Moral mentor of the company? Multifaceted influence of sustainable and responsible funds on corporate social responsibility disclosure in China

Weian Li, Yupei Liu () and Lixiang Wang
Additional contact information
Weian Li: Nankai University
Yupei Liu: Nankai University
Lixiang Wang: South China University of Technology

Asia Pacific Journal of Management, 2024, vol. 41, issue 4, No 16, 2213-2249

Abstract: Abstract This study investigates whether sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) funds can serve as “social responsibility mentors” of focal firms in a Chinese context. On this basis, we posit that firms’ greenwashing motives may lead to a bias between information disclosure and actual performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using data from China’s publicly listed companies, we find a U-shaped relationship between SRI fund ownership and CSR disclosure quality; intrinsic and extrinsic greenwashing motives can weaken this curvilinear relationship. Furthermore, we examine the influence mechanism and prove that SRI funds use social screening strategies as an indirect channel to affect CSR disclosure. This mechanism is also verified when we consider SRI funds’ number and investment portfolio. We conclude that SRI funds have a multifaceted influence on the CSR disclosure of focal firms, enriching the understanding of SRI funds and corporate sustainability in the capital markets of emerging economies.

Keywords: Sustainable and responsible investment; Mutual funds; Corporate social responsibility; Greenwashing motives; Disclosure quality; Corporate sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10490-023-09900-w Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:asiapa:v:41:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10490-023-09900-w

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10490/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10490-023-09900-w

Access Statistics for this article

Asia Pacific Journal of Management is currently edited by Jane Lu

More articles in Asia Pacific Journal of Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().