Corporate culture and bank debt

We examine the relationship between corporate culture and the use of bank debt. We find that U.S. firms with superior corporate culture are associated with less bank debt. We also find that this finding is driven mainly by the teamwork, innovation, and quality dimensions of corporate culture. Our channel analysis shows that the negative relation between corporate culture and bank debt is driven by both information asymmetry and corporate governance channels. Overall, we show that corporate culture has important implications for firms’ bank debt.