Dividend payout and corporate transparency: Do CSR governance mechanisms matter?

In this paper, we investigate whether dividend payout is associated with corporate transparency (i.e., CSR reporting and assurance) and whether CSR mechanisms (i.e., CSR committee and executive CSR compensation) moderate this relationship. The data covering the period between 2002 and 2019 was retrieved from the Thomson Reuters Eikon and country, industry, and year fixed-effects logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the relationships. The results underline that CSR reporting and assurance are positively associated with dividend payout and CSR committee and executive CSR compensation moderate this relationship significantly. Further analyses indicate that the dividend payout and CSR reporting and assurance relationship is robust to endogeneity concerns, regional samples, and economic downturn periods. In addition, we find that different CSR mechanisms have differential moderating roles in Anglo-Saxon and non-AngloSaxon countries; while CSR committee functions a better-moderating role in non-Anglo-Saxon countries, executive CSR compensation performs a better-moderating role in Anglo-Saxon countries.