Scandinavian Working Papers in Business Administration

Sustainable Investment and Corporate Governance Working Papers,
Sustainable Investment Research Platform

No 2011/2: Determinants of customer satisfaction with socially responsible investments: Do ethical and environmental factors impact customer satisfaction with SRI profiled mutual funds?

Jonas Nilsson (), Johan Jansson, Sofia Isberg and Anna-Carin Nordvall
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Jonas Nilsson: Umeå School of Business at Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Johan Jansson: Umeå School of Business at Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Sofia Isberg: Umeå School of Business at Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden
Anna-Carin Nordvall: Umeå School of Business at Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

Abstract: Although much research has been published on green/ethical consumer behaviour, the question of how consumers evaluate pro-socially positioned products in the post-purchase stage is still virtually unexplored. This is troubling given the significance of post-purchase evaluations within general marketing theory. To address this gap in the literature, this study examines how a set of technical and functional quality attributes contribute to customer satisfaction in a socially responsible investment (SRI) setting. The results of the study show that perceived financial quality of the SRI mutual fund is the most important predictor of customer satisfaction. However, perceived social, ethical, and environmental (SEE) quality is also positively related to satisfaction for the SRI mutual fund. Based on these results, it is argued that although SEE quality is important to customers, marketers of pro-socially profiled products should primarily focus on conventional quality attributes, as a good SEE record unlikely to generate customer satisfaction alone.

Keywords: Customer satisfaction; ethics; perceived quality; socially responsible investment; mutual funds

20 pages, August 25, 2011

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