本研究探討的是在控制公司國家文化背景之下，經理人文化背景對於現金持有價值之影響。使用Hofstede所提出的個人主義文化價值分數去計算經理人與公司的文化差距，樣本使用S&P1500公司亦有利於控制公司國家文化背景。本文還進一步探討經理人文化背景形成是否具有不變性，將經理人文化背景分成生涯三階段，分別為幼年階段(出生地)、後青少年階段(就讀大學)以及工作階段(前一份工作)，透過針對生涯三階段的實證分析可以檢測出經理人文化認同形成於哪個階段。 本文使用Faulkender and Wang (2006)提出之迴歸模型去檢測經理人與公司間之個人主義差距與現金持有價值間的關係，本研究除了最原始的迴歸外還控制了年份、產業及公司之固定效果。另外也考慮了經理人權力分群的子樣本，但無法找到顯著的相關性，因此無法支持我們所假定的假說。此外，還考慮了內生性問題，使用工具變數去替換主要變數並重新進行迴歸檢測，但得出的結果還是不顯著。最後，在刪除三階段皆為美國的樣本中發現在工作階段形成之個人主義差距與公司現金持有價值顯著正相關，對照其他生涯階段形成之文化差距之不顯著效果，表示個人文化認同會隨著時間改變。 ;In this paper, we investigate the impact of the CEO’s individualism on the value of cash holding after controlling the individualism of the company. We utilize culture dimensions proposed by Hofstede to calculate the cultural distance between the CEO and the company based on individualism. We use the S&P 1500 index listed companies as our main sample which is advantageous in controlling the individualism of the company. We also investigate whether the time of cultural identity formation matters. We build three different stages of the CEO’s lifetime: the childhood period (the country of birth), the late adolescent period (the country of university), and the working period (the country of the previous job). The empirical findings utilizing the three lifetime stages can tell when the individualism related to value of cash is formed. We use the regression model proposed by Faulkender and Wang (2006) to test the relation between the cultural distance based on individualism and value of cash. In addition to the original specification, we run regression with year, industry, and firm fixed effects. We also run regressions on the subsamples based on CEO power. We cannot find significant correlation. Moreover, we utilize instrument variables to address potential endogeneity concerns. The results are still insignificant. Lastly, using a sample without CEOs who are in US for all three lifetime periods, we find that the cultural distance based on individualism formed in the working period is positively related to value of cash. In contrast, we cannot find significant relation for cultural distance formed in other periods. This implies that the personal cultural identity may change over time.
