This paper investigates whether and how the degree of SG&A cost stickiness differs between chaebol and non-chaebol firms in Korea. The unique feature among Korean firms is the prevalence of large business groups called chaebols and, the differential natures between chaebol and non-chaebol firms drive cost behavior to diverge between two groups. The ownership structure of chaebol firms is characterized by the dominance of single largest shareholder and his family members who typically participate in the management of the firm directly or indirectly and influence most of the importance management decisions. Moreover, the dominant owner plays an influential role in deciding whether to promote the managers or how much to reward based upon the performance of managers. Thus, such monitoring mechanism brought out by unique ownership structure of chaebol system suppresses managers’empirebuilding incentives, a particular Type Ⅰ agency problem, which are known to drive sticky cost behavior as in Chen, Lu and Sougiannis(2012). Under this agency perspective, chaebol firms may have lower degree of cost stickiness compared to non-chaebol firms. To further extent, the agency problems for chaebol firms are not merely on the conflicts of interests between shareholders and managers (Type Ⅰ agency problems) but, also concentrated on the conflicts of interest between controlling shareholders and outside minority shareholders (Type Ⅱ agency problems). Therefore, the differential agency problem among chaebol firms may result in different cost behavior, relative to non-chaebol firms. Although a few literature attempt to examine the cost behavior of chaebol firms, the empirical results have been mixed. We revisit the link between chaebol and cost stickiness in order to resolve inconclusive findings. Based on a comprehensive dataset of Korean firms listed in KOSPI market from 2001 to 2013, we empirically find that the degree of cost stickiness is on average, lower in chaebol firms than in non-chaebol firms, even exhibiting anti-sticky behavior. We further conduct several cross-sectional analyses to examine the effect of firm size and corporate governance (e.g. board independence, the existence of controlling owner as a board member) on chaebol firms’ cost behavior. First, the anti-stickiness in chaebol firms is more prevalent when the firm size is small. Large chaebol firms must bear political costs induced by high media attention making them difficult to divest the resources in response to sales changes whereas, small chaebol firms can have more flexibility in resource adjustments, resulting in a lower degree of cost stickiness. Second, in terms of corporate governance, the anti-stickiness in chaebol firms is more prevalent when the firm has a higher degree of corporate board independence or a controlling owner as a board member. Because good corporate governance measured by board independence effectively monitors managers’ perverse incentives (i.e. empire-building incentives) in addition to controlling owners monitoring managers, less sticky behavior is presented among firms with an independent board. Apart from board independence, the existence of a controlling owner as a board member also reduces the agency problems between shareholders and managers thus, results in a lower degree of cost stickiness. Our study makes several important contributions to the accounting literature. First, we increase the understanding of chaebol firms, in particular how chaebols adjust the resources committed to activities. We contrast the cost stickiness of chaebol versus non-chaebol firms to articulate the differential cost management of chabols compared to non-chaebols. Second, cross-sectional analyses provide further implications on the effects of firm size and corporate governance on differential cost stickiness between chaebol and non-chaebol firms. Lastly, we converge cost behavior studies, which is the primary stream of research in managerial accounting with the key topic in finance or financial accounting, namely Korean chaebols. This study extends the research on cost behavior, and deepens the understanding of chaebols.