The Effective Factors of dividend Policy in Petrochemical Companies: Using Rough Set Theory to Analyze Data from Tehran Stock Exchange

The present study aims at examining the effective factors of dividend policy in petrochemical firms listed in Tehran Stock Exchange. Among all the factors that affect dividend per share, only the variables of firm size, corporate governance, lifecycle, return on investment, return on assets and financial leverage were analyzed. This is an applied piece of research whose design is quasi-experimental and which adopts a post-test approach to data analysis. Data were collected using Rahavard-e-Novin software for the years 2003 until 2014. Data analysis was conducted using Rose software and some rules were obtained through Rough Set Theory. According to the extracted rules of retained earnings, the dividend stock in growth stage of the petroleum companies is affected by the under examination factors. Both, the retained earnings and dividend stocks is more than the average of industry, while cash earning is less than the average of industry. The obtained rules from the companies in maturity stage show that the all effective factors on retained earnings and cash earning. The obtained findings reveal that the retained earnings is less than the average of industry and cash earning is more than the average of industry. Regarding the condition of dividend stock in company’s decline stage, no particular rule was obtained. This indicates that companies decline stage cannot have dividend stock with respect to their age

Keywords:

Cash Dividend , Retained Earnings , Dividend Stock , Lifecycle , Size