The effects of family involvement on dividend payout in Malaysian public listed firm

This study attempts to examine the relationship of family ownership, family involvement on management and board size on dividend payout ratio. 100 firms from the selected sector in Main Market Bursa Malaysia that consists of 40 family firms and 60 non-family firms are adopted as sample of study from the period of 2015 until 2018. Research questions are answered through analysing data from descriptive analysis, Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression and Panel data regressions (fixed and random effect). This study shows significant positive relationships between family ownership, board size and dividend payout. Meanwhile, family involvement and the firm’s leverage are found to have negative relationship with dividend payout. The study provides insights into corporate finance and governance literature on family ownership firm and family involvement in the management in the context of companies’ payout policies. Besides, the findings is beneficial to a few parties such as investors who aims for investing in high dividend payout firm. Policy makers in Malaysia such as Securities Commissions and Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group (MSWG) can monitor or improve the guideline for the high family-owned firms in order to protect the interests of minority shareholders.