기업수명주기가 세계철강기업들의 비대칭적 원가행태에 미치는 영향

초록

Prior researches have reported downward cost stickiness, which means that the extent of increasing cost in the case of increasing sales is bigger than the extent of decreasing cost in the case of decreasing sales. Based on these prior researches, this study is to testify whether asymmetry cost behavior including both downward and upward cost stickiness is different by firm life-cycle. When sales increases, firms in declining stage are expected to show upward cost stickiness which means that the extent of increasing cost is smaller than the extent of increasing sales, because declining stage firms hesitate to input more costs despite sale increase. On the other hands, growth stage firms are expected to show weaker upward cost stickiness than declining stage firms, because growth stage firms are willing to increase costs when sales increases. When sales decreases, firms in growth stage are expected to show downward cost stickiness which means that the extent of decreasing cost is smaller than the extent of decreasing sales, because growth stage firms keep investing their resources for future growth despite sales decrease in current period. On the other hands, declining stage firms are expected to show weaker downward cost stickiness than growth stage firms, because these firms tried to minimize loss through cost saving and downsizing. To sum up, declining stage firms are expected to show stronger upward cost stickiness than growth stage firms, whereas growth stage firms are expected to show stronger downward cost stickiness than decline stage firms. This study investigated the difference of asymmetry cost behavior between growth and declining stage firms. The results of this study are as follow:When salse increases, declining stage firms show stronger upward cost stickiness than growth stage firms. Specifically, manufacturing cost and depreciation cost show stronger upward cost stickiness, but other cost components are not different. When sales decreases, downward cost stickiness is stronger in growth stage firms. Manufacturing cost, material cost and depreciation cost shows stronger downward cost stickiness in growth stage firms, but other cost components are not significantly different. The labor cost does not show downward cost stickiness in both growth and declining stage. These results of this study suggest that firm life cycle effect differently on asymmetry cost behavior in manufacturing cost and cost components such as material cost, labor cost and depreciation cost. By analyzing the relation between firm life cycle and asymmetry cost behavior of manufacturing cost and cost components, this study is distinguished from prior researches which examined selling, general & administrative expense without consideration of firm life cycle.

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