> a management culture that appropriately balances shareholder interest (by paying dividend)

In theory a company should invest in whatever has the most favorable risk-return profile. If it pays dividends, that means dividends are judged by management to be the best risk-return profile among all other alternatives. A company can pay zero dividends and still protect shareholders interests.

If the reason they "prefer" dividends is not because they evaluated the alternatives and decided that the risk-return profile was favorable (for the company, not for themselves in particular)), then they are acting against the interests of the minority shareholders. That may carry legal consequences or not, depending on your jurisdiction. In my country (Brazil), there are laws protecting the interests of minority shareholders. If you have 51% of a company that is listed on the stock exchange, you have significant but not unlimited power.

Also, maybe the company sees it as a risk that, in reducing the dividend, it may suffer in the short term due to the outflux of shareholders who see it as a dividend play. In that case, the risk-return profile of paying zero dividends is not favorable.

1. I did not say anything about how high the dividend is, only that it has been sustained and has not decreased for a long period of time (multiple decades). Some companies on the list currently pay relatively low dividends as well.

2. It is a heuristic, so it will definitely miss a few great companies and some companies on the list will go on to do poorly (not that any method of stock picking will be any different).

Source?