Abstract: By using individual-level survey data from 97 countries, we investigate the effect of informal institutions on external financing and its impact on entrepreneurship. We find that a culturally-driven entrepreneurial environment allows entrepreneurs to obtain more debt, equity, and venture capital financing, and this, in turn, increases entrepreneurial activities. We further find that a culturally-driven entrepreneurial environment is more critical in determining entrepreneurship than formal institutional arrangements (such as investor protection). Our results provide evidence that cross-country variations in entrepreneurship can be explained by differences in cultural support to new venture financing across countries.

Abstract: The objective of this article is to investigate the moderating role of national-based cultural attributes in the relationship between brand value and firm value. This article examines the topic in the context of different national cultural dimensions, including individualism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, power distance, and long-term orientation. We use brand values of the Financial Times’s Global 500 companies and national cultural values reported by Hofstede, GLOBE, and Schwartz. Results exhibit that brands are more value-additive to companies in highly individualistic cultures. In addition, a valuable brand contributes more to firm value in low uncertainty avoidant, high masculine, low power distant, and short-term oriented cultures.National cultural attributes are therefore important determinants in explaining the magnitude by which highly valued brands contribute to the firm value of the companies that own the respective brands. The evidence suggests that while a valuable brand contributes to firm value, the level of its effect on firm value varies by distinctive characteristics of each national cultural dimension.