企业标准化建设与成本弹性研究——来自中国A股制造业上市公司的证据

The Impact of Enterprise Standardization on Cost Elasticity:Evidence from Chinese A-share Listed Manufacturing Companies

成本弹性是成本随业务量变动而变动的幅度,由成本结构中的固定成本占比决定,固定成本占比越低的企业成本弹性越大。成本弹性大的企业拥有更强的市场竞争能力和抗风险能力,因此成本弹性是企业战略成本管理的重要一环。本文以2008—2021年A股制造业上市公司为研究样本,检验企业标准化建设对成本弹性的影响。研究发现,企业标准化建设显著提升了成本弹性,且这一关系在产品多元化程度更高、产权性质为国有以及位于契约环境较差地区的企业中更为显著。影响机制分析表明,企业标准化建设主要通过促进生产外包、优化资源配置效率和降低供应链集中度三个渠道提高成本弹性。此外,企业标准化建设还可以降低成本粘性。经济后果检验发现,企业标准化建设所推动形成的弹性成本结构可以显著提高产品的获利能力,且这一效应主要在经济收缩期显著。上述结果意味着,加快企业标准化建设是提升企业成本管理能力的重要手段,有助于企业在新发展阶段适应外部环境变化和应对内部转型升级阵痛。

With the increasing costs of domestic inputs,the growing pressure of using green resources and the intensifying competition from both industrialization of latecomer countries and reindustrialization of developed countries,China's competitive advantage in global supply chains experiences significant changes.Cost has become one of the difficulties for manufacturing enterprises in China to achieve transformation and upgrading and cope with international competition.How to effectively manage cost in the high uncertainty of external environment has become an important foundation for enterprises to achieve high-quality development.In enterprise cost research,cost elasticity is the most relevant to uncertainty management.It is the extent of costs changing with the volume of businesses,and its major determinant is the proportion of fixed costs in enterprises'total costs.The lower the proportion of fixed costs in total costs,the higher the enterprises'cost elasticity.Enterprises with higher cost elasticity are more competitive and more immune to uncertainty.Therefore,these enterprises can better cope with the uncertain impact of the deep adjustment of the global supply chains and their transformation and upgrading.Prior studies on cost elasticity examine the importance of cost elasticity upon uncertainty of the external environment.Most of them explain the variation in cost elasticity choice across enterprises with managerial involvement in resource adjustment and uncertainty management.However,enterprises'cost structure is mainly determined by their production technique and form,especially during periods when the business environment becomes increasingly complex due to technology change.Standardization is the foundation of technological upgrading and lean management.One may consider whether and how enterprises'cost elasticity changes with standardization improvement and lean management.In the current period when the supply-side structural reform is being deepened,and the National Standardization Development Outline is enforced,a relevant research is important in terms of practice and research.We conduct an empirical test and provide evidence for above questions.Our sample is all Chinese A-share listed manufacturing enterprises from 2008 to 2021.We define enterprise standardization as the degree of an enterprise's leading or engagement in nation-wide standards,industry-wide standards,local standards,group-wide standards and enterprise standards.We use Python to collect the related information from qcc.com.We find that standardization increases cost elasticity significantly,and this relation is stronger in enterprise with more diversified products,being SOEs or located in markets with weak contract spirit.Our mechanism analysis finds that standardization increases cost elasticity through production outsourcing,productivity improvement and innovation and reduction of the supply chain concentration.In addition,we provide evidence suggesting that standardization may reduce cost stickiness.The economic consequence of cost elasticity formed in enterprise standardization can improve product competitiveness,and the improvement is stronger during economic contractions.Our paper contributes to existing literature in three aspects.First,it complements and enriches existing literature on cost elasticity choice.Unlike previous studies that focus on non-production factors,it reveals the mechanism of enterprise standardization affecting cost elasticity from the perspectives of production mode,resource allocation efficiency,and supply chain coordination.Second,we use new technique to construct a new dataset on enterprises'participation in standardization.The new data provide new evidence for the positive relation between enterprise standardization and enterprise productivity,show the mechanisms through which standardization increases enterprise productivity,respond to the argument on the pros and cons of standardization and expand literature on economic effect of enterprise standardization.Third,it makes a comprehensive analysis on cost elasticity,cost stickiness and cost level.The analysis provides new evidence for the relations among them and a new guide for China's industrial enterprises to lower their costs.