Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a mediational model of small businesses success. In this paper, the authors investigate how the human, social, and financial capital of entrepreneurs influences the capacity of small business to succeed. The objective through this model is to demonstrate that it is through the process of innovation these capitals are converted into success. Design/methodology/approach – The paper suggests an original, conceptual framework for how small businesses can succeed. Findings – To validate this mediational model, the authors used the conditions/steps proposed by Baron and Kenny (1986). Research limitations/implications – The results of this study have implications for both research and practice. This study provides a new contribution to the existing literature by introducing the innovation in the explanation of the links between these capitals and small business success, i.e. business with greater access to human and financial resources are more likely to undertake an innovation, which, in turn, ensures small business success and access to more financial capital facilitates the pursuit of resource-intensive success strategies because, it is argued, that slack resources can be used for experimentation with new strategies and practices, allowing the business to pursue new opportunities of success. Practical implications – The proposition is consistent that managers with considerable human capital, social, and finacial capital know where to look for opportunities, can more accurately assess the value of potential opportunities, and have the ability to exploit these opportunities, which encourages innovation. It is this innovation that then facilitates small business success. These resources are important to achieve small business success, but primarily because they encourage innovation, and it is the innovation that drives the small business success. Originality/value – In this paper, the authors extend the entrepreneurial literature by developing a mediation model of small business success. To the authors’ knowledge, it is the first study that examined the indirect effect of human, social, and financial capital of entrepreneurs on small business success through the mediation of innovation. This model has the indirect effect of human, social, and financial capital on success through their impact on innovation, i.e., through the innovation process such capital is converted into success.

PurposeThis paper aims to study the effect of Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation) on corporate tax avoidance as proxied by the effective tax rate.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 944 observations during 2016 was analyzed at three different quantiles (Q 0.25, Q 0.50 and Q 0.75) based on a quantile regression approach.FindingsUsing Hofstede’s (2001) cultural dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation), the authors find that individualism and masculinity are negatively associated with effective tax rates, and this negative relationship is more pronounced under low tax aggressiveness regime (third quantile). By contrast, long-term orientation is positively associated with the effective tax rate, and this relationship is more prevailing under aggressive tax regime (first quantile). These findings remain stable when using cash effective tax rate as an alternative measure for tax avoidance.Originality/valueThis study adds to the extant literature a further understanding of the impact of cultural dimensions on tax avoidance. The use of quantile regression approach shows how the effect of masculinity, individualism and long-term orientation on tax avoidance varies under different tax management regimes.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the relationship between digitalization and money laundering and tests whether ethical behaviour of firms and corruption moderate this association. Design/methodology/approach The sample includes 114 countries during 2016. Basel Anti-Money Laundering Report for 2016 is used to collect data concerning money laundering. Digitalization proxies are collected from digital adoption index from the World Bank for 2016. Finally, the remaining variables are gathered from the Global Competitiveness Report for the same year. Findings Results show negative and significant associations between the overall digitalization score and sub-scores dealing with digitalization adoption by businesses, people and government and money laundering. When testing for the moderating effect of corruption, the negative and significant association remains stable for both low and high corrupt environments for the overall digitalization score and sub-scores dealing digitalization adoption by businesses and people and money laundering. Similarly, ethical behaviour of firms does not moderate the association between digitalization (overall index and digitalization by business and people) and money laundering, as the relationship remains negative and significant for low and high ethical behaviour sub-samples. By contrast, the association becomes insignificant between digitalization adoption by government and money laundering for countries characterized by high corruption and low ethical behaviour of firms, while it is negative and significant for countries characterized by low corruption and high ethical behaviour firms. Originality/value These findings confirm that digitalization effort represents a crucial arm to combat money laundering. It also emphasizes the interrelation that may exist between digitalization effort in governmental institutions and institutional environment, as low levels of money laundering cannot be reached if the digitalization effort undertaken by governments is not supported by low corruption and ethical business environment.