Corporate Social Responsibility Indexes

Around 10% of all investments in the United States,
representing 2.3 trillion dollars, are invested in
ethical or screened funds that rely on rating
agencies assessments to determine CSR performance of
firms.
This thesis investigates criteria used by research
agencies that publish ratings of business
organisations in respect of their corporate social
responsibility (CSR) performance and the
relationship of these criteria to underlying ethical
principles. The large variation in results both
within and between agencies suggests that very
significant financial decisions are based, at least
in part, on inconsistent data. I suggest in my
conclusion that if agencies were to consider,
justify and clearly state the ethical basis from
which their criteria derive, then investment
managers and their clients could be more certain
that their CSR principles were being upheld.

Autorentext

Stephen Timperley, MA (Hons) is a business consultant with special interests in the ethical basis of corporate social responsibility. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Waikato investigating Aristotelian virtue ethics as a coherent basis for CSR evaluation.

Klappentext

Around 10% of all investments in the United States, representing 2.3 trillion dollars, are invested in ethical or screened funds that rely on rating agencies assessments to determine CSR performance of firms. This thesis investigates criteria used by research agencies that publish ratings of business organisations in respect of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and the relationship of these criteria to underlying ethical principles. The large variation in results both within and between agencies suggests that very significant financial decisions are based, at least in part, on inconsistent data. I suggest in my conclusion that if agencies were to consider, justify and clearly state the ethical basis from which their criteria derive, then investment managers and their clients could be more certain that their CSR principles were being upheld.