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Abstract
This study examines the cultural dimension in the determination of the corporate capital structure, by exploring the hypotheses that firms owned by Overseas Chinese in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, will have a capital structure reflecting the precepts of Confucianism, and that, in spite of a similarity of ownership, concentration of control, and the distribution of shares, it will differ from the capital structure of firms in geographic areas not influenced by Confucianism. The literature related to theoretical considerations, empirical evidence of cultural influence on capital structure and international experience of cultural influences on capital structure is reviewed. The related Confucian ethics and morals precepts are discussed and a landscape of characteristics of firms owned by Overseas Chinese in SEA is presented. A detailed plan for the empirical part of the study, including the potential sources of information, and a short report on the work in progress is added.