Creative corporate culture and corporate tax avoidance

This study examines the association between creative corporate culture and corporate tax avoidance. We construct a novel measure of creative corporate culture through the textual analysis of public firms’ 10-K reports. We find that firms with highly creative culture avoid taxes to a greater extent than firms with less creative culture. This effect is incremental to previously documented effects of research and development and intangible (e.g., patents) on tax avoidance. Overall, our study documents a negative outcome of creative corporate culture on corporate behavior in terms of tax avoidance.