The effect of Internal Control Weakness on the Asymmetrical Behavior of Selling, General, and Administrative Costs

Studies have mainly examined the economic implications of internal control weakness from the perspective of external users of accounting information; they have paid less attention to the impact of internal control weakness from the perspective of internal users. That the quality of a company's internal control affects the actual decisions of executives (internal users), as reflected in the Asymmetrical Behavior of Selling, General, and Administrative Costs, with regard to changes in sales activities, so this study sought to investigate this relationship and response. The question is whether the weakness of internal control affects the Asymmetrical Behavior of Selling, General, and Administrative Costs. The statistical population of the companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period 1388 to 1397 with sample of 118 companies. Multivariate regression model was presented to test the research hypotheses and combined data were used for analysis. The results showed that the weakness of internal control had a significant effect on the Asymmetrical Behavior of Selling, General, and Administrative Costs. As a result, the results show that the quality of internal control is an important factor that determines the behavior of administrative, general and selling costs. In general, the results are consistent with the prediction of real options theory, in which poor quality of internal and managerial information is maintained to delay the downward adjustments of sources of administrative, general and selling costs until information uncertainty is partially eliminated.