Time orientation in languages and agency costs

Despite growing interest in the institutional and cultural determinants of corporate governance, limited attention has been paid to how language structure, particularly Future Time Reference (FTR), shapes agency dynamics. This study addresses this gap by integrating agency theory with the principle of linguistic relativity to examine how FTR—a grammatical feature that affects how languages express the future—impacts agency costs across firms and countries. Building on the premise that language influences temporal cognition, we argue that weak-FTR environments reduce the salience of future outcomes, thereby increasing temporal ambiguity in managerial decision-making and elevating agency costs. Using a panel of 20,225 firm-year observations across 17 countries from 2008 to 2020, we find that firms operating in weak-FTR language contexts experience significantly higher agency costs. However, this effect is not deterministic: it is mitigated by two key governance mechanisms. First, managerial risk perception moderates the relationship by reducing ambiguity-driven discretion among risk-averse executives. Second, institutional ownership functions as an external control mechanism, attenuating the adverse cognitive effects of weak-FTR through enhanced monitoring and accountability. By establishing language as a structural yet overlooked antecedent of agency costs, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of cross-national governance variation. It expands agency theory beyond economic incentives to include cognitive-linguistic framing, offering practical implications for multinational firms and policymakers designing governance systems in linguistically diverse contexts. • Language structure shapes agency costs, revealing a key linguistic influence on corporate governance. • Firms in weak-FTR language contexts face significantly higher agency costs. • Managerial risk perception limits discretion and offsets weak-FTR effects on agency costs. • Institutional ownership strengthens monitoring and reduces language-driven agency conflicts.