우리사주제도와 기업의 원가행태에 관한 고찰

This study aims to investigate the influence of employee shareholders on the changes in major cost behaviors of corporations. Since the 2000s, the number of domestic employee stock ownership associations has increased rapidly under the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), and by 2021, more than 80% of listed companies have formed employee stock ownership associations. Under the backdrop of increasing formation and activity of associations in domestic listed companies, facilitated by ESOP, we examine the impact of related system on the significant cost behaviors, which are outcomes of managerial decision-making. Employing an extended model derived from Anderson et al. (2003) to verify asymmetric cost behavior, we conduct an empirical analysis of the behavior of cost of goods sold (COGS) and selling, general, and administrative expenses (SG&A) for non-financial listed firms in Korea (KOSPI + KOSDAQ) from 2011 to 2022. The results of the analysis reveal that in firms with a high employee shareholding ratio, the rate of increase in COGS is higher than that in firms without such ownership when experiencing an increase in sales, and conversely, the rate of decrease is lower during a sales decline. Moreover, for the discretionary cost, SG&A, companies with a high employee shareholding ratio exhibit a higher increase in expenses during periods of sales growth compared to those without, while there is no significant difference during sales downturns. Therefore, it can be inferred that within employee shareholder firms, cost rigidity without asymmetry is observed in COGS, while the asymmetry of SG&A is reinforced. This research contributes to the understanding of the impact of the presence of employee shareholders, a crucial internal stakeholder, on the transformation of key cost behaviors that determine corporate profitability. In the field of research that uses Anderson et al. (2003)’s framework of asymmetric cost behavior to reveal various factors that affect cost behavior, this study verifies incentives from the perspective of employees rather than the existing manager's perspective. Therefore, by proposing employee shareholding as one factor that can explain asymmetric cost behavior, a product of rational and intentional decision-making by internal stakeholders, this study expands the domain of cost behavior-related research.