Socially responsible investment in Malaysia: Behavioral framework in evaluating investors' decision making process

Socially responsible investment (SRI) is the method of investment decisions on social, ethics, and/or environment within the context of rigorous financial analysis. This study aims to examine the role of intention, attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control and moral norms in explaining SRI behavior by investors in Malaysia. The underlying framework is the Theory of Planned Behavior (TpB) that has been modified to incorporate moral norms as an additional explanatory variable. Studies that apply TpB in their measurement of behavior indicate a mix of explanations for the relationship of constructs that influence behavior through intention which warrant further examinations. The results based on a questionnaire survey of Malaysian investors suggest that attitude, subjective norms and moral norms have positive effect on intention which in turn positively affects behavior towards SRI. The relationship for attitude, subjective norms, and moral norms to behavior is improved significantly by intention as a mediator. Based on squared multiple correlations (R²), it is found that the final structural model could explain 46% of the variance in intention and 50% of the variance in behavior. SRI providers and policy makers should also consider the influence of social pressure from investors' friends and relatives in their SRI decision-making. Investors' personal standards are also found to influence the intention and behavior to invest in SRI.