Financial performance and bankruptcy concerns of SMEs in their export decision

OeconomiA copernicana Volume 13 Issue 3 September 2022 p-ISSN 2083-1277, e-ISSN 2353-1827 www.oeconomia.pl Copyright © Instytut Badań Gospodarczych / Institute of Economic Research (Poland) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ORIGINAL ARTICLE Citation: Ključnikov, A., Civelek, M., Krajčík, V., Novák, P., & Červinka, M. (2022). Financial performance and bankruptcy concerns of SMEs in their export decision. Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890. doi: 10.24136/oc.2022.025 Contact to corresponding author: Vladimír Krajčík, [email protected] Article history: Received: 25.01.2022; Accepted: 10.08.2022; Published online: 25.09.2022 Aleksandr Ključnikov Pan-European University, Czechia orcid.org/0000-0003-0350-2658 Mehmet Civelek Pan-European University, Czechia orcid.org/0000-0002-1247-5308 Vladimír Krajčík Pan-European University, Czechia orcid.org/0000-0003-2234-3939 Petr Novák Tomas Bata Univesity in Zlín, Czechia orcid.org/0000-0003-4701-5755 Michal Červinka Pan-European University, Czechia orcid.org/0000-0003-2226-4501 Financial performance and bankruptcy concerns of SMEs in their export decision JEL Classification: F18; L25; L26 Keywords: financial performance; bankruptcy; SMEs; export obstacles; Visegrad countries Abstract Research background: Due to having lack of financial power and low amount of revenues, most of SMEs’ major concerns are bankruptcy and low financial performance. Those issues are risky Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 868 situations for SMEs when making for their exporting activities. Therefore, depending on their performance and bankruptcy risk, they might more intensively perceive export barriers and this fact might determine their export decisions. Purpose of the article: This paper examines whether financial performance and bankruptcy concerns of SMEs affect their perceptions of export obstacles or not. Methods: This research performs random sampling method and directs an internet-mediated questionnaire to the selected respondents who are the executives of 408 Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian SMEs. To examine the influences of firm performance and bankruptcy on the perceptions of export impediments by SMEs, this paper employs Ordinal Logistic Regression Test. Findings & value added: The results show that SMEs having less healthy financial conditions less intensively perceive cultural-linguistic export barriers in comparison with SMEs having better financial performance. Moreover, firm performance is not a predictor variable in the perceptions of export costs, legislative and tax-related barriers by SMEs. On the other hand, while SMEs having more bankruptcy concerns more intensively perceive tax-related and culturallinguistic barriers, bankruptcy concerns of SMEs do not influence their perceptions of export costs and legislative differences. Although many studies have investigated the impacts of financial conditions of SMEs on their internationalization and exporting decisions, they are isolated with only a market or only with a financial issue. The limited extents of those studies cause a partial investigation of export and financial issues of SMEs and make readers having a narrow perspective in this specific area. By focusing on various export obstacles and financial issues that SMEs face in different markets, this research offers a detailed understanding of SMEs’ perceptions regarding their financial conditions and export barriers, from a comprehensive perspective. In this regard, this is the research gap that this paper aims to fill. Introduction SMEs have place in the development of economies and in the increases of export volumes, but problems regarding their bankruptcy and financial performance are some of their main concerns in their survival. The reasons of their concerns might be related with having lack of financial resources (Civelek et al., 2020a; Metzker et al., 2021a) and facing with costs and various cultural, legislative and taxational issues. But SMEs can differently perceive export obstacles depending on their predictions for their financial performance and bankruptcy. This is because firms predicting better financial performance and less bankruptcy possibilities might be more optimistic and this fact might make them perceiving export obstacles less intensively. In this regard, this paper purposes to indicate if financial performance and bankruptcy predictions of SMEs have effects on their perceptions of export obstacles. In line with this selected aim, this paper employs random sampling method and create the research sample from Cribis database. Then, the researchers send the links of a questionnaire survey to the randomly selected respondents by e-mails. 408 Czech, Slovakian and Hungarian SMEs are investigated in consistent with the research aim. To investigate the specified relationship, the researchers run Ordinal Logistic Regression analyses. Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 869 External export obstacles are related with economic, legal and cultural factors such as export costs, different legal rules and cultural values of countries (Civelek et al., 2020a). Concerning export cost, it has been perceived as an export barrier by SMEs (Köksal & Kettaneh, 2011) because these firms have lower amount of profit to afford fixed and sunk costs regarding exporting (Pietrovito & Pozzolo, 2021). Moreover, operating in international markets requires SMEs to increase their production (Ključnikov et al., 2021). Since having larger production capacity creates more expenses for SMEs, they can also face higher production costs. Furthermore, Dvorský et al. (2021) state the fact that SMEs in Visegrad countries face with many changes regarding legislative conditions. Corresponding to tax related export barriers, tariffs and non-tariff implementations of various governments have been other external export obstacles for SMEs (Köksal & Kettaneh, 2011). On the other hand, Pavlák (2018) verify the fact that linguistic and cultural differences is another major export barrier for SMEs. Comparing with larger enterprises, bankruptcy might be a more threatening issue for the survival of SMEs (Metzker et al., 2021b; Dvorský et al., 2021) and they can abstain from exporting since they might more intensively perceive export obstacles. Moreover, having issues with working capital and financial assets (Pereira-Moliner et al., 2021) are also some crucial financial problems for SMEs to survive (Civelek et al., 2020b). Therefore, the perceptions of firm executives regarding firm resources carry vital importance for SMEs when making exporting decision (Bianchi et al., 2018). Thus, firms expecting bankruptcy issues in the long term and facing with financial performance problems might be less prone to perform exporting activities and might more intensively perceive the export obstacles (Bilan et al., 2017; Sinicakova & Gavurova, 2017). Since those countries have similar historical and economic backgrounds (Kolková & Ključnikov, 2021), analysing the export, bankruptcy and performance perceptions of SMEs from these European countries might be noteworthy. On the other hand, since decisions can be taken by emotions (Sedliacikova et al., 2021; Gavurova et al., 2017) analysing the export obstacle, bankruptcy and performance predictions and perceptions of SMEs makes this paper to have a comprehensive perspective regarding export decisions. Focusing on these issues make this paper having insights on the examination of mostly faced exporting and financial issues by SMEs operating in various European markets. Although many studies have analyzed the exporting obstacles and financial issues in exporting separately, there is a lack of studies that emphasize the relative importance of financial obstacles on the perception of those export barriers. Moreover, the studies in the literature lack to create relationship between financial and export concerns Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 870 of SMEs that belong to Resource-based and Institutional Based view. This research serves as an important guide for new studies that focuses on the self-evaluation of SMEs concerning their financial conditions and prospective export obstacles that those enterprises might encounter in various markets. Governments can also use the results of this study to identify the impacts of SMEs’ financial conditions on their exporting decisions. By being aware of the current situations of SMEs, governments can give efficient and timely supports for those businesses. These facts enable this research to be unique in the related academic literature. The remaining parts of this paper are structured in the following sequence: Section 1 declares the theoretical back ground of the research and expresses the hypotheses development. While Section 2 sheds light on the methodological approaches and research data, Section 3 presents the results of this research. The researchers discuss the main results and provide policy implications in Section 4. Moreover, the researchers summarize the key issues and limitations of this paper in the Conclusion section. Literature review Although there are various classifications regarding export barriers (Arteaga‐Ortiz & Fernández‐Ortiz, 2010), many researchers such as Narayanan (2015), Al‐Hyari et al., 2012 and Silva et al. (2016) have recognized the categorization of Leonidou (2004) who defines those barriers into two different categories, namely, internal and external (Leonidou, 2004). Both internal and external export barriers have negative impacts on export performance of companies (Sinkovics et al., 2018; Al‐Hyari et al., 2012; AduGyamfi & Korneliussen, 2013). While internal barriers stem from firms’ insufficient organizational resource and capabilities (Sinkovics et al., 2018; Al‐Hyari et al., 2012; Leonidou, 2004), external barriers are based on factors that firms cannot have impacts on and come from outside or surroundings of the companies (Leonidou, 2004; Forte & Salomé Moreira, 2018; Adu-Gyamfi & Korneliussen, 2013). Moreover, Leonidou (2004) classifies internal export various into different categories while functional barriers are one of them. Firms having inefficiencies in exporting concerning their financial conditions, working capital, expenditures face with functional barriers of exporting. Arteaga‐ Ortiz and Fernández‐Ortiz (2010) categorize this barrier as resource barriers because it is based on the limited financial resources that firms have. Since this paper considers financial performance and bankruptcy issues when analyzing financial conditions of SMEs, those factors belong to func- Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 871 tional barriers that are under the category of internal export barriers as it is defined by Leonidou (2004). On the other hand, both variables financial performance and bankruptcy that this paper analyzes regarding functional export barriers of firms are based on Resource-based view. This is because Resource-based view declares that firms having lack of financial resources face with problems regarding financial performance and bankruptcy (Westhead et al., 2004) and the existence of those issues depend on financial resources that companies have. Resource-based view also posits that firms’ resources and capabilities are crucial in performance of enterprises (Haddoud et al., 2018), their competitiveness and their success in exporting processes (Lee et al., 2012; Westhead et al., 2001). For these reasons, this paper also investigates financial concerns of SMEs stemming from the existence of financial resources that is related to Resource-based view. When it comes to external barriers, Leonidou (2004) also classifies it into the various categories. In this regard, environmental factors that stem from governmental barriers including entry restrictions, tax-related, customs, tariff, non-tariff barriers (Adu-Gyamfi & Korneliussen, 2013; Leonidou, 2004) and other regulatory frameworks, cultural-linguistic obstacles, export costs (Crick, 2004) are another crucial factor that create obstacles for SMEs (Hutchinson et al., 2009). Since this paper considers export cost, legislative, tax-related and cultural-linguistic obstacles that belong to external export barriers, this paper focuses on the impacts of self-evaluation of internal barriers by SMEs on their perception of external export barriers. On the other hand, Peng (2009) states the existence of two views when determining the success of companies around the world. While Institution Based View considers the formal and informal regulations that can affect performance of exporting businesses, Resource-Based View is related with firms’ resources and capabilities that have influences on their export performance. Regulations, laws, tax-related factors, governments’ implementations, cultural-linguistic differences that are external export obstacles, belong to Institution Based View since formal institutions such as governments, other state organizations and informal institutions such as different values, norms, and cultures create impediments when businesses exporting (Peng, 2009). In this regard, this paper also investigates the impacts of the perceptions of Resource Based factors by SMEs on their perceptions of Institution Based View factors. Concerning the perception of financial performance and export obstacles by SMEs, the details will be provided in this paragraph also with the following two paragraphs. When SMEs commit more financial resources into exporting activities their perceptions of export barriers decreases (Ibeh, Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 872 2004). This is because firms having more resource commitments do more market research, look for more financing options, overcome bureaucracies with governments and can afford the cost of logistics and transportation (Adu-Gyamfi & Korneliussen, 2013). However, most of SMEs have limited resources, have lack of managerial and export experiences, and have high level of internal export barriers. Therefore, having less healthy financial conditions has been a major constraint for SMEs to do exporting activities, since it negatively influences their export decisions and probability to export (Rashid et al., 2021). Since export includes many expenses for SMEs, including sunk cost (Pascucci et al., 2021), fixed costs (Pietrovito & Pozzolo, 2021), and transport cost (Bianchi et al., 2018), firms having lower performance levels might perceive the export cost more intensively comparing to businesses having healthier financial conditions. For instance, by analyzing Brazilian firms, Da Silva and da Rocha (2001) express that external obstacles of exporting such as transportation and insurance costs are more intensively perceived by those firms. According to Lejárraga and Oberhofer (2015), fixed costs of exporting activities and the costs of setting new international trade relationships are also important barriers for French firms. Adu-Gyamfi and Korneliussen (2013) examine some SMEs from Ghana and observe the fact that when internal export barriers such as financial concerns of SMEs increases, their perceptions of export costs increase. Similarly, Pangarkar (2008) investigates SMEs in Singapore and confirms the fact that when SMEs negatively evaluate their performance, they more intensively perceive export costs including coordination and communication costs. Pascucci et al. (2021) examine 1,132 Italian SMEs and declare the fact that SMEs having better financial performance lower export barriers including sunk costs. On the other hand, high tax burdens (Bianchi et al., 2018), such as tariff/non-tariff barriers imposed by foreign governments (Köksal & Kettaneh, 2011) and other legislative processes of international markets, can also create more costs for SMEs. In this case, SMEs with lower performance may face with more obstacles (Tsukanova, 2019) and this fact can cause SMEs to perceive those legislative and taxational issues more intensively than their better performed counterparts. In this regard, Pangarkar (2008) also professes the fact that when SMEs have negative perceptions regarding their financial performance, they also more intensively perceive legislative and tax-related obstacles since they operate in a particular market. Sinkovics et al (2018) also analyze SMEs from the UK and declare the fact that higher perceived internal external barriers such as lack of financial power cause firms having lower export performance, thus, more intensive perception of tax-related export obstacles. Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 873 Cultural-linguistic differences can also be costly for SMEs, since the differences in norms and values of various countries might require SMEs to make changes in their products and services or in their marketing strategies. Although SMEs having better financial conditions might afford those expenses, SMEs having problems with financial issues more intensively perceive those export obstacles (Gavurova et al., 2020). In this regard, Westhead et al. (2001) examine some small firms in UK and reveal the positive association between the Resource-based variables, such as better financial conditions of firms and their less intensive perceptions of export obstacles including cultural differences. Pangarkar (2008) also states that when small firms have concerns regarding their internal constraints, such as their financial conditions, they become concerned about their abilities to overcome export obstacles. This researcher also declares that when performance of firms increases, they reduce their concerns regarding cultural differences. By examining 106 SMEs from the UK, Sinkovics et al. (2018) prove the negative association between the performance of SMEs and the more intensive perception of cultural, legislative, tax-related export barriers (Sinkovics et al., 2018). This negative association has also been confirmed by some other researchers, who analyze firms in the US and Nigerian markets, respectively (Silverman et al., 2006; Wilkinson & Brouthers, 2006). For these reasons, the following research hypotheses might be set: H1a: Performance of SMEs negatively affects the intensity in the perception of export costs (a), legislative differences (b), tax-related differences (c) and cultural-linguistic differences (d) by SMEs. Corresponding to the bankruptcy predictions and the perceptions of export obstacles by SMEs, the details will be presented in this paragraph with also the following two paragraphs. The perception of bankruptcy risk by SMEs is also highly crucial in exporting decision (Caggese & Cuñat, 2013) since it threatens their perceptions of export barriers (Sinkovics et al., 2018). García-Vega et al. (2012) also examine 23,674 UK firms and clarify the fact that firms’ predictions regarding their survival also determines their export decisions. Pangarkar (2008) states that firms having resource disadvantages feel concerned about their bankruptcy, thus, they more intensively perceive export obstacles. Those firms are more concerned about their risk of failure, thus, they more intensively perceive export obstacles including the costs of exporting (Sleuwaegen & Onkelinx, 2014; Carr et al., 2010) and government regulations, documentations, tax-related issues, crosscultural marketing activities as an obstacle (García-Vega et al., 2012). Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 874 Some exporting firm have also experienced decreases in their revenues, thus, their willingness to continue their exporting activities also become reduced since they are afraid of facing with bankruptcy issues (Le & Shaffer, 2017; Lukason & Laitinen, 2016). For instance, by investigating Korean firms, Kim (2016) remarks that when firms feel that they might face bankruptcy issues, they might more intensively perceive export obstacles and might be risk averse to implement exporting strategies and activities in their operations. Sleuwaegen and Onkelinx (2014) also analyze Belgian firms and declare the fact that SMEs having bankruptcy pressures more intensively perceive the cost of exports. Moreover, Lee et al. (2012) observe 1612 Korean SMEs and shed lights on the positive association between less intensive bankruptcy perceptions by SMEs and their less intensive perceptions of legislative, tax related and cultural export obstacles. Some other studies also confess this relationship (Evangelista, 2005; Mudambi & Zahra 2007). For these reasons other research hypotheses might be set as follows: H2: Bankruptcy risk of SMEs positively affects the intensity in their perception of export cost (a), legislative differences (b), tax-related differences (c) and cultural-linguistic differences (d) by SMEs. As already stated in the previous paragraphs, the amount of financial resources or assets and financial conditions that SMEs have, carry vital importance in their own bankruptcy and financial performance evaluation. Depending on their self-evaluation of bankruptcy and financial performance, SMEs can have different perceptions regarding those export barriers. Since this research focuses on this issue as a research aim, it aims to clarify and find out this issue by applying the methods that will be elucidated in the Data and Research methodology section. Data and research methods The goal of this paper is to analyze whether the performance and bankruptcy predictions of SMEs affect their perceptions of export barriers or not. To accomplish this target, this research uses random sampling method to create the research sample from Cribis database. The sample consists of SMEs that have been operating in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The research team has also created an on-line survey that is shared by e-mails to the randomly selected respondents. Finally, 176 SMEs from the Czech Republic, 123 SMEs from Slovakia and 109 SMEs from Hungary have Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 875 fulfilled this internet-mediated questionnaire. The respondents are managers and owners of 408 SMEs. Moreover, 181 firms are categorized under the segment of microenterprises, while121 firms are small enterprises and 106 firms are medium-sized enterprises. 305 SMEs have been operating for more than ten years, while the length of doing business for other businesses is up to 10 years. Firms also operate in various industries, mostly in manufacturing, service and retaling. On the other hand, the statements that are written in Table 1 have been directed to the survey respondents to measure their perceptions and predictions regarding the export impediments, performance and bankruptcy. The researchers have applied the Three Points Likert Scale as “1 — disagree”, “2 — neutral”, “3 — agree” to scale the replies of the survey participants for the statements that are shown in Table 1. Therefore, lower values that the respondents select in the questionnaire indicate the fact that SMEs more intensively perceive export barriers, have not healthy financial performance and expect bankruptcy in the long term vice versa. Since the dependent variables are scaled by three-point Likert scale and they all include ranked and categorical data, the research team employs Ordinal Logistic Regression Analyses with the logit function in SPSS Statistics. Logistic regression analyses have been used by many scholars when analysing bankruptcy problems (Lukason & Vissak, 2016), and barriers faced by SMEs when exporting (Köksal & Kettaneh, 2011). Four logit Ordinal Logistic Regression models are created for this research as follows: Logit (P(Y ≤ j)) = β  + β  X  + β  X  (1) where: Y Ordinal outcome, dependent variable (Y 1 : export cost for Model 1, Y 2 : legistlative differences, Y 3 : tax policy differences, Y 4 : cultural-linguistic differences); J categories; X 1 Independent variable (X 1 :performance, same for all research models); X 2 Independent variable (X 2 : bankruptcy, same for all research models); Β 1 Regression coefficients; β 0 Constant or intercept term; P predictor. The sample profile is presented in Table 2. The volumes from Model Fitting, Goodness of Fit and Test of Parallel Lines are used to test the assumptions of Ordinal Logistic Regression. In this context, Table 3 shows the values from these examinations. According to the table, the volumes Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 882 ments can stimulate financing organizations to provide low credit interest rates for SMEs that will start to make export. Thus, SMEs might get opportunities to reduce their export costs. Since most of SMEs lack financial opportunities, they also lack exporting activities and necessary knowledge regardin those operations. Therefore, even though they have executives who have long years of sectoral experience, it does not mean that those executives know the required information to export. In this regard, competencies of executives who having lack of export experince need to be improved. Thus, educational courses, workshops that increase exporting abilities of executives can be provided by state organizations. By having such opportunies, executives might become aware of financial opportunies, export subsidies, consulting activities, promotional supports, technical exporting standarts, legislation in variuous markets. Universities can also implement some courses such as export management, custom regulations and practice to stimulate entrepreneurial abilities of universities. Universities can also collaborate with businesses to enable field trips for students. Firms can also have alliances with other companies to reduce the export barriers and bankruptcy concerns. For instance, when entering the US market small firms from some European countries can have a partner from the US, thus, they might benefit from the knowledge of the partner US firm regarding its local market and reduce the issues regarding the liability of newness in this specific market. Alliances might enable greater financial access opportunities and R&D activities that stimulate innovative abilities of SMEs and reduce their probabilities to be bankrupt. As already stated, the examination of the perceptions of SMEs regarding their financial and export conditions provide clear understanding for prospective readers. This paper is also crucial because it focuses on the impacts of financial issues on exporting issues that are based on internal and external obstacles of firms when doing export. Since the existing studies also fail to find out the influences of entrepreneurs’ self-evaluation of their firms’ financial conditions on the perceptions of export obstacles, this paper also differs from them. The examination of those affects and creations of those relationship among the variables that are belong to various categories of export obstacles and different views (Resource-Based and InstitutionBased views) make a value addition to the literature. Although this paper highlights the impacts of firms’ performance and bankruptcy evaluations on the perceptions of export obstacles by SMEs in detail, these evaluations of SMEs are not based on any performance indicators in financial statements. The reason for that is difficulty in collecting such information. As already mentioned, the performance and bankruptcy predictions are based on firms own evaluations. For these reasons, further Oeconomia Copernicana, 13(3), 867–890 883 studies can evaluate the bankrupcty risk and financial performance by focusing on financial indicators of financial statements. On the other hand, even the researchers analyze SMEs from three various Visegrad countries, more SMEs can be included into the analyses of further studies to have more extensive research sample. References Adu-Gyamfi, N., & Korneliussen, T. (2013). Antecedents of export performance: the case of an emerging market. 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Acknowledgments The paper is an output of the project NFP313010BWN6 „The implementation framework and business model of the Internet of Things, Industry 4.0 and smart transport“. Annex Table 1. Measurements in the questionnaire Export barriers Measurements Export cost “Higher export costs are no obstacle to the export of our products” Legislative differences “Legislative differences are not an obstacle to the export of our products” Tax policy differences “The differences in tax policy are not an obstacle to the export of our products” Linguistic-cultural differences “Linguistic and cultural differences are not an obstacle to the export of our products” Performance “I evaluate the financial performance of our (my) company positively” Bankruptcy “There is no risk of bankruptcy for our (my) company within 5 years” Table 2. Sample Profile Items Categories n Share Country Czechia 176 43.14% Slovakia 123 30.15% Hungary 109 26.71% Total 408 100% Firm size Micro 181 44.36% small 121 29.66% medium 106 25.98% Total 408 100% Firm age up to 5years 50 12.25% 6 to 10 years 53 12.99% more than 10 years 305 74.76% Total 408 100% Firm sector manufacturing 140 34.31% retailing 67 16.42% service 103 25.25% others 98 24.02% Total 408 100% Table 3. Model fitting, Pseudo R-square, Test of parallel lines Assumptions Model fitting Goodness of fit Pseudo R-square Test of parallel lines Models -2 Log likelihood ChiSquare df Sig. Cox & Snell Nagelkerke -2 Log likelihood ChiSquare df Sig. Model 1 79.904 13.778 4 0.008 0.033 0.038 71.254 2.650 4 0.618 Model 2 88.069 7.949 4 0.043 0.019 0.022 76.936 11.134 4 0.125 Model 3 93.657 18.968 4 0.001 0.045 0.053 83.214 10.444 4 0.134 Model 4 84.514 24.917 4 0.000 0.059 0.074 69.950 14.564 4 0.056 Note: Sig.: significance. Table 4. The results regarding 1 st and 2 nd research models Variable Estimate S.E. Wald df Sig. 95% CI [Lower Upper] MODEL-1 Export cost = 1 -0.008 0.327 0.001 1 0.980 [-0.650 0.633] Export cost = 2 1.139 0.333 11.725 1 0.001 [0.487 1.791] Performance = 1 -0.399 0.320 1.549 1 0.213 [-1.026 0.229] Performance = 2 0.121 0.351 0.119 1 0.730 [-0.566 0.809] Bankruptcy = 1 0.468 0.288 2.636 1 0.104 [-0.097 1.033] Bankruptcy = 2 0.423 0.224 3.569 1 0.059 [-0.016 0.862] MODEL-2 Legislative = 1 -0.005 0.329 0.000 1 0.988 [-0.649 0.639] Legislative = 2 0.959 0.332 8.329 1 0.004 [0.308 1.610] Performance = 1 -0.384 0.321 1.427 1 0.232 [-1.013 0.349] Performance = 2 -0.263 0.354 0.552 1 0.458 [-0.957 0.431] Bankruptcy = 1 0.505 0.289 3.050 1 0.081 [-0.062 1.072] Bankruptcy = 2 0.355 0.226 2.467 1 0.116 [-0.088 0.797] Note: S.E.: Standard Error, df: Degree of freedom, CI: Confidence intervals. Table 5. The results regarding 3 rd , and 4 th research models Variable Estimate S.E. Wald df Sig. 95% CI [Lower Upper] MODEL-3 Tax-related = 1 0.277 0.332 0.699 1 0.403 [-0.373 0.928] Tax-related = 2 1.353 0.339 15.943 1 0.000 [0.689 2.017] Performance = 1 -0.385 0.324 1.419 1 0.234 [-1.020 0.249] Performance = 2 -0.226 0.357 0.401 1 0.414 [-0.927 0.474] Bankruptcy = 1 0.984 0.291 11.441 1 0.001 [0.414 1.555] Bankruptcy = 2 0.546 0.230 5.622 1 0.018 [0.095 0.997] MODEL - 4 Cultural = 1 0.383 0.344 1.235 1 0.266 [-0.292 1.058] Cultural = 2 1.605 0.356 20.282 1 0.000 [0.906 2.303] Performance = 1 -0.985 0.336 8.565 1 0.003 [-1.644 -0.325] Performance = 2 -0.344 0.365 0.887 1 0.041 [-1.059 -0.371] Bankruptcy = 1 0.581 0.318 3.342 1 0.016 [0.042 1.204] Bankruptcy = 2 0.562 0.252 4.973 1 0.026 [0.068 1.056] Note: S.E.: Standard Error, df: Degree of freedom, CI: Confidence intervals.