Social Capital and Asymmetric Cost Behavior

Social capital represents the power of norms and the density of social networks in a region. An economic, social factor can influence the decision-makers’ decisions regarding management resources through different strategies. Therefore, companies with higher social capital show less symmetry in the behavior of costs. Consequently, consensual capital prevents managers from making decisions that modify opportunistic resources that cause cost adhesion. Therefore, based on this argument, the present study examines the relationship between social capital and asymmetric costs behavior of companies. For this purpose, three criteria of social, occupational, and political communication were used to measure the social capital of managers. The hypothesis testing was performed using regression analysis of a combined set of data related to 73 companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2005 to 2018. Following multivariate regression models, the research findings show that social capital reduces the asymmetric behavior of costs by reducing managers' opportunistic motivations and thus reduces the adhesion of costs in the company. In addition, the result of the second hypothesis is that social capital created through managers' social communication with employees increases management optimism and as a result, the adhesion of costs in the company increases.