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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of mobile customer relationship management (mCRM), service innovation (SI) and word of mouth (WOM) on the investment decisions (IDs) of mutual fund investors.

This paper presents a new model for impacting the IDs of mutual fund investors. To verify the suggested model, Partial Least Squares with Structural Equation Modelling are used. For analysis, a survey questionnaire is designed, and data inputs were invited from more than 400 online mutual fund investors in Delhi NCR.

The outcomes reveal that the ID of mutual fund investors is significantly influenced by WOM. WOM, in turn, is significantly impacted by mCRM applications through SI playing a mediating role.

The limitation with reference to survey respondents was that only online mutual fund investors using mCRM applications were considered. Moreover, this study was conducted in Delhi NRC, and a limited sample was considered.

The result from this research helps the financial organisation to consider SI in their mCRM application as one of the main concerned areas for increased WOM that directly influences the ID of mutual fund investors.

This study highlighted the impact of SI and WOM on the mutual fund investors’ decision, who use mCRM application. The outcome may contribute to the theoretical framework of IDs concerning mCRM applications. The results of this research offer practical implications for financial organisations in strategising their marketing and product development plans in the context of mutual funds. Also, the mutual fund ID through mCRM application is positively influenced by SI and WOM using both constructs as sequential mediating tools. This research offers new insights into mCRM application for mutual fund investors and financial organisations in India.

The present article aims to evaluate the performance of sixteen equity mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market over the period 1/1/1995‐31/12/1999. In doing so, the sample mutual funds were ranked on the basis of their return, total risk, coefficient of variation, systematic risk, and the techniques of Treynor, and Sharpe. Four mutual funds achieved lower return than the General Index of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). All sixteen mutual funds showed lower total risk, and risk‐return coefficient than the General Index of the ASE. In all mutual funds the beta coefficient was statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance. The alpha coefficient was also statistically significant at 5 per cent level of significance in eight mutual funds. The movements of the General Index of the ASE explain more than 80 per cent of the variation in return in all sixteen mutual funds. Eight mutual funds were ranked in the same order on either Treynor’s or Sharpe’s technique.

The present article aims to evaluate the performance of thirty‐nine domestic bond mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market over the period 15/3/1999‐31/12/1999. The ranking of the sample mutual funds is different between the average daily return, and the total risk. On the basis of the coefficient of variation the sample mutual funds are classified in nine categories. The performance of thirty‐three mutual funds is affected, and can be explained to a satisfactory level by the movements in the Bond Index. On the other hand, the performance of twenty‐five mutual funds is affected, and can be explained to a satisfactory level by the movements in the General Index of the ASE. The Bond Index appears to approximate the market portfolio closer than the General Index of the ASE. Twenty‐seven from the sample mutual funds show values for alpha coefficient different than zero value that is assumed by the capital asset pricing model.

The current and ongoing controversy that has come to be known as the “Mutual Fund Scandal of 2003” was based in large part on abusive market timing activities that were allowed to occur in select mutual funds. There are many ways in which amarket timer can steal profits through short‐term trading activities but the primary opportunity arises in those mutual funds that invest in foreign shares of stock. This 2004 article looks at a sampling of those mutual funds that invest in companies based in the United Kingdom and evaluates the potential for abusive market‐timing activities.

The present article aims to evaluate the performance of ten domestic balanced mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market over the period 1/1/1995‐31/12/1998. In doing so, the sample mutual funds were ranked on the basis of their return, total risk, coefficient of variation, systematic risk, and the techniques of Treynor, Sharpe and Jensen. The ten mutual funds achieved lower return than the General Index of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). However, the mutual funds achieved satisfactory return in relation to the total and systematic risk undertaken. The sample mutual funds followed defensive investment policy that was in line with their objectives. The General Index of the ASE appeared to be a close approximation of the market portfolio. To some extent the ranking of the mutual funds varied among the techniques of Treynor, Sharpe and Jensen, although certain mutual funds were ranked in the same order regardless of the technique used. According to Jensen, seven mutual funds had superior performance, while the remaining three demonstrated poor performance.

This study is based on the enforcement record from Canada’s natural mutual fund regulator. This record documented a small subset of mutual fund dealers who had been disciplined for their misconduct from 2007 to 2014. The purpose of this paper is to determine what factors contribute to mutual fund dealers’ time to first financial fraud offense. The longer the time to fraud, the healthier the mutual fund industry and the better a mutual fund dealer’s career.

Based on the belief that adversity reveals true character, the study approaches a mutual dealer’s career success from human capital, socio-demographic and organizational sponsorship points of view by measuring dealers’ success as their time from career beginning to first instance of financial fraud. Ordinary least square regression analysis was used to identify if those factors, including provision of supervisor reminders, gender, position and penalties, are related to career success within the Canadian mutual fund regulatory framework. The research is based on a small sample of mutual fund dealers who had been disciplined for their misconduct from 2007 to 2014.

The study finds that a supervisor’s reminders positively contribute to the career success of a mutual fund dealer in the form of extending their time to fraud. As well, being female is an adverse factor to career success even when both female and male dealers received about the same level of supervisor reminders. It also finds that being in a management position has no association with time to fraud.

The study establishes the statistically significant positive relationship between time to fraud and supervisor’s reminders for mutual fund dealers. At the same time, it shows that human capital and access to organizational resources, measured by being in a management position, have no significant relation to when fraud is committed. This result indicates the value of continuing education for all mutual fund dealers, both inexperienced and experienced.

This study explores the contagion of greenwashing strategies among ESG mutual funds. It investigates how the greenwashing behaviors of peer funds within the same family influence a fund’s decision to engage in greenwashing. The research also examines the impact of greenwashing on genuine ESG funds and explores the mechanisms through which greenwashing strategies spread across ESG mutual funds.

This paper employs a two-stage least squares regression model with cross-fund returns standard deviation as an instrumental variable to disentangle the peer effects of greenwashing from family-level characteristics. The analysis incorporates various fund characteristics and introduces four contagion channels through which greenwashing may influence genuine ESG funds.

The study finds greenwashing behavior in ESG funds is positively influenced by similar practices within their fund family. Larger assets under management and older funds with higher management fees show resilience against greenwashing influences, while team-managed funds are more susceptible. Additionally, socially responsible investors struggle to distinguish between genuine and greenwashing ESG funds, which may contribute to the persistence of greenwashing practices.

This paper contributes to the literature by delineating the mechanisms of greenwashing contagion within ESG mutual funds. It also examines the demand-side incentives for adopting greenwashing strategies, offering insights into the implications for fund flows and investor behavior. This study is among the first to analyze the contagion effects of greenwashing strategies across an extensive network of ESG funds, enriching our understanding of the broader impacts of greenwashing in the context of socially responsible investing.

This paper deeply investigates the herd behavior of the Egyptian mutual funds under changing and different conditions of the market pre- and post-events and compares the impact of asymmetric risk conditions on the herding behavior of the Egyptian mutual funds in both up and down markets.

We test for the existence of herding for the whole period from 2003 to 2022, as well as for the pre-and post-different Egyptian uprising periods. We employ two well-known models, namely the cross-sectional standard deviation (CSSD) and cross-sectional absolute deviation (CSAD) models. Additionally, we use the quantile regression approach.

We find that the behavior of mutual funds does not change following the different political and social events. For the whole period, we find evidence of herding behavior using only the model of CSAD in down-market conditions. We generalize our finding to be evidence of the existence herding behavior in different quantiles, under only the down market in specific points’ pre, post or both given events throughout the whole series. Conversely, during the upper market, we show a full absence of herding behavior considering all different quantiles. When the market is down, managers are afraid of the condition of uncertainty, neglecting their own private information, avoid acting independently and consequently, following other mutual funds. When the market is up, managers become rational and act fully independent.

Future research should delve deeper into the drivers of herding behavior, assess its longer-term effects, develop risk management strategies and consider regulatory measures to mitigate the potential negative impact on mutual fund performance and investor outcomes.

The study reveals that the behavior of mutual funds remains consistent despite various political and social events, suggesting a degree of resilience in their investment strategies. The research uncovers evidence of herding behavior in both high and low quantiles, but exclusively in down markets. In such conditions of market decline, fund managers appear to forsake their private information, exhibiting a tendency to follow the crowd rather than acting independently.

The study reveals that the behavior of mutual funds remains consistent despite various political and social events, suggesting a degree of resilience in their investment strategies. The research uncovers evidence of herding behavior in both high and low quantiles, but exclusively in down markets. In such conditions of market decline, fund managers appear to forsake their private information, exhibiting a tendency to follow the crowd rather than acting independently. Future research should delve deeper into the drivers of herding behavior, assess its longer-term effects, develop risk management strategies and consider regulatory measures to mitigate the potential negative impact on mutual fund performance and investor outcomes.

The paper investigates the herd behavior of the Egyptian mutual funds under asymmetric risk conditions, the study follows the spectrum of the herding behavior analysis and Egyptian mutual funds, extending the research with imperial analysis of market conditions pre- and post-events including currency floating, COVID-19 and political elections. The study gives substantial recommendations for policymakers and investors in emerging markets mutual funds.

Recent empirical and theoretical developments related to the microprocesses of institutional logics have helped to cultivate a powerful theory of agency. We build on these developments to show how the institutional logics perspective can shed light on important questions related to frame construction and how institutions matter. In particular, we show how the emergence of an economic democracy frame in post-war Sweden generated different efforts to define that frame with concrete ideas and practices linked to different logics – socialism and neoliberalism. We show how socialists tried to define economic democracy as requiring a radical transformation in the nature of ownership and control embedded in the innovative financial practice of wage earner’s funds. In contradistinction, conservatives drew on neoliberal ideas and extant mutual fund practices to construct alternative meanings and practices related to economic democracy that enrolled citizens in Capitalism without challenging extant Capitalist ownership structures. While mutual funds and wage earner’s funds initially existed in a state of parabiosis – existing side by side without much interrelationship – struggles over the meaning of economic democracy led these practices to become competing solutions in a framing contest. Implications for the study of institutional logics, frames and the social organization of society are discussed.

As communities grappled with a slew of concurrent disasters in 2020, grassroots mutual aid regained prominence, providing lessons for a more equitable approach to emergency management. Within emergency management, “mutual aid” has come to mean the specific legal mechanisms by which governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sector entities share resources. However, the term “mutual aid” has a much longer history of functioning outside of government and emergency management circles. With a recorded history in Black and Creole communities dating back to the mid-1700s, it has been widely used within communities of color for centuries. To see grassroots mutual aid in practice, the authors present a case study of Imagine Water Works’ Mutual Aid Response Network (MARN) in New Orleans, which was developed in 2019 and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and a record-breaking Gulf Coast hurricane season in 2020. Utilizing Facebook as a platform, the MARN’s “Imagine Mutual Aid (New Orleans)” group saw its membership grow by 5,000 members from March 2020 to March 2021. Within the first week of Hurricane Laura’s landfall, the group welcomed evacuated individuals from Southwest Louisiana and quickly facilitated thousands of requests for support, providing food, housing, clothing, medical devices, emotional support, emergency cash, laundry services, and personalized care for those in non-congregate shelters, as well as locally informed flood and hurricane preparedness information for subsequent storms. Grassroots mutual aid sheds light on root causes and existing gaps within emergency management and provides a model for autonomous community care.