35 years of socially responsible investing (SRI) research: General trends over time

Abstract

This article describes 35 years of academic research into investment practices that in some way integrate a consideration of environmental, social and corporate governance issues. A review of 190 academic papers was undertaken to identify trends in five domains, namely ‘Primary Name’, ‘Research Themes’, ‘Ethical Foundations’, ‘Research Approach’ and ‘SRI Strategies’. The evidence reveals that more than half the researchers refer to such investment practices as Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) and for this reason the name is used in this review as a generic term for the genre. A myriad of other names were also identified. In terms of research themes, one particularly dominant theme was that of financial performance, which was often discussed in relation to fiduciary responsibility and legal aspects. Although the primary ethical foundation was not always directly observable, the majority of papers implied utilitarianism or ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’. Increased mention of ethical egoism (self-interest) is observed in later periods. An equal split between qualitative and quantitative research methodologies was noted, with a qualitative approach being more favoured in recent years. Three SRI strategies have dominated academic discussions over the past 35 years, namely negative screening, positive screening and shareholder activism. Gaps in the literature have been identified and suggestions for future research made.

ESG and financial performance: aggregated evidence from more than 2000 empirical studies

“…CFP measures were defined as accounting-based performance, market-based performance, operational performance, perceptual performance, growth metrics, risk measures, and the performance of ESG portfolios (Cochran and Wood 1984;Orlitzky and Benjamin 2001;Orlitzky, Schmidt, and Rynes 2003;Peloza 2009). We also considered specific parts of a study (Viviers and Eccles 2012;Mayer-Haug et al 2013;Stam, Arzlanian, and Elfring 2014) when its focus was not entirely on the ESG-CFP relationprovided a votecount estimate or effect size calculation was possible. In case of different versions of a review study, the latest versionor ideally, the published versionremained in our sample.…”

Emerging new themes in environmental, social and governance investing: a systematic literature review

“…Previous literature reviews described the institutional setting of the SRI industry (Sparkes and Cowton, ; Juravle and Lewis, ; Renneboog et al ., ) and evaluated the performance literature (Renneboog et al ., ; Chegut et al ., ; Capelle‐Blancard and Monjon, ; Viviers and Eccles, ; Crifo and Mottis, ) but have not thoroughly investigated a wider agenda for future research. Identifying a wider range of ESG investing topics is difficult because of the recent phenomenal growth in this literature.…”

Public Stakeholders’ Salience And Esg Reporting Of Malaysian Plcs: Managers’ Perceptions

“…The concept of ESG has been understood in various way, however the term is generally used in SRI (Viviers & Eccles, 2012;and Cadman, 2011). Other than that, ESG information is also relevant to corporate social responsibility (CSR) elements (Cuesta & Valor, 2013;and Sparkes & Cowton, 2004).…”