CORPORATE BOARD FEATURES AND DIVIDEND POLICY IN NIGERIAN BANKS

The study examined the influence of corporate board attributes on dividend policy decision in twelve Nigerian banks for the period 2009-2021. The independent variable, corporate board features, was surrogated by four attributes (board size, composition, gender diversity and meetings). Dividend per share served as a proxy for the dependent variable, dividend policy. Fixed effects least square regression model was adopted as the study's analytical instrument. Findings reveal that board size, board composition and board meetings have an inverse and significant relationship with dividend per share. The finding further indicates a direct and insignificant association between gender diversity and dividend per share. Overall, result provides empirical evidence in support of substitution hypothesis perspective of agency theory.