| Summary: | 碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 會計學系碩士班 === 94 === Abstract
This study adopts case study approach and use net sales as cost driver to examine the cost behavior, cost stickiness and source of cost stickiness of SG&A. The sample firms are four merchandising firms in different industries. This study uses detailed historical cost data of individual SG&A expense items to probe the source of cost stickiness.. The empirical results are as follows:
1. Cost behavior: For the merged data, SG&A will vary by 0.277% when net sales changes by 1%. For individual SG&A expense items, the sensitivity to a 1% change in net sales are as follows: personnel cost( 0.270%), traveling expenses( 0.734%), freight charges (0.333%), communication charges (0.335%), entertainment (0.705%), fuel fee (0.797%), utility (0.634%), industrial welfare (0.894%), and other expenses (0.588%).
2. Cost stickiness: In seasonal data, the study finds stickiness in cost behavior of SG&A in firm A, C and D; but the cost stickiness of firm A and D are not statistically significant. When analyzed by year, SG&A exhibit sticky behavior: SG&A rises by 0.575% when net sales increases by 1% and falls 0.401% when net sales decreases by 1%. And, the cost stickiness is stronger in yearly data than any other data.
3. Source of Cost stickiness: Of the individual expense items, stationery, personnel, traveling, communication, repair, advertisement, tax, entertainment, fuel, rental, depreciation and other expenses, all exhibit cost stickiness, with slight differences for each firm. However, only the cost stickiness in depreciation and fuel expenses for firm C and personnel cost for firm D are statistically significant. Moreover, the ranking of sticky phenomenon among the four companies is as follows: firm C > firm D > firm A> firm B.
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