An important goal of ethical investment is to influence companies to improve their ethical and environmental performance. The principal means that many ethical funds employ is passive market signalling, which may not, on its own, have a significant effect. A much more promising approach may be active engagement. This paper reports on a questionnaire study of a sample of 1146 ethical investors in order to assess whether U.K. ethical investors would support more activist ethical investment and whether they would be (...) prepared to invest in companies which are failing ethically in order to do so. The results show general support for the current practice of passive signalling accompanied by "soft" engagement in the form of lobbying and the development of dialogue in order to improve corporate practice. The "harder" options of investing in companies that err in order to change them is, however, favoured by consistent minorities. (shrink)

Building on existing studies suggesting that corporate social performance (CSP) is important in the job choice process, the authors investigate job seekers’perceptions of importance of CSP and explore effects of CSP dimensions on organizational attractiveness. Job seekers consider CSP important to assessment of firms and rate five specific CSP dimensions (environment, community relations, employee relations, diversity, and product issues) as more important than six other CSP dimensions. Using signaling theory and social identity theory, the authors hypothesize differences in effects of (...) CSP data on ratings of employer attractiveness and find that environment, community relations, and diversity dimensions have the largest affect on attractiveness ratings. (shrink)

Socially responsible investment is a rapidly emerging phenomenon within the field of personal investment. However, the factors that lead investors to choose socially responsible investment products are not well understood, especially in an Australian context. This study provides a comparative examination of conventional and socially responsible investors, with the aim of identifying such factors. A total of 55 conventional investors and 54 ethical investors participated in the study by completing mailed questionnaires about their investment and general behaviour and their attitudes (...) and beliefs. Results indicated some important differences between socially responsible and conventional investors in their beliefs of the importance of ethical issues, their investment decision-making style, and their perceptions of moral intensity. These results support the notion that socially responsible investors differ in critical ways to conventional investors, and are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

This paper is a report of an empirical psychological study of the relationship between the ethical and financial beliefs and desires of ethical investors. Semi-structured interviews of 20 ethical investors have been carried out by the project 10 of which have been analysed using qualitative data analysis software. All of our participants faced the problem that, while they had ethical concerns, they were not prepared to sacrifice their essential financial requirements to address them. We found four common ways of dealing (...) with this problem: they divided up their money into core and surplus accounts; they decided that it was enough to only be a partial ethical investor; they avoided detailed consideration of the costs of ethical investment; and they avoided rigorous ethical thinking. One equilibrium position arising from these responses is a portfolio approach to ethics, which allows people to assuage their consciences by investing only a small proportion of their investments ethically, while leaving the rest in non-ethical investment vehicles. (shrink)

The importance of ethical consumerism to many companies worldwide has increased dramatically in recent years. Ethical consumerism encompasses the importance of non-traditional and social components of a company's products and business process to strategic success - such as environmental protectionism, child labor practices and so on. The present paper utilizes a random utility theoretic experimental design to provide estimates of the relative value selected consumers place on the social features of products.

... The purpose of this paper is to try to clarify the extent to which consumers “value” ethical product features when making purchases by utilizing a distinctive methodology – structured choice experiments ( Louviere et al., 2000) – that What Will Consumers Pay ... Jordan J. Louviere ... \n.