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This study aims to evaluate how audit committee (AC) characteristics affect the performance of banks in Africa.

The authors manually generated unbalanced panel data from 78 commercial banks operating in twelve (12) countries whose annual reports were published on the website of African Financials between 2010 and 2020.

The results indicate that AC size has an insignificant positive association with bank performance (return on equity and Tobin’s Q). AC independence has a significant positive association with bank performance. However, AC gender diversity has a significant negative association with bank performance. Besides, AC financial expertise has a significant positive and negative association with return on equity and Tobin’s Q, respectively.

The study considered only 78 banks that operate in twelve (12) African countries. Besides, the authors consider only four (4) AC attributes.

The findings suggest the need to maintain a smaller AC, appoint more independent members to AC, reduce the number of women appointed to AC and ensure most AC members have financial expertise. These measures could improve bank performance in Africa.

Unlike previous African studies that are mostly restricted to a country level, the study examined how AC attributes influence the performance of banks that operate in Africa.

This paper aims to examine the effect of dividend policy on firm value for financial sector in an emerging country. Furthermore, it examines the moderating effect of IFRS adoption and the abolishment of mandatory dividend payment policy with considering the Lintner model of dividend smoothing.

Data were collected from 111 firms listed on Borsa Istanbul in the financial sector in Turkey over 1995–2017. Using an explanatory research design, this study performs various multivariate regression techniques to investigate the proposed relationships.

The outcomes demonstrate a positive and significant association between dividend policy and firm value. In addition, the relationship has strengthened after IFRS adoption, indicating that accounting information such as dividend-based ratios prepared under IFRS is more value relevant. The empirical outcomes supported the Lintner model, which is persistent with the signalling hypothesis. Moreover, the findings state that the abolishment of mandatory dividend payment in 2009 strengthened the association between dividend policy and firm value for financial institutions in Turkey.

These results provide an insight to the investors and managers that the effect of IFRS adoption and other policy changes could be greater on the association between dividend policy and firm value. The study empirically tests Lintner model of dividend smoothing for financial firms in an emerging economy.

This study contributes to the literature through providing vital insights on the relationship between dividend policy and firm value and empirically revisiting the Lintner model for financial sector in a developing economy, specifically Turkey. Furthermore, it addresses the influence of IFRS implementation on the association between dividend policy and firm value. These findings are robust to alternative sampling methods and to controlling for other factors which influence firm value.