중소기업의 소유집중도가 배당정책에 미치는 영향

In this paper, we study empirically the effects of ownership concentration on dividend policy of small and medium firms listed on Korea Securities Market and Kosdaq Market. The main results of this study can be summarized as follows.Firms with high ownership concentration pay lower dividends in proportion of operating earnings. This result supports the hypothesis proposed by Shleifer and Vishny(1986) that large shareholders can extract private benefits from corporate resources under their control at the expense of minority shareholders. Firms with high ownership concentration are more likely to increase dividends when change of profitability decreases, and when change of leverage increases. On the other hand, firms with high ownership concentration are less likely to increase dividends when leverage decreases, when change of profitability increases, and when change of leverage increases. And, firms with high ownership concentration are more likely to initiate dividends when M/B increases, when leverage decreases, and when change of profitability decreases. On the other hand, firms with high ownership concentration are more likely to omit dividends when leverage decreases, when change of profitability increases, and when change of leverage decreases.Conclusively, ownership concentration appears to have a critical impact on dividend policy of small and medium firms. Because agency conflicts between large and minority shareholders are mainly due to the presence of large shareholders, those conflicts are logically intensified.