財務資源調整成本與成本僵固性之關聯性分析

Abstract

近年來國內外的實證研究發現，成本隨著作業水準增加的幅度大於其隨著作業水準降低的幅度，此現象即所謂「成本僵固性」。本篇論文旨在延伸國內外對於成本僵固性之研究，探討財務資源調整成本與成本僵固性之關聯。我們預期若公司的財務資源調整成本越高，則越能減輕該公司的成本僵固性，使成本的增減異動呈現較對稱的情況。違反債務條件的財務壓力底下，管理階層產生裁撤成本以支應本息的管理誘因，扭轉原先礙於產銷面資源調整成本而不立即裁撤的管理決策。 本研究採用台灣上市櫃公司1986至2013年之樣本，參考Dierynck et al. (2012)之研究建立迴歸模型，並根據財務危機相關論文加入財務資源調整成本之代理變數，實證結果指出，在營業費用、銷管費用、銷貨成本中皆有成本僵固性的存在，且財務資源調整成本皆能顯著減輕其僵固程度，另外，結合財務槓桿度與自由現金流量的財壓承載率，相較其他財務危機指標，更能反映財務資源調整成本與成本僵固性之關聯。 關鍵字：財務資源調整成本、成本僵固性、成本習性、違反債務條件、財務危機

Recent research on cost behavior has discovered that costs do not change proportionately with changes in sales, costs increase in response to growth in sales is greater than costs decline in response to sales reduction, such costs behavior is named as “cost stickiness.” Our study extends prior research on sticky costs by examining the relation between financial resource adjustment costs and anti-stickiness, which is based on the hypothesis that managers would be more likely to diminish costs while facing the pressure of debt-covenant. Following prior financial distress literature, we develop an index combined financial leverage and free cash flows as a proxy of financial resource adjustment costs. Using a sample of Taiwan listed firms from 1986 to 2013, we found that the phenomenon of cost stickiness truly exists, and our empirical research results provide strong evidence to convince that financial resource adjustment costs induce manage incentive which cause the costs less sticky. Key words: financial resource adjustment costs、leverage、cash flows、sticky、distress