The Impact of Ownership Structure on Dividend Policy: Empirical Evidence from NSE Listed Companies in India

Purpose: The objective of the study is to analyze the influence of ownership structure on dividend policy of selected listed Indian companies. Design/methodology/approach: The top 50 companies listed on NSE (National Stock Exchange) were examined for a period of three financial years from 2022 to 2024. Due to the cross-sectional and time-series character of the data, fixed effect panel model is used as the primary analytical approach. Findings: The results revealed that the firms with higher Indian ownership and institutional ownership distribute higher levels of dividend whereas no significant association was found between foreign ownership and dividend payments, also non-institutional ownership and dividend payout were found to be insignificantly associated. Additionally, it is observed that there is a positive impact of return on assets (ROA) and firm size on dividend payout policy. Originality/Value: Most of the earlier research has looked at one or two forms of ownership to see how they affected dividend distributions; however this study looked at four distinct types of ownership using a separate data set. Furthermore, to the authors’ knowledge, no other study in India has explored this subject in such depth as theirs.