I Am Ready to Invest in Socially Responsible Investments (SRI) Options Only If the Returns Are Not Compromised: Individual Investors’ Intentions toward SRI

Abstract

SRI, or socially responsible investment, is a relatively new concept used to describe an investment that considers social, ethical, and environmental concerns. The purpose of this study is to investigate if collectivism, concern for the environment, financial performance, and awareness of SRI influence an individual’s propensity to invest in socially responsible investments (SRI). Secondly, the study evaluates the influence of the TPB (Theory of Planned Behavior) model constructs, attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on the SRI investment intention of individual investors. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data on 449 individual investors for this cross-sectional investigation. The data were then analyzed further with a two-step structural equation modeling technique performed in Smart PLS 3.2.9. The PLS-SEM analysis found that collectivism, environmental concerns, financial performance, and awareness of SRI all had significant positive effects on attitudes toward SRI, which, in turn, resulted in SRI investment intention. Further, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control had a significant impact on individuals’ intentions regarding SRI.