Refining the York Index Investment Criteria

Abstract

There is evidence to suggest that large institutional investors (for example pension funds and mutual funds) are combining socially responsible investment criteria along with their primary criteria of maximization of returns. Additionally investment analysts are increasingly recognizing that intangible assets such as human capital (HC), social capital and intellectual capital contribute to the value creation process of a firm and improve company performance and thus enhance shareholder returns. Measuring these resources can therefore be a powerful tool for active investment management. The link between socially responsible investments and these intangible assets has been comprehensively studied and advocated by a number of academic commentators (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998; Kingsmill, 2003; Wheeler, Colbert and Freeman, 2003) but the challenges in measuring the intangible assets have hindered the process of socially responsible investments in the quantitative world of financial investments. However, based on the premise that some indicators of the quality of human resource management (HRM) are measurable and may be correlated with financial performance, Thomson and Wheeler (2004) devised a set of Human Capital (HC) based investment criteria (the York Index) and Milevski et al (2005) tested these criteria against the financial performance of the SP Reputation of the Employer; Training and Development; and Negative Measures. This is potentially a value added investment analysis tool to assess companies on the basis of their capabilities to create and maintain HC, which is recognized to be an important intangible resource for corporations in the information age.