Examining the stickiness of administrative and general expenses in the life cycle

Understanding cost behavior in response to changes in production and sales levels is important for corporate management. In the traditional model of cost behavior, variable costs change in proportion to changes in the level of activity, meaning that the magnitude of the change in costs depends only on the amount of change in the level of activity and not on the direction of change. But a new theory of cost behavior suggests that the percentage increase in costs with increasing activity is greater than the percentage reduction in costs as a result of the same decrease in activity. This type of cost behavior is known as "cost stickiness". Numerous factors affect the stickiness of costs. The purpose of this study is to investigate the stickiness of administrative and general expenses in the life cycle of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. For this purpose, hypotheses have been presented in this study that test and analyze the state of stickiness of administrative and general expenses in the life cycle of companies. The statistical population includes all companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during a 9-year period from 2012 to 2021. From the whole community, 761 companies have been selected and surveyed using the systematic sampling method. To test the hypotheses, regression analysis using panel data method was used. The results show that there is a significant relationship between cost stickiness and company life cycle in the years under review. In other words, the company life cycle reduces cost stickiness in companies. Therefore, activities that are performed to identify the factors that determine the cost structure of companies, should be given the motivation of managers in making decisions related to the costs and resources of these companies, In particular, the motives arising from representation