The Impact Of Earnings Management Motivation On Cost Stickiness In The Context Of COVID-19

Cost Stickiness has been studied and analyzed by a large number of scholars at home and abroad since it was put forward,which breaks people’s cognition of the traditional cost behavior and shows the asymmetric relationship between cost and business volume.There are many factors affecting cost stickiness,including macroeconomic conditions and earnings management motivation.COVID-19,which broke out in early 2020,has a great impact on the operation and development of Chinese enterprises.Managers will have to cut down the cost greatly in order to survive.In order to achieve some goals,the management will carry out earnings management.One way is to manipulate the cost,which also affects the cost stickiness.At present,few studies have combined the COVID-19 crisis with earnings management motivation to study the impact on Cost Stickiness.Therefore,based on novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak in 2020,this paper selects three common earnings management motives: loss turning motivation,small profit motivation and "big bath" motivation,and studies their impact on the Cost Stickiness of enterprises.At the same time,we will further consider the changes in the Cost Stickiness of enterprises under the dual role of COVID-19 crisis and earnings management motivation,including the loss turning motivation,small profit motivation and "big bath" motivation.Based on the efficiency theory,the "economic man" hypothesis,the principal-agent theory and the incomplete contract theory,this paper uses the ABJ model as a model to verify the impact of earnings management motivation on the Cost Stickiness of enterprises under the background of COVID-19.Through empirical analysis,it is concluded that there is Cost Stickiness in China’s listed enterprises;Earnings management motivation significantly affects the Cost Stickiness of Chinese enterprises,among which the loss turning motivation and low profit motivation weaken the Cost Stickiness of Chinese listed enterprises,and the "big bath" motivation enhances the Cost Stickiness of Chinese listed companies;The COVID-19 crisis has weakened the Cost Stickiness of China’s enterprises.Under the dual function of COVID-19 crisis and loss turning motivation,the Cost Stickiness of enterprises will be reduced.Under the dual function of COVID-19 crisis and small profit motivation,the Cost Stickiness of enterprises will be reduced.Under the dual action of COVID-19 crisis and the "big bath" motivation,the Cost Stickiness of enterprises will increase.