A bibliometric analysis of socially responsible investment sukuk literature

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the risk-adjusted performance of Brazilian SRI stock funds. Design/methodology/approach – Risk-adjusted performance of 11 Brazilian socially responsible investment (SRI) funds relative to local index funds and matched pairs of funds. Findings – SRI funds performed as well as portfolios representing the broad market on a risk-adjusted basis, both before and during the global financial crisis. Independent investment houses are not interested in SRI funds. Large financial conglomerates may see these funds as part of their corporate social responsibility image strategy. Research limitations/implications – Brazilian SRI funds are a very small niche in the stock mutual fund universe of the country, thus, the small sample (universe) of SRI funds, as far as the author's knew. One cannot say that independent asset managers do not include SRI screening in their stock selection criteria. The use of SRI screening by the most prominent independent asset managers is a potential topic for future research. Practical implications – Brazilian SRI funds did not represent an extra screening filter cost to their investors. The majority of asset managers do not consider this strategy important enough to deserve an exclusive vehicle. Social implications – As SRI funds did not posit an extra screening cost, they may deserve a greater share of the mutual fund market, stimulating more SRI. Originality/value – The performance of Brazilian SRI stock funds had not been examined in the international literature. Brazil has vast natural resources, a very large economy and the fourth largest mutual fund industry in the world, but was overlooked.

Background: The increasing importance of socially responsible investment (SRI) globally highlights the need to understand the factors driving SRI decisions of individual investors. While significant research on factors affecting SRI has been conducted internationally, the context of Nepal remains largely underexplored. Objectives: This study examines how the attitude towards SRI, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control influence the intention to invest in SRI, which subsequently impacts SRI behavior, while also analyzing the mediating role of intention in the relationship between perceived behavioral control and SRI behavior. Methods: This study employed a cross-sectional survey through a comprehensive questionnaire administered among 410 active individual investors in Nepal. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) path analysis was conducted. Results: The findings reveal a positive and significant impact of attitude towards SRI on investor’s intention to invest in SRI. Interestingly, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control did not significantly impact the intention to invest in SRI. Furthermore, intention to invest in SRI and perceived behavioral control have a positive and significant impact on socially responsible investment behavior. Intention to invest in SRI did not play a significant mediating role between perceived behavioral control and SRI behavior. The study demonstrates a positive and significant moderating effect of the financial performance of SRI on the relationship between the intention to invest in SRI and SRI behavior. Conclusion: The study concludes that attitude significantly influences the intention to invest in SRI, while both intention and perceived behavioral control positively impact SRI behavior. Financial performance moderates the relationship between intention and behavior, emphasizing the need to foster positive attitudes and address financial performance to promote socially responsible investment among individual investors. JEL Classification: D53, G11, M14, Q01, O16

Purpose Despite the increasing demand for socially responsible investments (SRIs) and the importance of information intermediaries in providing corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance information through SRI screens, relatively little is known about the relationship between nonprofessional investors’ views regarding SRI, their use of SRI screens and their actual SRI behavior. This study aims to distinguish between investor views about the importance of corporate environmental responsibility (environmental performance importance views) and whether they view environmentally responsible firms as yielding higher returns (environmental performance return views). It examines the association between these views, SRI screen use and reported SRI holdings. Design/methodology/approach Nonprofessional investor participants completed an online survey about their SRI investment views, screen use and investment behavior. The survey yielded 201 usable responses. Findings The strength of participants’ environmental performance importance and environmental performance return views is positively associated with their use of SRI screens and the proportion of their portfolios held in SRIs. SRI screen use only partially mediates the association between investors’ environmental performance importance and return views and their SRI holdings. Research limitations/implications The study does not precisely address what types of SRI screens nonprofessional investors may be using. It does not control for investors’ specific experience with SRIs, nor does it examine how or why investors come to believe that environmental responsibility may improve a company’s return potential. Practical implications The fact that SRI screen use only partially mediates the association between investors’ views and their SRI holdings suggests that either reliable, unfiltered CSR information is important for nonprofessional investors or some investors are choosing SRIs without obtaining adequate relevant information. Social implications The study’s findings confirm earlier research findings which show an association between investors’ pro-environmental views and their decision to invest in SRIs (Williams, 2007; Nilsson, 2008) and suggest that nonprofessional investors are becoming aware of the positive relation between environmental performance and firm value (Dhaliwal et al., 2011; Clarkson et al., 2013; Hawn et al., 2014; Matsumura et al., 2014). Originality/value This study simultaneously examines the influence of environmental performance importance (an “alternative” investment perspective) and environmental performance return (a “traditional” investment perspective) on investors’ SRI behavior.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to show how socially responsible investment (SRI) could represent a powerful tool (trust recovering in political and economic institutions) in the case of failure or stagnation of economic and financial growth. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the current status of SRI in the context of the recent financial and economic crises. The main objective of this analysis is to consider the different benefits and challenges that this type of investment transactions bring into the international economy, and how SRI entrance could represent a major benefit not only for investors a different approach to corporate sustainability but as an important possibility in times of global economic and political crisis. Methodology/approach By analysing the literature about SRI, it has been developed a discussion regarding its benefits and obstacles in today’s financial scenario. By evaluating the performance of SRI in the context of the global financial crisis and the important opportunities regarding development, we would like to present the SRI as an important tool in today’s Post 2015 development agenda. Findings After revising the existent literature, it has been found that there are two important discussions in the field of SRI. The first one is related with the financial performance of SRI in contrast with the conventional investment funds while the second one is related with important considerations about the SRI in the context of the global financial crisis. After considering the arguments from the different authors, we address some conclusions regarding the importance of SRI in nowadays sustainable development discussion. Practical implications Due to failure in the traditional modus operandi of financial institutions and the recent global crises, investors, corporate executives and governments are increasingly paying more attention on the social, environmental and ethical behaviour of individual managers, shareholders and institutional investors. Therefore, it is being observed a shift and maturing process in SRI from an exclusive practice of few and specialised niche investment funds with minor financial implications and limited economic importance, to mainstream adopted by a growing number of institutional investors at the international level. This shift may influence companies and managers to adopt universal values and to assume a committed and strategic CSR agenda to respond to markets and societal expectations, in order to have guilt-free and sustainable investment and sustainable financial markets. Originality/value Within the context of the Post 2015 development agenda, the role of business and the private sector has become crucial for funding the new sustainable development goals (SDGs). This chapter not only discussed the relationship between SRI as an alternative to overcome financial crises and lack of sustainability in investment, but it does also conceptually demonstrates the potential of SRI to achieve the funding of the SDGs.

Globalization and socio-economic changes heralded attention to Financial Social Responsibility. Ever since socio-economic crises have steered social conscientiousness; yet in the aftermath of the 2008/09 World Financial downturn, the interest in understanding social responsibility in the interplay of financial markets and the real economy has reached unprecedented momentum. Financial Social Responsibility bridges the finance world and society through Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), in which securities are foremost selected for social, environmental, ethical and institutional aspects. Financial investment calculus is aligned with ethical, moral and social causes through socially responsible screenings, shareholder advocacy, community investing, and social venture capital. SRI perpetuated in the eye of the 2008/09 World Financial Crisis, given the world-wide attention to social conscientiousness and regulatory financial market reforms. Innovatively scrutinizing financial social responsibility as an en vogue topic of interest helps portraying SRI as a panacea to avoid emergent risks – risks that emerge in complex interactive systems by collective outcomes of individual decision making fallibility over time. When people decide, limitations in their capacity to foresee long-term impacts and the collective outcomes of their choices can contribute to institutional downfalls. Emergent risks can have crucial impacts in the finance domain as the 2008/09 World Financial Crisis outlined. Future research may capture SRI as a real-world relevant means to averting emergent risks within a globalized economy. A nested approach featuring qualitative and quantitative global measurements should aim at gaining information about the interaction of financial markets with the real-world economy. A qualitative analysis of Financial Social Responsibility could retrieve SRI as a means to lower emergent risks within institutionalized market systems in order to avert future economic failures. Capturing stakeholder-specific financial social responsibility practices aims at determining SRI success factors. Mapping globalization market tools and financial market databases could concurrently depict qualitative and quantitative SRI changes in the aftermath of the 2008/09 World Financial Crisis in order to delineate the potential of SRI to avert emergent risks in the aftermath of the 2008/09 financial market downturn. Depicting SRI during this unprecedented time of economic change and regulatory reform holds invaluable historic opportunities to outline a crisis’ potential to ingrain social responsibility and bestow market actors with trust in the global market economy. At the same time, spearheading financial social conscientiousness will aid a successful SRI implementation to avert future economic market downfalls and bestow market actors with trust in the global economy following the greater goal of economic market stability and a sustainable global economy.

Purpose Much of the management research on socially responsible investment (SRI) consists in demonstrating how SRI is good for business and good for society. But the belief that business and market-based strategies will bring positive social and ecological change is far from natural and results in disputes. This study shows how SRI proponents have to develop and combine arguments in order to construct and defend a valid and plausible discourse on SRI that could resist the critiques and appease the disputes resulting from its institutionalization. Methodology We collect articles in the media to identify the SRI controversies. For these disputes, we look at the attempts of SRI to give a robust justification of the particular arrangement it promotes, vis-a-vis a public audience, and we discuss possible resolutions. Findings SRI focuses on appealing to conventional finance with a market logic, resulting in very few challenges of the legitimacy of the existing institutional order. In a few cases, SRI seeks a resolution based on a competing principles resulting in hybrid constructions of compromises, which could be consolidated by SRI models and tools. Implications The results contribute to a better understanding of SRI as it is perceived today, and of how the disputes around its mainstreaming may unfold in the future. This helps us clarify our expectations towards SRI and shows that if we want to address shortcomings in finance, we should probably not rely on SRI as it is defined and practiced in the 21st century.

ABSTRACTThis paper investigates psychological drivers and financial motives that may influence major Swedish investments institutions to adopt socially responsible investment (SRI). Based on an instrument that captures concepts in the Value‐Belief‐Norm theory, and potential financial beliefs that may influence the SRI intentions of investors, a survey was addressed to all major Swedish investments institutions. Fifty‐eight respondents from 17 different investment institutions participated in the survey of whom 31 were conventional (non‐SRI) investors and 27 were socially responsible investors. Our results show that conventional and SRI investors share similar beliefs about short‐term and long‐term performance on SRI investments in that SRI gives less return in the short term but slightly more than conventional investments in the longer term. However, SRI investors express significantly more interest in increasing their future SRI investments than conventional investors do. We discover that future SRI is not influenced by social and environmental concerns. Rather, financial beliefs about risk and beliefs about increased market shares drive SRI forward. The business case for SRI seems therefore to be the only reason for major investment institutions to adopt SRI. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

PurposeThis study aims to explore and comprehend the reasons behind individual investors’ intention towards socially responsible investment (SRI) in the Indian stock market along with examining the validity of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) model to predict such phenomenon in the Indian context.Design/methodology/approachThe TRA has been used as an underlying framework and has been extended by adding four variables, namely, moral norms, environmental concern, financial literacy and financial performance. The study used a self-administered questionnaire and adopted a convenience sampling method for a survey to collect the data from the individual investors from the capital cities of three states of India. Further, the collected data have been analysed using two-step structural equation modelling.FindingsResults of this study indicate a significant impact of attitude, subjective norms, moral norms, financial literacy and financial performance on investors’ intention towards SRI; however, no significant relation was found between environmental concern and investors’ SRI intention. The multiple squared correlation (R2) shows that the final model could explain 71% of the variance in investors’ intention towards SRI, which signifies a successful implementation of TRA model along with new additions to predict investors’ decision-making behaviour for SRI. Moreover, investors are found to be highly concerned primarily about their financial goals and then for their personal obligation towards society as far as SRI is concerned.Practical implicationsThis study reports significant and prominent importance of subjective norms in SRI which could be a strategic theme for the government and the policymakers to influence investors through their opinion leaders to promote SRI. The government should also increase its efforts to facilitate financial literacy among citizens.Originality/valueUsing the TRA model and four variables, namely, moral norms, environmental concern, financial literacy and financial performance addition to its original variables, this study extends the understandings of SRI which is perhaps the novelty of this paper because such examination of SRI has not been conducted, especially in the case of developing countries such as India.

Investment for better future: The synergy of psychological and cognitive antecedents on socially responsible investment.

Today, socially responsible investing (SRI) represents the youngest financial-services industry that investors can exploit to implement their investment strategies. Although literature in this field is growing, additional research is needed to disentangle the factors affecting the performance of SRI funds. This paper focuses on the analysis of the influence that the depth of investment strategy by SRI funds may have on the investment performance, whereas larger SRI funds have a stronger capacity to address their investment choices. We used a sample of 149 USA SRI funds referring to the Social Investment Forum (SIF) Foundation in the period 2005-2010. We found that depth of investment strategy decreases the capacity of large SRI funds to reach positive financial returns if a broad sustainability investment strategy is pursued. On the other hand, SRI funds able to focus the attention on specific environmental, social, governance, or product criteria do increase their capacity to reach positive financial performance. This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining the depth of the sustainability investment strategy by SRI funds and investigating the moderating effect that peculiar investment strategies have on the well-known relation between size and performance of SRI funds. major-bidi;mso-bidi-theme-font:major-bidi;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA'>This paper analyzes the wealth distribution taking into account the reaction of the market to the alliance as an indicator of a successful strategy. It explores the case of the automobile industry, which is characterised by a high use of inter-firm cooperation, such as strategic alliances and mergers & acquisitions, to effectively compete in the global market and face the global crisis.

PurposeThis study aims to test the serial mediation effect of attitude toward socially responsible investing (SRI) and social investing efficacy (SIE) on the relationship of knowledge about SRI with the intention to invest in SRI along with moderating effect of religiosity.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a quantitative analysis approach, wherein the data has been collected from 569 north Indian retail investors. Partial least square (PLS)-structural equation modeling has been applied in this study using the latest version of SmartPLS (v. 3.2.8) software to examine the complex model of serial and moderated mediation.FindingsAttitude toward SRI and SIE significantly and serially mediate the relationship between knowledge about SRI and intention to invest in SRI. Also, the interaction effect of religiosity with knowledge about SRI is significant only for SIE and not for attitude toward SRI.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is cross-sectional in nature conducted only on the north Indian investors. Besides knowledge, there can be many other personal or social aspects that might affect SRI intention that have not been taken into the study.Practical implicationsThe results suggested that the companies, financial advisors and governmental bodies can improvise upon social and environmental performance reporting so that investment in SRI can be promulgated.Social implicationsThe paper concludes that religious-minded people are more open to the idea of investing in SRI. India, being is a religious-minded country, the results of this study suggest that there is good potential for the development of SRI in India.Originality/valueEmpirical evidence regarding the relationship of SRI intention with its determinants is limited in Asian countries. Prior literature mainly provides evidence from developed countries where social and governance systems are comparatively stronger. The study provides evidence for the bright future of SRI in India, where investor’s beliefs are dominated by their religious values.

The chapter conceptualizes the mechanisms that sustain the development of socially responsible investment (SRI). Empirical observations show that SRI has gained unprecedented momentum worldwide in recent years and has diffused on a global scale. The idea of SRI started several hundred years ago (Domini 2001). It was at that time a curiosity and a niche market phenomenon. No one would have ever expected SRI to grow beyond a marginal movement and cross national boundaries. Today, in 2008, SRI is embraced in most countries around the world — Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. The diffusion of SRI is characterized by the increase of SRI funds. Between 1995 and 2007, the number of SRI funds in the US has almost multiplied by five, from 55 to 260 (US SIF 2008) and by eight in Europe from 54 to 437 (SIRI Group 2002, 2007). Another feature of the development of SRI is the diversification of SRI-related products. SRI shifted from one single approach based on exclusion, also called “sin stocks,” to multiple approaches offering different strategies able to satisfy a variety of growing demands.

PurposeIndia is an emerging economy and one of the preferred investment destinations for environmental, social and governance (ESG) fund issuers. Institutional investors invest retail investors’ money, and hence, it becomes imperative for ESG fund managers to understand the social investment preferences of retail investors. This study aims to compare the Indian socially responsible (SR) investors and conventional investors in terms of their socially responsible investment (SRI) awareness level, opinions about broad and specific ESG issues, investment behavior and demographics. In addition, this paper makes an attempt to have a deeper insight into Indian investors’ behavior toward SRI by segmenting the Indian retail investors based on their SRI awareness level, attitude toward ESG issues and intention to accept lower financial returns, and choices made by them as consumers.Design/methodology/approachAfter collecting the data through the survey method an independent t-test is used to compare SR investors with conventional investors. Chi-square has been used to analyze the data related to demographics, and cluster analysis is used to identify segments among Indian retail investors.FindingsThe results indicated that Indian SR investors’ SRI awareness level is more, they are more concerned about broad and specific ESG issues, they are more into faith-based investing, and are responsible consumers vis-à-vis conventional investors. As per demographic, SR investors are in the middle age group of 30–40 years, male, hold a postgraduate degree and have an annual income of 10–20 lakhs in comparison to conventional investors. The results of cluster analysis indicated that Indian retail investors can be classified into three groups based on their SRI awareness, intention to sacrifice financial return, attitude toward ESG issues and choices made by them as consumers.Research limitations/implicationsResults have implications for national and international fund managers, policymakers, regulators and society. These results will help mutual fund companies to provide curated SR mutual funds as per the behavior and choice of retail investors and penetrate the Indian investment market more deeply.Originality/valueThis research study contributes to the literature on SRI by identifying the differentiating characteristics of Indian SR and conventional investors and segmenting Indian retail investors on the basis of their SRI awareness, the importance of ESG issues and choices made by them as investors and consumers.

Globalization and socio-economic changes heralded attention to Financial Social Responsibility. Ever since socio-economic crises have steered social conscientiousness; yet in the aftermath of the 2008/09 World Financial downturn, the interest in understanding social responsibility in the interplay of financial markets and the real economy has reached unprecedented momentum. Financial Social Responsibility bridges the finance world and society through Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), in which securities are foremost selected for social, environmental, ethical and institutional aspects. Financial investment calculus is aligned with ethical, moral and social causes through socially responsible screenings, shareholder advocacy, community investing, and social venture capital. SRI perpetuated in the eye of the 2008/09 World Financial Crisis, given the world-wide attention to social conscientiousness and regulatory financial market reforms. Innovatively scrutinizing financial social responsibility as an en vogue topic of interest helps portraying SRI as a panacea to avoid emergent risks – risks that emerge in complex interactive systems by collective outcomes of individual decision making fallibility over time. When people decide, limitations in their capacity to foresee long-term impacts and the collective outcomes of their choices can contribute to institutional downfalls. Emergent risks can have crucial impacts in the finance domain as the 2008/09 World Financial Crisis outlined. Future research may capture SRI as a real-world relevant means to averting emergent risks within a globalized economy. A nested approach featuring qualitative and quantitative global measurements should aim at gaining information about the interaction of financial markets with the real-world economy. A qualitative analysis of Financial Social Responsibility could retrieve SRI as a means to lower emergent risks within institutionalized market systems in order to avert future economic failures. Capturing stakeholder-specific financial social responsibility practices aims at determining SRI success factors. Mapping globalization market tools and financial market databases could concurrently depict qualitative and quantitative SRI changes in the aftermath of the 2008/09 World Financial Crisis in order to delineate the potential of SRI to avert emergent risks in the aftermath of the 2008/09 financial market downturn. Depicting SRI during this unprecedented time of economic change and regulatory reform holds invaluable historic opportunities to outline a crisis’ potential to ingrain social responsibility and bestow market actors with trust in the global market economy. At the same time, spearheading financial social conscientiousness will aid a successful SRI implementation to avert future economic market downfalls and bestow market actors with trust in the global economy following the greater goal of economic market stability and a sustainable global economy.

Exploring socially responsible investment perspectives: A literature mapping and an investor classification