Search results

Sees the objective of teaching financial management to be to help managers and potential managers to make sensible investment and financing decisions. Acknowledges that financial theory teaches that investment and financing decisions should be based on cash flow and risk. Provides information on payback period; return on capital employed, earnings per share effect, working capital, profit planning, standard costing, financial statement planning and ratio analysis. Seeks to combine the practical rules of thumb of the traditionalists with the ideas of the financial theorists to form a balanced approach to practical financial management for MBA students, financial managers and undergraduates.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the signaling and free cash flow hypotheses of dividends in the context of an emerging financial market.

The authors use fundamental financial information of Chinese companies listed in the Shenzhen and Shanghai stock exchanges. They examine the impact of cash dividend payments on future profitability of individual firms with and without controlling for non-linearity in their earnings to test the signaling hypothesis. They also determine the characteristics of dividend paying firms to examine the free cash flow hypothesis.

It was found that while dividend increases by publicly listed Chinese firms are followed by increases in earnings in two subsequent years, such relationship does not exist in the case of dividend decreases. However, under the assumption of non-linearity of earnings, it was found that neither dividend increases nor dividend decreases convey any valuable information about future changes in earnings of Chinese firms. Further, it was found that firms with high cash holdings, large profitability and high managerial efficiency are likely to pay dividends. The authors therefore conclude that announcements of cash dividend payments do not signal future performance but indicate good governance practices of publicly traded firms in China.

This evidence is critical for potential foreign investors in their portfolio investment decisions and for regulators in determining an efficient measure of corporate disclosure in China.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the dividend payments and share repurchases of dual-class firms that have both their superior voting shares and inferior voting shares publicly traded.

This paper uses matched dual-class and single-class samples from 1994 to 2015 and logit models to evaluate the likelihoods of dividend payment and share repurchase between dual-class firms and single-class firms.

The results show that dual-class firms are more likely than the matched sample of single-class firms to pay dividends in both share classes. Dual-class firms, however, are more likely to repurchase their superior shares than single-class firms and their inferior shares.

The results suggest that dual-class firms do not use corporate payouts to either mitigate agency problems or maintain the private benefits of control. Instead, dual-class firms use dividend payments to mitigate agency problems while using repurchases of superior shares to maintain the private benefits of control, which supports the agency payout hypothesis.

This paper highlights the differences between dividend payments and share repurchases as forms of corporate payouts and suggests that firms may choose a particular form for a particular purpose.

This paper provides the first piece of empirical evidence on the corporate payouts of dual-class firms separating their superior voting shares and inferior voting shares.

Using 3,994 observations of Chinese listed firms from 1995 to 2001, we find a significantly positive correlation between state ownership and cash dividend payment, and a significantly positive relation between private ownership and stock dividend payment. In particular, we find that the relation between dividend payment level and ownership structure is nonlinear. The higher the proportion of state ownership, the higher the cash dividend rate. The higher the proportion of private ownership, the higher the stock dividend rate. We conclude that the managers of Chinese listed companies are likely to cater for the preference of different shareholders.

On the basis of principal-agent and financing constraints theories, the purpose of this paper is to construct a unified research framework via mathematical models and to provide a logical and consistent explanation of the contradictory discovery of the relationship between dividend payment and I-CFO in the previous literature.

Establishing the economic mathematical models, this paper uses the comparative static analysis to figure out the equilibrium results, to further testify the conclusions, the authors initiate the empirical tests to make the discussion more realistic.

The authors observe that overinvestment caused by agency problems is the primary reason for I-C sensitivity when the investment expenditure is less than the internal capital; dividend payout suppresses the overinvestment caused by the agency problem, thus alleviating the investment’s dependence on the internal capital. However, underinvestment caused by the financing constraints is the primary cause of I-C sensitivity when the investment expenditure is greater than the internal capital. The payment of cash dividends increases the investment shortage caused by the financing constraints, thus increasing the sensitivity. Further, the authors explore the impact of dividend payments on I-CFO sensitivity. They argue that dividend payment is not an appropriate measure of financing constraints. Both I-CFO sensitivity and I-C sensitivity are functions of agency cost and information cost.

This study provides a logical and consistent explanation of the contradictory discovery of the relationship between dividend payment and I-CFO in the previous literature and provides a clear framework and reference for future studies on the impact of financial constraints, agency cost on the investment’s dependence on the internal capital.

The theoretical model of this paper supports this differentiated mandatory dividend policy and provides reference and evidence for China's financing policies and dividend distribution policies.

This study theoretically and empirically analyzes and verifies the roles of agency cost and financial constraints on the determinants of I-C sensitivity for the first time. First, different from earlier literature, this paper puts forward I-C sensitivity as a new measure of investment’s dependence on internal capital, making the measurement more accurate. In the case of a firm with positive liquidity reserves, using the I-CFO sensitivity as a measure of external financing constraints could overestimate the firm’s financial constraints. Second, by constructing an economic static analysis framework, this study analyzes how I-C and I-CFO sensitivities change with the agency cost, the financing constraints and the dividend payment ratio. The research provides a basic framework and explanation on the contradictions of the earlier literature. The results are supposed to serve as a foundation for estimations of investment’s dependence on internal capital and should be embedded in general empirical tests in future research.

This study aims to examine cash dividend practices of travel and leisure (T&L) companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).

The study uses a panel data set of 524 firm-year observations of 55 unique publicly listed UK T&L companies between 2007 and 2019. First, it uses a modified version of Lintner’s (1956) partial adjustment model for analysis regarding the target payout ratio and dividend smoothing. Second, it performs logit and Tobit models in ascertaining the association between financial characteristics and divided decisions of T&L firms. Finally, it applies the modified specification of the partial adjustment model on different sub-samples that are partitioned based on various financial factors to determine how the financial characteristics of T&L companies affect their dividend behavior.

The results show that UK T&L companies have long-term payout ratios and adjust their cash dividends by moving gradually to their target at a serious degree of smoothing. The findings also detect that financial characteristics of T&L firms (i.e. profitability, debt and size) have significant effects on their dividend payments decisions. In particular, more profitable and larger T&L corporations are more likely to pay cash dividends, whereas T&L companies with more debt are less likely to pay cash dividends in the UK. The results further reveal that although such financial characteristics also have important impacts on the target payout ratios and dividend smoothing levels, UK T&L companies generally adopt stable dividend policies over the period 2007-2019.

This is thought to be the first study to provide insights on dividend policy practices of UK travel and leisure corporation listed on the LSE.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of regulations, reforms and legal environment on dividend policy in a different institutional setting. Particularly, it examines the firm-level cash dividend behaviour of publicly listed firms in Turkey in the post-2003 period, since there were major economic and structural reforms as well as significant regulatory changes of dividend payout rules imposed by the supervisory bodies.

The paper focuses on a recent large panel data set of 264 Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE)-listed firms over a ten-year period 2003-2012. First, it employs a modified specification of Lintner’s (1956) partial adjustment model for analysis regarding target payout ratio and dividend smoothing. Second, it performs a logit model for analysis in identifying the link between financial characteristics and the likelihood of paying dividends.

The results show that ISE firms now follow the same determinants as suggested by Lintner. They, indeed, have long-term payout ratios and adjust their cash dividends by a moderate level of smoothing, and therefore adopt stable dividend policies (although less stable policies compared to their counterparts in the developed US market) as a signalling mechanism over the period 2003-2012. Moreover, the results also report that ownership structure concentration affects the target payout ratio and dividend smoothing in the Turkish market. In addition, the results further show that more profitable, more mature and larger sized ISE firms are more likely to pay cash dividends, whereas ISE firms with higher investment opportunities and more debt are less likely to distribute cash dividends in the post-2003 period.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first major research that examines the implications of reforms and regulations on cash dividend payments and dividend smoothing over time in Turkey during its market integration process in the post-2003 period.

Given the importance of both research and development (R&D) investments and dividend policy in the growth of firms, this paper examines the moderating effects of investor protection and other country-level governance mechanisms on the relationship between R&D investments and dividend payments in the firms from Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS countries).

This empirical study uses a sample of 22,073 firm year observations from the BRICS countries over a period of 2008–2020 and employs both ordinary least squared (OLS) and system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation methods. The GMM estimation controls for unobservable heterogeneity and endogeneity and reduces estimation bias.

The findings indicate that although R&D intensity is negatively related with the cash dividend payments, with the interaction of investor protection and other country-level mechanisms the relationship between R&D intensity and dividend payments becomes positive. The results further show that investor protection has stronger impact on the relationship between R&D intensity and firm cash dividend payments than other selected country-level governance factors.

The research findings should encourage the policy makers in BRICS countries to strengthen investor protection and enhance quality of their institutions to make a right balance between retaining their growth potential and maintaining the value of the firms.

This is the first study to provide evidence of the moderating effects of investor protection and other country-level governance mechanisms on the relationship between R&D investments and dividend payments using the data from BRICS countries.

This study aims to investigate the impact of board independence on the cash dividend payments of family firms listed on the Borsa Istanbul (BIST) in balancing controlling families’ power to mitigate agency problems between family and minority shareholders in the post-2012 period. The authors focus on this period because Turkish authorities implemented mandatory regulations on the employment of independent directors on boards from fiscal year 2012.

The research model uses a panel dataset of 153 BIST-listed family firms over the period 2012–2017, employs alternative dependent variables and regression techniques and is applied to various sub-groups to improve robustness.

The empirical results show a strong positive effect of board independence on dividend decisions. The authors further detect that family directorship exhibits a negative effect, whereas both board size and audit committees have positive influences but chief executive officer (CEO)/duality has had no significant impact on the dividend policies of Turkish family firms since the new compulsory legal requirements in the Turkish market.

The findings suggest that independent directorship and dividend policy are complementary governance mechanisms to reduce agency conflicts between families and minority shareholders in Turkey, which is a civil law-based emerging country characterized by high family ownership concentration.

The authors present evidence that Turkish family firms’ corporate boards have evolved, to some extent, from being managerial rubber stamps to more independent boards that raise opposing voices in family decision-making. However, independent directors’ preference for dividend-induced capital market monitoring implies that their direct monitoring is less effective than it is supposed to be. This suggests a need to revise the Turkish Corporate Governance Principles to enhance independent directors’ monitoring and supervisory power.

This is thought to be the first study to provide insights on how board independence influences dividend policy in controlling agency problems in Turkish family firms since Turkish authorities introduced compulsory rules on the employment of independent directors on boards.

The paper aims to test the stability of dividend policy, test the effect of cash flow on the company's dividend policy, identify the factors that determine a firm's cash dividend payments, and examine the characteristics of dividend‐paying and non‐paying firms.

The hypotheses are tested using unbalance panel data for a sample of 54 Saudi‐listed firms during 1990‐2006.

Saudi firms pay out a lower proportion of their cash flows compared to the proportion of dividends of reported earnings. Firms have more flexible dividend policies since they are willing to cut or skip dividends when profit declines and pay no dividends when losses are reported. Lagged dividend payments, profitability, cash flows, and life cycle are determinants of dividend payments. Agency costs are not a critical driver of dividend policy of Saudi firms. Zakat is found to play a role in explaining firm's dividend decisions.

This paper is the first to study the determinants of dividend policy in a country where companies are required to pay Islamic zakat.