In this study, we examine the impact of community social capital on asymmetric cost behaviour. Community social capital captures the strength of social norms and the density of social networks in a region. As such, it is a socio-economic factor that might affect managerial resource adjustment decisions via different channels. We find that firms headquartered in U.S. counties with high social capital exhibit significantly less asymmetry in cost behaviour. Community social capital restrains managers from taking opportunistic resource adjustment decisions that would induce cost stickiness. This is in line with our additional finding, that cooperative norms acting in an ethical manner are the dominant channel for our setting, by which community social capital affects cost behaviour. Our results corroborate the important role of managerial discretion in cost behaviour and make a significant contribution in understanding how local environmental factors explain differences in firms’ sticky cost behaviour.

在这项研究中，我们研究了社区社会资本对不对称成本行为的影响。社区社会资本抓住了一个地区的社会规范力量和社会网络密度。因此，这是一种社会经济因素，可能会通过不同的渠道影响管理资源的调整决策。我们发现，总部位于美国社会资本较高的县的公司在成本行为上表现出的不对称性大大降低。社区社会资本限制了管理者做出机会性的资源调整决定，而这会导致成本的上升。这符合我们的其他发现，即以道德方式行事的合作规范是我们设定环境的主要渠道，社区社会资本通过该渠道影响成本行为。