산업수준 요소들이 판매비와관리비에 미치는 영향

The Effect of industry-level factors on SG&A costs

본 연구는 12년간 패널자료를 이용하여 우리나라 제조업의 판매비와관리비 지출에 영향을 미치는 산업수준의 요소들에 대한 분석을 시도한 것이다. 기존의 연구들은 주로 기업수준의 변수들(대표적으로, 매출액)과 판매비와관리비의 관계에 대해 분석하였다. 그러나 비제조활동에서 발생하는 판매비와관리비 지출은 상당부분이 기업이 속한 산업의 구조적 특성에 의해 영향을 받으므로 그 결정요인을 기업내부적인 요소에 의해서만 찾는 것은 한계를 지닐 수밖에 없다. 이로 인해 판매비와관리비는 상당부분이 재량적인 성격의 비용으로 간주되어 지출규모의 합리성과 효율성 검증을 어렵게 하고 있다. 본 연구는 산업규모, 진입비용, 경쟁정도 등의 산업수준의 변수들이 기업의 판매비와관리비 지출규모에 미치는 영향을 분석하였다. 기업수준, 산업수준, 국가경제수준 등 복수 계층의 변수들의 효과를 분석하기 위해 계층선형모델(hierarchical linear model)을 사용하였다. 분석결과, 판매비와관리비는 매출액을 비롯한 기업 수준의 여러 변수들과 정(+)의 관계가 있으며, 산업규모 및 경쟁정도와는 부(-)의 관계가 있는 것으로 밝혀졌다. 반면에 진입비용에 대해서는 확정적인 결론에 도달하지 못했다. 판매비와 관리비를 별로도 구분하여 분석한 결과, 판매비는 기업수준의 변수들에 의 해서만 주로 영향을 받는 반면, 관리비는 기업수준은 물론 산업수준의 변수들에 의해서도 영향을 받는 것으로 밝혀졌다. 본 연구의 결과는 그동안 기업수준에 한정해 온 원가동인에 대한 관점을 재검토할 것을 요구하는 것으로 보이며, 판매비와관리비의 원가행태에 대한 이해를 제고하고, 원가관리에 도움을 줄 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.

This study analyses industry-level factors affecting size of the SG&A costs in the Korean manufacturing industry using a 12 year panel data set. The extant studies investigated the relationship between mainly firm-level factors(typically, sales) and SG&A costs. The monitoring and control of SG&A costs in the field have also largely been exerted in an ad hoc way. A typical indicator with which to judge the efficiency of the expenditure of SG&A costs is the ratio of SG&A costs to sales, yearly changes in the ratio generally being the concern of investors and analysts. This is in contrast to lots of attention payed to the efficiency of CGS (Cost of Goods Sold). For example, various management tools have appeared and drawn much attention in the area of CGS from practitioners as well as academia. Among them are Just-in-Time, Cell Manufacturing, Total Quality Control, and Activity-based Management, to give a few. The size of SG&A costs are largely affected by the structural characteristics of the industry within which a firm plays. We thus will inevitably reach the limit to the understanding of the behavior of SG&A costs if we try to explore the drivers of SG&A costs from the firm-level perspective only. The existing approaches have long rendered SG&A costs largely “discretionary” and thus difficult to test for rationality and efficiency. With an increasing voice for the efficiency of the expenditure of SG&A costs, however, it will be inevitable to test their efficiency along value chain activities. So far studies on cost drivers mainly have focused on internal business activities. Activity-based costing(ABC) suggests utilizing four conceptual cost hierarchies, the classification made according to the relationship between output volume and costs. Cost drivers advanced by ABC school also are firm-level elements including production volume, machine hour, number of batch, number of products, product complexity, etc. This concept applies not only to manufacturing activities but also to other value chain activities. In this regard, it may be said that cost drivers in ABC are better understood from an endogenous perspective, which is also true for traditional costing systems. More comprehensive, possibly advanced, school of thought concerning cost drivers comes from Shank and Govindarajan(1992), who generically categorize cost drivers into two groups: structural cost drivers and executional cost drivers. Nevertheless, this standpoint still falls into the endogenous cost driver perspectives. These perspectives certainly help explain the underlying drivers of costs of manufacturing activities, but may not help explain the drivers of those of non-manufacturing activities, which are mainly influenced by the factors outside a firm. SG&A costs, the large part of which consist of costs of non-manufacturing activities, have been considered “difficult to manage”, or “discretionary”. One possible explanation for that is the endogenous viewpoint of cost drivers. This study provides an enhanced understanding of the behavior of SG&A costs and helps us control them by exploring the effects of industry-level factors including the size of the industry, entry cost, the degree of competition on SG&A costs. The results using various econometrics models, including pooled OLS, Fixed effect models, Random Effect model and Random Coefficient model, to deal with our balanced panel data set, are analysed and compared. In doing so, a hierarchical linear model is utilized to analyse the effects of variables from multiple classes. The analyses show that SG&A costs are positively related to various firm-level factors including sales, and negatively related to the size of industry and the degree of competition. Unfortunately, however, we could not reach a reliable conclusion concerning the relationship between the entry cost and SG&A costs.