Institutional Investment and Responsible Investing

Abstract

The four refereed journal articles and one government research report that form the core of this submission for a PhD represent my work in the subject area of institutional investment and responsible investing. The research, as a whole, has two major areas of focus.

One area of focus is the behaviour of institutional investors. The research first examines different types of institutional investor and their demand for the characteristics of social and environmental performance within their equity portfolios. The research next examines the fund managers that institutional investors appoint to manage their assets. Attention is paid to the different locations of fund management as well as the features that determine the degree of competition between fund managers. The research examines these different fund management settings and the demand for the characteristics of social and environmental performance within their equity portfolios. A further issue investigated is whether different types of institutional investor pay greater attention to responsible investment when investing domestically than overseas.

The second area of focus is the study of responsible investment based on grounded research methods. The main contributions are an assessment of how fund managers perceive that responsible investment achieves financial performance, the communication between fund managers and corporate directors for the purpose of responsible investment, the use of information and staff within responsible investment, and costs and charges associated with responsible investment.

Both areas have contributed to policy debates and development, and have prompted other researchers to publish and undertake fieldwork.

The commentary, which forms Part A of this submission, illustrates these features by reference to the five publications that are reproduced in their entirety in part B.