BOARD DIVERSITY AND CORPORATE DIVIDEND POLICY OF NON-FINANCIAL FIRMS IN NIGERIA

This paper aims to ascertain the effect of board diversity on the dividend per share of listed nonfinancial firms in Nigeria in both the short and long-terms. Analysis of data on dividend per share, the proportion of female, male and minority members of the of boards of directors of nine sampled listed non-financial firms for the period 2010 to 2018 using the multivariate log-linear regression model shows that increasing the proportion males on the board of listed non-financial firms
positively influences the dividend per share of these firms; and increasing the proportion of females and minority shareholders on the boards of these firms negatively influences dividend per share both in the short and long-runs. Further results show that female and minority membership of boards of listed non-financial firms ranges between 0% to 37%, and 11% to 88 % respectively. This result necessitates shareholders interested in higher dividend per share to appoint more males, and less females and minorities to the board.