The reaction to CSR controversies by institutional investors

Alda, Mercedes (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: Despite the importance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) firm controversies, little is known about their effect on institutional investors. We study the most important institutional investors worldwide: pension funds and mutual funds. The separation between fund management and ownership raises the need to examine how fund managers and fund participants react to investee-firms’ CSR controversies. Considering the conventional/Socially Responsible Investment (SRI-fund nature, we find that investee-firms’ controversies diversely affect fund performance, depending on the controversy type. Furthermore, participants and managers of SRI pension and SRI mutual funds display a passive behavior toward controversies. These attitudes are consistent with enduring behavior and continuity investment policies, such as amending/controlling CSR-firm controversies. In contrast, conventional pension-fund and conventional mutual-fund participants seem guided by traditional investment rules to deal with unsatisfactory situations and respond to controversies after managerial decisions regarding these events with negative reactions. Finally, firms developing CSR-engagement strategies may soften market and managerial reactions toward controversies. Nonetheless, symbolic CSR-engagement practices arouse participants’ responses.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1177/23409444221110588

Año: 2025

Publicado en: BRQ Business Research Quarterly 28, 1 (2025), 15-36
ISSN: 2340-9436

Factor impacto JCR: 2.9 (2022)

Categ. JCR: MANAGEMENT rank: 170 / 227 = 0.749 (2022) - Q3 - T3
Categ. JCR: BUSINESS rank: 114 / 154 = 0.74 (2022) - Q3 - T3

Factor impacto CITESCORE: 7.8 - Economics, Econometrics and Finance (Q1) - Business, Management and Accounting (Q1)

Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.894 - Business and International Management (Q1) - Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous) (Q1) - Economics and Econometrics (Q2) - Strategy and Management (Q2)

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA/S38-20R
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MCINN/RTI2018-093483-B-I00
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/UZ/JIUZ-2020-SOC-02

Tipo y forma: Artículo (Versión definitiva)

Área (Departamento): Área Economía Finan. y Contab. (Dpto. Contabilidad y Finanzas)