Everyday-Life Business Delinquencies of Chinese SME Owners

This study investigates one type of primarily unexplored business deviances, which is characterized as magnitude triviality but wide pervasion in daily business transactions, namely everyday-life business delinquencies (EBDs) of small and medium sized enterprise (SME) owners. Drawing from the recent advancement of strain theory and ethical decision-making literature, this study is seemingly the first to incorporate the socio-psychological perspective initiated by Durkheim and Merton into examining the delinquencies in SMEs. An analysis of 741 Chinese SME owners suggests that materialism and trust in institutional justice have a direct effect on EBDs, which is mediated by ethical standards of SME owners; and also, trust in institutional justice interacting with ethical standards affects EBDs.