The Influence of Covid-19 Pandemic on Consideration of Corporate Social Irresponsibility by Sovereign Wealth Funds

Marty-Jörn Klein, Gabriela Chmelíková and Jozef Palkovič

Central European Business Review, 2025, vol. 2025, issue 2, 45-73

Abstract: Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have a significant influence on global financial markets, with assets exceeding USD 11.2 trillion and accounting for 40% of the world's largest 100 asset owners' total assets. Understanding the drivers behind SWFs' investment decisions is crucial. This study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic related to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and irresponsibility (CSI) compared to financial data on SWFs' investment decisions, analysing 72% of their total public equity holdings from 2019 to 2023. Findings reveal that SWFs prioritize company self-reported environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics over public CSI information when making investment decisions. Furthermore, public equity holding CSI data have a more pronounced influence on the investment decision of SWFs in countries with higher transparency of sustainability. The study underscores the necessity for greater ESG integration into SWFs' investment strategies to demonstrate a commitment to sustainable investing practices. This research illuminates the path towards a more responsible and sustainable approach for SWFs on global financial markets.Implications for Central European audience: Our conclusions could help encourage greater ESG integration into investment strategies and promote sustainable investing practices more broadly, not limited to liquid assets, to showcase a sustainable "walk the talk". A special focus should be put on CSI's development of target investments. Future research might also consider whether the investment behaviour of SWFs is equivalent to that of other major investors, such as insurance companies and public pension schemes.

Keywords: Corporate social irresponsibility; corporate social responsibility; ESG; reputation risk; sovereign wealth funds (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 F64 G11 G32 M14 Q01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://cebr.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.cebr.383.html (text/html)
http://cebr.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.cebr.383.pdf (application/pdf)
free of charge

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:prg:jnlcbr:v:2025:y:2025:i:2:id:383:p:45-73

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Faculty of Business Administration, University of Economics, Prague
http://cebr.vse.cz

DOI: 10.18267/j.cebr.383

Access Statistics for this article

Central European Business Review is currently edited by Jindřich Špička

More articles in Central European Business Review from Prague University of Economics and Business Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stanislav Vojir ().