The Impact of Community Social Capital on Asymmetric Behavior of Cost

The purpose of this research is investigating the effect of community social capital on asymmetric behavior of cost. Social capital refers to features of social organization such as norms and networks that simplify cooperation and harmony for mutual benefit. Community social capital captures the strength of cooperative norms and the density of social networks in a region. Cost stickiness is a behavioral property of cost that is substantially based on managerial decisions. In this case of cost behavior, managers are quick to expand resources when demand is increasing, but for a variety of reasons choose to stick with unutilized capacity when sales are decreasing. As such, community social capital is a socio-economic factor that might affect managerial resource adjustment decisions via different channels.  

The method of the present research is descriptive-correlation because in this study the principle is to make hypotheses, test them, explain the relationships between phenomena and also analyze the dependent variable based on independent variables.For this purpose, we have collected the financial information related to 191 companies listed in Tehran Stock Exchange during the period of 2012 to 2018 and measure the community social capital index by different provinces of the country. In order to measure the community social capital index, we used the components of participation rate in elections, labor force participation rate, density of social networks and density of non-profit organizations by quarterly method. We also use multiple linear regression patterns to test research hypotheses.  

Research findings indicate that, there is a significant relationship between community social capital and the degree of stickiness in selling, general and administrative costs. In this regard community social capital significantly increases the degree of stickiness in selling, general and administrative costs. The findings also show that, there is no significant relationship between community social capital and the degree of stickiness in the total operating costs and cost of goods sold. Hence, we observe an issue related to the personal motivations of managers and their opportunistic behaviors.

Based on the findings of the study, it can be argued thatcommunity social capital restrains managers from taking opportunistic resource adjustment decisions that would reduce costs stickiness. And this leads to an increase in the degree of costs stickiness. This article confirms the important role of managerial opinion in cost behavior and how local environmental factors show differences in firm’s cost behavior.