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This study analyses the role of individuals' objective financial knowledge in shaping preferences for ethical intermediaries and sustainable investments in Italy. Another goal of this study is to assess the impact of individuals' misperceptions about their own financial knowledge and to test for gender-related differences in attitudes towards socially responsible investing (SRI).

Using nationally representative microdata from the Bank of Italy’s “Italian Literacy and Financial Competence Survey” (IACOFI), the authors use probit models, extended to account for potential endogeneity issues, to assess the causal effects of financial knowledge and confidence on stated preferences for SRI. Empirical models also allow to explicitly assess the moderating role of gender on the effects of financial knowledge and confidence on attitudes towards sustainable investing.

Results indicate that individuals' preferences for sustainable finance significantly increase with financial knowledge, suggesting that inadequate financial competencies represent a barrier to participation in SRI. At the same time, lack of confidence in one’s own financial knowledge significantly hampers attitudes towards sustainable investments. Furthermore, the authors show that women have a greater preference for sustainable finance than men and point out that financial knowledge and confidence exert heterogenous effects on attitudes towards SRI.

This study provides several contributions to the literature on SRI. First, the authors give evidence of the causal effect of financial knowledge on preferences for both ethical financial intermediaries and sustainable investments. Moreover, this is the first study to investigate the role of financial underconfidence bias in shaping individuals' SRI attitudes. Finally, extending previous research, the authors assess differences in SRI preferences between women and men and provide novel evidence on gender-related heterogeneity in the effects of financial knowledge and underconfidence.

This study aims to examine the herding behavior of socially responsible exchange traded funds (SR ETFs) in comparison to conventional ETFs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To test for herding behavior, the authors use the cross-sectional absolute deviation and a quadratic market model.

During the pandemic, investments in socially responsible financial products grew rapidly. And investors in the popular SR ETFs herd during this special period, while holders of conventional ETFs did not.

Investors in socially responsible investments must do their own research and make their own financial decisions, rather than follow the crowd, especially during extreme events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

The evidence shows that, during the pandemic, socially responsible ETFs behaved in line with theoretical predictions of herding, that is, herding is more significant during extreme market conditions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the applicability of Preference Similarity Theory (PST) and Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) in identifying the target audience and developing effective marketing strategies, particularly in non-Muslim countries, to increase the market growth and reach of sukuk to broader investor groups and provide recommendations for such strategies.

After separately examining the effects of PST and PMT on marketing sukuk, recommendations are presented from a shared perspective of these two theories.

The findings of this study suggest that understanding the values, beliefs and perceptions of potential investors is crucial for effectively marketing sukuk investments, especially in non-Muslim countries. The PST and PMT provide useful frameworks for tailoring sukuk offerings and communicating effectively about the risks and benefits of sukuk investments to attract investors who identify with the values and beliefs embodied in sukuk.

To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first paper to examine the marketing of sukuk in non-Muslim countries. This study is also the first paper to discuss sukuk in the context of PST and PMT. In addition, this study is expected to guide banks in the marketing of sukuk.

This study aims to examine the value orientations of New Zealand agribusiness investors and how these orientations influence their reactions to the environmental and social implications of agribusinesses.

In the context of the New Zealand agricultural sector, the views of investors as published in print and broadcast media between 2018 and 2022 are gathered. The study uses qualitative content analysis to analyse the data. The study is based on the value-belief-norm theory.

The study reveals that New Zealand agribusiness investors express concern about the environmental (biospheric) and social (altruistic) impacts of the agribusiness sector, prompting calls for greater transparency, climate adaptation and ethical investment options. Additionally, they actively support local businesses to benefit their communities and preserve cultural heritage. Despite these biospheric and altruistic tendencies, investors also prioritise financial and non-financial interests (egoistic). This highlights a nuanced perspective guiding their investment choices – a balance between self-interest and contributing to the greater good. This signals a shift towards socially and environmentally responsible investment practices driven by multifaceted values.

The findings of this study highlight the role of non-pecuniary motives, like values, in determining the relevance of environmental and social information.

The study’s findings offer insight to agribusinesses on how investors’ value orientations shape their investment decisions. This understanding can guide businesses in framing a reporting strategy that enhances the likelihood of investors perceiving reporting as relevant and persuasive, thereby attracting more investments. In turn, this tailored reporting approach assists investors in making well-informed decisions in assessing the environmental and societal risks of agribusinesses.

The study offers a framework explaining how agribusinesses can increase the likelihood of investors finding firms reporting relevant and persuasive, leading to increased investments in environmentally and socially sustainable practices.

While an increasing number of investors value socially responsible investment practices, Bitcoin has faced criticism for its carbon footprint resulting from excessive mining power consumption. By examining Bitcoin’s interconnectedness with environmental, social and governance (ESG) equities, this study aims to construct a socially responsible investment strategy for cypto investors.

This study uses wavelet analysis and a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive (TVP-VAR) model to uncover the interdependence between ESG equities and Bitcoin. This study computes the optimal ratio, showing that Bitcoin significantly reduces portfolio risk when combined with green stocks.

The results show that co-movements between green stocks and Bitcoin are low, indicating that they are suitable combinations for portfolio diversification. From an environmental perspective, this investment strategy offers a theoretical solution to mitigate the negative impacts associated with Bitcoin mining. It aims to address the dilemma faced by sustainability-conscious investors, who must navigate the economic payoff of Bitcoin against their commitment to green investment principles.

The findings can provide valuable insights for policymakers seeking to develop strategies that promote sustainable investments among crypto investors.

Research on ethical investment practices in the cryptocurrency market remains in the early stages of development. Ethical investors can benefit from including Bitcoin in their ESG equity portfolios.

We explore how sustainable management education (SME) can help prepare future leaders to manage crises effectively. Precisely, the intricacies of articulating moral and economic imperatives for businesses in a manner that engages students in sustainable behavior are a serious challenge for SME. We study how to integrate reminders of moral and economic imperatives in a socially responsible investment (SRI) stock-picking simulation created for SME.

Adopting an experimental design, we analyzed how the reminders affected the average environment social governance (ESG) integration in the portfolios of 127 graduate students in finance over a twelve-week period.

Our results show how essential it is to balance the two imperatives. The highest level of sustainable investment is attained when utilizing both reminders.

Our findings have practical implications for implementing and organizing SME in business schools to educate responsible leaders who are able to effectively manage crises. Learning responsible management is most effective when students are exposed to the inherent tension between moral and economic imperatives. Hence, our findings corroborate the win-win conception of SME.

No management decision study has experimentally measured the effects of SME practices on students' actual behavior. Our research fills this gap by complementing previous studies on the effectiveness of teaching practices, first by drawing on behavioral sciences and measuring changes in students' actual sustainability behavior and second by introducing moral and economic imperatives into an innovative teaching resource (TR) dedicated to SME.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on financial constraints (FC). Furthermore, the authors investigate the moderating impact of two key ownership variables, insider and institutional ownership, separately and their interacting effect on the CSR-FC relationship.

The study sample consists of 137 nonfinancial Pakistan Stock Exchange listed firms from 2010 to 2019. Firms’ participation in socially responsible activities is measured using a multidimensional financial approach, whereas FC are determined using the WW index. The findings were observed using the dynamic generalized method of moments model.

According to the findings, CSR has a negative impact on FC. In terms of moderating impact, the interactive variable of CSR and insider ownership does not affect FC, implying that when an insider owns a majority of shares, the negative relationship between CSR and FC is weaker. The findings demonstrate the entrenchment effect of insider ownership. In terms of the moderating effect of institutional ownership, CSR and institutional ownership have a significant but positive relationship with FC, implying that when powerful institutional investors are present, the negative relationship between CSR and FC disappears, demonstrating that higher institutional ownership leads to shareholder conflicts. Finally, the interactive variable of insider and institutional ownership has no statistically significant effect on the CSR-FC relationship. This insignificant relationship does not support the substitution or complementarity effect of corporate governance.

The authors measure CSR activities using a multidimensional financial approach; however, in the future, CSR should be measured using qualitative aspects such as content analysis to strengthen the findings. Because the research is limited to a single emerging economy, Pakistan, the generalizability of the findings is limited. In the future, this research could be replicated in other emerging economies in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The findings of the study will assist regulatory authorities, investors, financial analysts and other stakeholders in better understanding CSR practices in Pakistani firms, as well as the role of CSR and two other important aspects of internal governance mechanisms, namely, insider ownership and institutional ownership, in the CSR-FC relationship.

Few studies in the literature investigate the impact of CSR on FC. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind in an emerging market to empirically test this relationship and further investigate the role of insider and institutional ownership in this unexplored relationship.

This study aims to explore the potential of Islamic climate finance in Indonesia and to map Islamic climate finance based on Islamic finance instruments, both commercial and social.

The analysis was conducted in Jakarta, Indonesia, between October 2022 and June 2023. This study adopted a qualitative interpretive approach in two phases. The first phase was desk-based research which focused on document analysis such as official documents, scientific publications, non-governmental organization publications and company reports in Indonesia. This analysis was conducted to identify significant milestones in developing green and eco-friendly finance that used Islamic financial instruments in Indonesia. The second phase consisted of interviews with essential Islamic climate finance project actors, such as green sukuk publishers, zakat and waqf collection agencies, stakeholders, capital market regulators, Shariah supervisory boards and Islamic finance experts.

The main finding of this study is that the development of Islamic green finance in Indonesia can occur through various channels, including greening Islamic capital markets, greening Islamic social finance, Islamic green finance and developing green banking services for the unbanked to support financial inclusion. Green sukuk, or Islamic bonds, are key financial instruments in Islamic green finance. They are used to fund projects in areas such as clean energy, mass transit, water conservation, forestry and low-carbon technology. These green financing initiatives also include socially responsible investments that are designed to improve the lives of people and communities.

First, the availability of data on Islamic green finance practices in Indonesia may be limited, making it difficult to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape. Second, cultural and religious factors may play a role in the adoption and implementation of Islamic green finance, and these factors may vary across different regions in Indonesia.

The exploration and clustering of Islamic climate finance based on Islamic financial instruments in Indonesia can lead to the development of more sustainable and environmentally friendly practices in the financial industry.

This study serves as a pioneering effort to explore the potential and clustering of Islamic climate finance based on Islamic financial instruments in Indonesia.

The main objective of this paper is to analyze works of literature on SRI sukuk to highlight the potential for these kinds of instruments in financing more sustainable financial systems (SFSs). The analysis mainly accentuates a dearth of knowledge on the various challenges and opportunities in the realm of SRI.

This paper pioneers the bibliometric and systematic literature review of the development of the SRI sukuk from 2016 (the first available year in the field) to and 2021.

The study findings highlighted several pertinent SRI issues: the lack of standardization due to the different interpretations of Shariah and green, the lack of retail investors, which inevitably produce a lack of liquidity in the secondary market, thus limiting their growth, its funding allocation’ close resemblance to green financing, and the role of Malaysia and Indonesia as global sustainable financial hubs to stimulate the development of Shariah-compliant sustainable instruments and contribute to the international debate about the building of a global standardized framework related to sustainable investments.

The integration of the environmental principles of a green bond with the Shariah-compliant financial structure of a sukuk, the SRI sukuk, represents a vital crossroad in both sustainable and Islamic finance. Social-impact sukuk and green sukuk is an undervalued instrument that could play an important role in financing a more sustainable economic and financial system, including Islamic investing. This kind of instruments, which is based on a “pay for success” principle in the conventional layout, perfectly fit with the profit-and-lost sharing’s (PLS's) ethicality, the sustainability principles of Islamic finance and the religious principles of Islamic law.

Grounded in the stakeholder theory and signaling theory, this study aims to broaden the research agenda on environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing by uncovering public sentiments and key themes using Twitter data spanning from 2009 to 2022.

Using various machine learning models for text tonality analysis and topic modeling, this research scrutinizes 1,842,985 Twitter texts to extract prevalent ESG investing trends and gauge their sentiment.

Gibbs Sampling Dirichlet Multinomial Mixture emerges as the optimal topic modeling method, unveiling significant topics such as “Physical risk of climate change,” “Employee Health, Safety and well-being” and “Water management and Scarcity.” RoBERTa, an attention-based model, outperforms other machine learning models in sentiment analysis, revealing a predominantly positive shift in public sentiment toward ESG investing over the past five years.

This study establishes a framework for sentiment analysis and topic modeling on alternative data, offering a foundation for future research. Prospective studies can enhance insights by incorporating data from additional social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook.

Leveraging unstructured data on ESG from platforms like Twitter provides a novel avenue to capture company-related information, supplementing traditional self-reported sustainability disclosures. This approach opens new possibilities for understanding a company’s ESG standing.

By shedding light on public perceptions of ESG investing, this research uncovers influential factors that often elude traditional corporate reporting. The findings empower both investors and the general public, aiding managers in refining ESG and management strategies.

This study marks a groundbreaking contribution to scholarly exploration, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, by being the first to analyze unstructured Twitter data in the context of ESG investing, offering unique insights and advancing the understanding of this emerging field.