The effect of gender diversification in a board on dividend pay-outs in different cultural systems

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the fraction of females in corporate boards of listed companies has a positive relationship with dividend pay-outs. Evidence was found that firms located in Europe and the United States with higher percentage of females in the board have greater dividend pay-outs. However, the question raised whether this positive relationship is affected by the culture. This study has never been done and therefore it is an addition to the existing literature. Other literature found a negative relationship between dividend pay-outs and masculine countries. That means when a country is more masculine, the dividend pay-outs decrease in a country due to the fact that the managers are more competitive, egoistic and only want success for themselves. Masculinity is measured by the cultural dimensions of Hofstede. This added variable could imply that the positive relationship between dividend pay-outs and the percentage of females in the board decrease in strength when adding the effect of masculinity. However, this study found that culture does not affect the positive relationship and therefore we can say that dividend pay-outs increase when there are more females in the board of directors regardless if the company is located in a masculine or feminine country.