IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/euract/v27y2018i4p771-796.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

State Ownership, Socio-political Factors, and Labor Cost Stickiness

Author

Listed:
  • Ronny Prabowo
  • Reggy Hooghiemstra
  • Paula Van Veen-Dirks

Abstract

This article examines the effect of state ownership on the labor cost stickiness of firms in 22 European countries. States are more likely to interfere in the decision-making processes of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and demand firm activities that are desirable from a socio-political perspective. For example, to win political support, politicians may instruct SOEs to avoid layoffs to minimize unemployment rates. The varied objectives of SOEs also make it more difficult to control managers' behavior, leaving more room for managerial discretion and the pursuit of self-interests through empire-building behavior. Both state intervention and managerial self-interest restrain managers from laying off employees or reducing employee wages when sales decrease, which may lead to greater labor cost stickiness. Data from 1993 to 2012 reveal that SOEs exhibit greater labor cost stickiness than private firms, and their labor cost stickiness also varies predictably with socio-political variables such as election years and left-wing governments.

Suggested Citation

  • Ronny Prabowo & Reggy Hooghiemstra & Paula Van Veen-Dirks, 2018. "State Ownership, Socio-political Factors, and Labor Cost Stickiness," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(4), pages 771-796, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:euract:v:27:y:2018:i:4:p:771-796
    DOI: 10.1080/09638180.2017.1329659
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09638180.2017.1329659
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09638180.2017.1329659?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wei, Chunyan & Hu, Shiyang & Chen, Feng, 2020. "Do political connection disruptions increase labor costs in a government-dominated market? Evidence from publicly listed companies in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    2. Komang Ayu Krisnadewi & Noorlailie Soewarno, 2021. "Optimism and profit-based incentives in cost stickiness: an experimental study," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 7-31, March.
    3. Fangjun Wang & Lizhu Ma & Baojun Gao & Yang S Liu, 2024. "Does high-speed railway affect the cost behavior of tourism firms? Evidence from China," Tourism Economics, , vol. 30(1), pages 212-235, February.
    4. Lai, Shaojie & Li, Xiaorong & Liu, Shiang & Wang, Qing Sophie, 2022. "Institutional investors’ site visits and corporate employment decision-making," Journal of Contemporary Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3).
    5. Zhang, Zhuang & Ntim, Collins G. & Zhang, Qingjing & Elmagrhi, Mohamed H., 2020. "Does accounting comparability affect corporate employment decision-making?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(6).
    6. Ibrahim, Awad Elsayed Awad & Ali, Hesham & Aboelkheir, Heba, 2022. "Cost stickiness: A systematic literature review of 27 years of research and a future research agenda," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    7. Chowdhury, Hasibul & Hossain, Ashrafee & Tan, Kelvin & Zheng, Jiayi, 2022. "Do external labor market incentives improve labor investment efficiency?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C).
    8. Mohammed Arkan Sahib Tileal & Farzaneh Nassirzadeh & Mohammad Javad Saei & Davood Askarany, 2023. "The Impact of Ownership Type on Labour Cost Stickiness," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, May.
    9. Khedmati, Mehdi & Sualihu, Mohammed Aminu & Yawson, Alfred, 2020. "CEO-director ties and labor investment efficiency," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    10. Marshall, Ben R. & Nguyen, Justin Hung & Nguyen, Nhut H. & Visaltanachoti, Nuttawat, 2021. "Does a change in the information environment affect labor adjustment costs?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    11. Mabel D. Costa & Ahsan Habib & Md. Borhan Uddin Bhuiyan, 2021. "Financial constraints and asymmetric cost behavior," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 33-83, March.
    12. Sualihu, Mohammed Aminu & Yawson, Alfred & Yusoff, Iliyas, 2021. "Do analysts’' forecast properties deter suboptimal labor investment decisions? Evidence from Regulation Fair Disclosure," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    13. Sophie Wang, Qing & Lai, Shaojie & Pi, Shuwen & Anderson, Hamish, 2022. "Does directors' and officers' liability insurance induce empire building? Evidence from corporate labor investment," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    14. Cristiana Cattaneo & Gaia Bassani, 2020. "Sticky costs: le determinanti e le sfide per manager e accademici," MANAGEMENT CONTROL, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2020(Suppl. 1), pages 103-126.
    15. Shengzhong Huang & Chan Lyu & Xiaojun Lin, 2018. "Is Labor Related to the Duality of Earnings Smoothing?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-20, November.
    16. Tingyong Zhong & Fangcheng Sun & Haiyan Zhou & Jeoung Yul Lee, 2020. "Business Strategy, State-Owned Equity and Cost Stickiness: Evidence from Chinese Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-21, March.
    17. Xiao Dai & Jian Wu & Liang Yan & Qian Zhang & Fangli Ruan & Dan Wang, 2019. "Industrial Structure Restructuring, Production Factor Allocation Analysis: Based on a Mineral Resource-Intensive City—Jiaozuo City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(4), pages 1-19, February.
    18. Christian Riegler & Katrin Weiskirchner-Merten, 2021. "Research note: an analytical perspective on market decisions and asymmetric cost behavior," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 15(4), pages 991-1005, May.
    19. Mitha Dwi Restuti & Lindawati Gani & Elvia R. Shauki & Lianny Leo, 2022. "Does Managerial Ability Lead to Different Cost Stickiness Behavior? Evidence from ASEAN Countries," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-21, July.
    20. Lai, Shaojie & Li, Xiaorong & Chan, Kam C., 2021. "CEO overconfidence and labor investment efficiency," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    21. Matuszak, Piotr & Kabaciński, Bartosz, 2021. "Non-commercial goals and financial performance of state-owned enterprises – some evidence from the electricity sector in the EU countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 1068-1087.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:euract:v:27:y:2018:i:4:p:771-796. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REAR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.