Personal values as drivers of socially responsible investments: a moderation analysis

Purpose - The present study attempts to analyze if personal values, namely collectivism, materialism and environment attitude, have an impact on attitude to invest in socially responsible investments (SRIs). Second, it examines the impact of attitude on SRI intention which may further be moderated by religiosity beliefs. Third, the moderated relation is further tested separately for two groups of gender. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses cross-sectional data collected from 534 north Indian retail investors. PLS–SEM has been applied in this study using the latest version of SmartPLS (v. 3.2.9) software to examine the complex model of moderation analysis. Findings - The results of PLS–SEM suggested that collectivism, materialism and environment attitude significantly influenced attitude which further led to SRI intention. The moderating role of religiosity was found to be significant on the attitude–intention relationship. Further, a significantly higher moderation of religiosity was found in females as compared to males. Research limitations/implications - Besides collectivism, materialism and environmental attitude, there could be other facets of an investor's personality that were not considered in the study. The present research was conducted in India, and Hofstede (1980) calls Indian culture to be collectivistic in nature, where the influence of pro-social and environmental concern on SRI intention is bound to be high; thus, findings need to be tested further at the global level. Practical implications - Companies and financial institutions can enlarge their investor base for socially responsible products by propagating tailor-made financial products that can keep the personal values of investors intact in addition to providing satisfactory financial returns. Female investors can be encouraged to invest in SRI by promulgating the aspects of morality and ethics in their marketing and promotion strategies; eventually, this will lead to an upsurge in the proportion of female investors in financial markets. Originality/value - The present study contributes to the growing body of research in the area of sustainable investments. This research has contributed to building and testing a moderation analysis of attitude–intention relationship with respect to SRI by adding investor's religiosity beliefs and his/her gender as moderating variables to better comprehend the relationships under study.