. Third, the authors find that countries with higher levels of trust tend to have higher equity capital reliance among SMEs.

This study builds upon previous research on equity capital and SMEs’ innovation activity while introducing new insights into the relationship between societal trust and equity financing.

National cultures significantly explain cross-country differences in the relation between asset growth and stock returns. Motivated by the notion that managers in individualistic and low uncertainty-avoiding cultures have a higher tendency to overinvest, this study aims to show that the negative relation between asset growth and stock returns is stronger in countries with such cultural features. Once the researchers control for cultural dimensions, proxies associated with the q-theory, limits-to-arbitrage, corporate governance, investor protection and accounting quality provide no incremental power for the relation between asset growth and stock returns across countries. Evidence of this study highlights the importance of the overinvestment hypothesis in explaining the asset growth anomaly around the world.