Late Payments and Ethics of Management: Possible Solutions for Local Economies

Abstract

European countries have faced the problem of poor payment discipline for many years. Despite legislation adopted in 2000 and 2011, the situation is not improving. Not much empirical research has been done about the causes of low payment discipline, and even the work that has been done has been generally focused solely on the financial reasons. The current research tried to determine whether the payment discipline is affected and influenced by management ethics. The study showed that board’s and senior management’s ethics affects the length of the average payment delay to suppliers. Based on this evidence and prior research in the field of moral judgment, this study developed a package of measures against late payments based on the improvement of the moral judgments of management.