Cherry Picking or Depth-Oriented Strategic Investing? Evidence From SRI Activity

Abstract

Today, socially responsible investing (SRI) represents the youngest financial-services industry that investors can exploit to implement their investment strategies. Although literature in this field is growing, additional research is needed to disentangle the factors affecting the performance of SRI funds. This paper focuses on the analysis of the influence that the depth of investment strategy by SRI funds may have on the investment performance, whereas larger SRI funds have a stronger capacity to address their investment choices. We used a sample of 149 USA SRI funds referring to the Social Investment Forum (SIF) Foundation in the period 2005-2010. We found that depth of investment strategy decreases the capacity of large SRI funds to reach positive financial returns if a broad sustainability investment strategy is pursued. On the other hand, SRI funds able to focus the attention on specific environmental, social, governance, or product criteria do increase their capacity to reach positive financial performance. This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining the depth of the sustainability investment strategy by SRI funds and investigating the moderating effect that peculiar investment strategies have on the well-known relation between size and performance of SRI funds. This paper analyzes the wealth distribution taking into account the reaction of the market to the alliance as an indicator of a successful strategy. It explores the case of the automobile industry, which is characterised by a high use of inter-firm cooperation, such as strategic alliances and mergers & acquisitions, to effectively compete in the global market and face the global crisis.

Keywords: depth of investment strategy, ESG criteria, socially responsible investing, SRI funds, sustainability-oriented strategy