1,721,035 research outputs found
Managed investments, managed disclosures: financial services reform in practice
No full textPurpose: recently enacted Australian law governing financial services requires investment managers to report to what extent social considerations are employed in portfolio construction. Using the principal-agent framework as an interpretive backdrop, the paper aims to analyse institutional responses to the introduction of the legislation. Design/methodology/approach: the paper distinguishes formal, claimed accountabilities from practised accountabilities. It identifies practised accountabilities by examining legislative requirements, noting responses of mainstream investment banking institutions in the period of legislative development, interviewing a sample of investment managers, and examining a sample of information disclosures issued in the initial period of the legislation. Findings: the paper finds that while appeasing investment managers and the lobby group that urged for the disclosures, the non-prescriptive regulations promise little in terms of promoting the integrity of management practices. Initial disclosures were poor, providing little basis for comparability. Research limitations/implications: the paper provides a basis to investigate accountabilities in service-based contractual relationships, particularly managed investments. Originality/value: the paper introduces a new research field: social reporting in financial services. The period reviewed was the initial reporting period in which Australian practitioners were required to issue social reports. Counterpart European legislation has not attracted scholarly attention. A contribution is made to critical research on social investmen
A convention theory approach to corporate morality
No full textEditor's note.
Dr Matthew Haigh from the University of Southampton School of
Management raises an issue which is of concern not only to business ethics but
to moral philosophy in general: the conditions under which a company, as
opposed to an individual can make ethical decisions and behave as a morally
responsible entity. This involves considerations of the nature of practical
moral argumentation as well as recognizing the crucial role of leadership and
corporate culture. The key to a solution consists in the way that individuals
in a company are collectively involved in developing an ethical stance and
modifying that stance in response to perceived inconsistencies in an ongoing
reflexive process of self-criticism.<br/
Social investment: subjectivism, sublation and the moral elevation of success
No full textInvestment products that deploy ethical values and social considerations in portfolio construction have persisted since the 1980s. Pitting Habermasian discourse ethics against Foucauldian power relations and radical institutionalism, the paper argues that socially directed mutual funds ascribe capital markets with validities of high moral magnitude, work up extant tendencies toward financial hegemony and stymie criticism of the political–economic order. Institutional pressures do not permit the exercise of an ethic stronger than an aesthetic care of the self. The balance struck between economic and social priorities is investigated by interviewing investment managers, reviewing archival material and surveying the attitudes of unit holders in retail social mutual fund
Camouflage play: making moral claims in managed investments
No full textThe paper claims theoretical, empirical and normative contributions to the fledgling research on social accountabilities in financial services. Managers of managed (mutual) funds with public social mandates are obligated to pursue clients’ economic interests and exercise claimed moral considerations. Theoreticians working in post-modern accounting are invited to examine alignment difficulties. Guidance is offered in the form of Foucault's resigned response to Nietzsche's moral cynicism. Theoretical antagonisms are empirically illustrated in interviews with managers of social investment portfolios, comparisons of the portfolios of selected Australian social funds with conventional counterparts, and comparisons of selected investment decisions with claimed investment criteria in a sample of Australian social funds. Research has suggested that a recognisably distinct management bias in Australian socially screened investment products may have diffused into the investment styles adopted by managers of conventional unscreened products. The paper suggests that performance convergence might also be attributable to similar stock holdings. The requirement to sustain competitive economic performance renders the use of moral considerations in managed funds as camouflage play. A number of investment policy innovations are suggested that might serve to increase net fund inflows and so bring closer the objective of social investment to transform capita
Financial markets: a tool for social responsibility?
No full textObjectives of socially responsible investment (SRI) are discussed with reference to the two main mechanisms of the SRI ‘movement’: shareholder advocacy and managed investments. We argue that in their current forms, both mechanisms lack the power to create significant corporate change. Shareholder advocacy has been largely unsuccessful to date. Even if resolutions were successful, shareholder advocacy may still be ineffective if underlying economic opportunities remain. Marketing material and investment prospectuses issued by socially responsible mutual funds (SRI funds) commonly contain the claim that, by affecting corporations' access to capital funding, SRI funds can change corporate practices. This paper makes a contribution by presenting the market share of SRI funds in the regions where they are most developed, being Europe, the U.S. and Australia, to show that this claim is unlikely to eventuate. SRI funds also commonly claim that they will outperform conventional active mutual funds. That the economic performances of both are similar might be explained by their similar portfolio compositions. The paper makes an innovation in the SRI literature by adopting a legitimacy framework to explain the continued presence of SRI funds. To achieve desired social and environmental outcomes, SRI funds are urged to address issues at a more systemic level. A suggested mechanism is the collective lobbying of corporations and, especially, government
Incorporating sustainability into accounting education
No full textThis paper chronicles an action research project seeking to incorporate the principles of sustainability into higher education. Both researchers are lecturers in accounting departments in Australian universities and implemented changes in the accounting curriculum. Researcher one introduced sustainability-related material as part of a core technical unit and modified an elective unit which enabled students to further study sustainability. Researcher two modified an existing unit to enable students to critically evaluate their employment options. Both approaches had some success. However, a key difficulty encountered in both projects was the vocational orientation of the student cohort. We conclude that content considering ‘sustainability’ needs framing in terms of employment-related skills if it is to attract a wide range of students. In the longer term, institutional and student paradigms must change in order for such offerings to be considered ‘core
The transnational corporation and new corporate citizenship theory: a critical analysis
Full text linkA recent conceptualisation of corporate citizenship by Matten and Crane (2005) shifts focus onto the corporation's role in providing individuals with the rights they are entitled to as citizens. This expanded corporate role is depicted as filling an institutional vacuum resulting from the withdrawal of the state. Marking an innovation to the corporate citizenship literature, we devise a three-part analytical framework from political institutionalism to question the concept's ideological and empirical groundings. Incorporating a constrained game theory perspective, we use an example of the provision of Western corporate services by low-labour-cost nation-states to argue that the concept as strategy would in some circumstances exacerbate the implications of globalisation on individual citizenship rights. The analytical framework has application for research directed toward proposals to extend the reach of corporations in traditional public services and, more generally, for studies of corporate responsibilities. Future research on corporate citizenship would be strengthened in recognising, as we do, institutional incentives, constraints, decision-making modes and resources as used by the transnational corporation
The evolutionary origin of CIPK16: a gene involved in enhanced salt tolerance
Full text linkAbstract not availableShanika Amarasinghe, Nathan S. Watson-Haigh, Matthew Gilliham, Stuart Roy, Ute Bauman
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