The socially responsible customer segment is growing. Increasingly, customers are concerned about social, political, and environmental issues. These concerns have been shown to affect their attitudes towards the quality of goods and services as well as their buying behaviors. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of empirical research in the service literature on socially responsible customers. This study investigates the role that social responsibility plays in measuring service quality. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used in this study. Focus group and in-depth interviews were conducted to develop a scale measuring the social responsibility dimension in the evaluation of service quality. Confirmatory factor analysis and a multiple regression method were then utilized to test four hypotheses postulated in the study. The social responsibility scale consisted of eight items and was shown to be highly reliable. This scale along with the 22 items from the perception part of SERVQUAL formed the Socially Responsible Customer (SRC) SERVQUAL instrument used in this study. A total of 803 respondents completed the survey. The results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that social responsibility was a salient dimension of service quality and highly socially responsible customers used the concept of social responsibility more pronouncedly than the others when evaluating service quality. The social responsibility dimension alone significantly explained the variance in service quality. However, after accounting for the existing five SERVQUAL dimensions, the social responsibility dimension does not add a significant increment to the variance explained by the service quality regression model. / Ph. D.

Trust law has hindered beneficiaries from exerting their voice in the administration of their funds. Yet, individuals do have opinions on how they want their funds to be invested and wish to direct the investments to align with their values. For a majority of individuals, this influence is mainly through their retirement fund investments. However, trust law means that the ultimate power to decide on the investment process rests in the hands of trustees to act on behalf of all beneficiaries. And trustees also further delegate most investment decisions to the investment managers. The findings of this research, as other researchers have also found, suggests that individuals who have some knowledge of SRI show a greater willingness to invest in sustainable funds. It also suggests that after choosing the type of funds that they wish to invest in, individuals place a lot of trust in their trustees to act in their best interests by investing responsibly. The research explores the various dynamics that are at play that explain individual behaviour and attitudes towards financial planning with regards to their retirement investments. The implications of my findings may have relevance in understanding what drives individuals to become active in the investment arena and may serve as a harbinger to changes in fiduciary relationships as we know them. Further research can be done in this area that will assist policy makers to consider regulation changes that could lead to the greater inclusion of final beneficiaries in the investment management process.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第20400号 / 工博第4337号 / 新制||工||1672(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科高分子化学専攻 / (主査)教授 中條 善樹, 教授 秋吉 一成, 教授 古賀 毅 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DGAM

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the Swedish sustainable and responsible investment (SRI) market focusing on pension and life insurance companies. The purpose is to understand how the companies work with SRI and if there is a process in place to follow-up the investments and their possible impact. In the thesis a qualitative research method is conducted as the purpose is to understand the behaviour of the different companies relating to SRI. The empirical study consists of interviews with representatives from larger companies in the pension and life insurance space focusing on how they conduct their SRI work. The finding in this paper is that there are similarities regarding SRI strategies in place however the type of insurance being offered affects how they work. This thesis found that all companies follow-up their investments to ensure that they are sustainable. Further the process of measuring the impact of SRI is very much still in its early stage but there are initiatives taken to measure both soft and hard measurements. The future of the SRI market seems to be moving towards more transparency, both from possible legislation as well as initiatives. The other key area of focus when looking to the future of SRI in Sweden, is the sustainable development goals created by the UN.

This research study examines the risk-adjusted performance and portfolio risk of 60 large cap equity funds - mutual funds - under Swedish management. These funds apply environmental, social and governance criteria in their investment strategies. The empirical context concerns the COVID-19 situation and the context is divided into three periods, before, during and after the COVID-19 crisis. The ESG concept, modern portfolio and stakeholder theories are used to develop a theoretical base for the study on which the hypotheses are based which are summarized in a conceptual model. Secondary data regarding ESG and risk-adjusted returns are collected for each fund based on which the sharpe ratios and standard deviations (total or portfolio risk) for each fund are calculated. While there are associations between ESG and portfolio risk, no associations are found between ESG and sharpe ratios. As a result, this confirms the fact that ESG could be characterized as a mechanism to protect against downside risk in poor economic times but no association was established that ESG could also be used as a mechanism to determine efficiency in terms of risk-adjusted performance

Traditional investing is mainly concerned with creating a financial return on investment for the investor and hence disregards other non-financial issues such as adverse environmental and societal impacts. This negligence of negative impacts in the investment process is beginning to be addressed with the emergence of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing, socially responsible investing (SRI), and other sustainable investing types. Therefore, this thesis aims to establish if and how large Nordic institutional asset owners integrate sustainability and ESG concerns into their respective investment processes. Moreover, a secondary goal is to determine what type of investing the current investment processes of the seasset owners resembles most. The thesis utilizes a qualitative methodology in order to gather the necessary data-points. All the information in this thesis comes from publicly available sources such as annual reports and sustainability reports. The study found that the asset owners analyzed utilize ESG integration in their investment processes. The asset owners have specific guidelines that pertain to ESG issues, and screen for non-compliance to ensure that investments with potentially detrimental effects on society are excluded from their respective portfolios. Aminority of the asset owners also utilizes best-in-class screening to identify investments with the strongest ESG performance. Hence, the asset owners, in general, are located between SRI and ESG investing on the motivation spectrum.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a widely disputed and constantly evolving topic. One of the most recent methods of assessing CSR in South Africa has been through the usage of the Financial Times Stock Exchange/Johannesburg Stock Exchange (FTSE/JSE) Responsible Investment Index. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Socially Responsible Investment Index (SRI Index) was founded in 2004 and was replaced by the FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index in 2015. The index evaluates listed firms based on their triple bottom line performance i.e., environment, society, and economy. The index includes companies that are thought to have good CSR policies. This study assesses the effects of CSR on the Corporate Financial Performance (CFP) of firms listed on the JSE that were included in the FTSE/JSE All Share Index (ALSI) as of the 31st of January 2021. This it does by analyzing the stock's financial performance over a five-year period between the 2015 and 2019 financial years. The requirements for stocks to be included in this study is that they must have had an average market capitalization between R2 billion and R100 billion between the 2015 and 2019 financial years and are not part of the real estate sector. The results of the nonparametric (Mann-Whitney) tests show that companies that are part of the FTSE/JSE Responsible Investment Index perform better on average than those that are not included in the index. This conclusion is based on a review of the total return index (TRI), return on equity ratio (ROE), price-earnings ratio (PE), and the market-to-book ratio (MB). The analysis conducted using the net profit margin (NPM) as a measure of financial performance show that there is no relationship between CSR and financial performance. The Mann-Whitney test results where the return on assets (ROA) ratio was used showed a negative relationship between CSR and financial performance.

Besides entailing various benefits, AI technologies have also led to increased ethical concerns. Due to the growing attention, a large number of frameworks discussing responsible AI development have been released since 2016. This work aims at analyzing some of these proposals to answer the question (1) “Which approaches can be found to ensure responsible AI development?” For this, the theory section of this paper is looking at various approaches, including (inter-)governmental regulations, research organizations and private companies.  Further, expert interviews have been conducted to answer the second research question (2) “How can a unified solution be reached to ensure responsible AI development?” The results of the study have identified the governments as the main driver of this process. Overall, a detailed plan is necessary that brings together the public and private sector as well as research organizations. The paper also points out the importance of education in regard to making AI explainable and comprehensive for everyone. / Utöver de fördelar som AI-teknologier har bidragit med, så har även etiska dilemman och problem uppstått. På grund av ökat fokus, har ett stort antal förslag till system och regelverk som diskuterar ansvarstagande AI-utveckling publicerats sedan 2016. Denna rapport kommer analysera ett urval av dessa förslag med avsikt att besvara frågan (1) “Vilka tillvägagångssätt kan försäkra oss om en ansvarsfull AI-utveckling?” För att utforska denna fråga kommer denna rapport analysera olika metoder och tillvägagångssätt, på bland annat mellanstatliga- och statliga regelverk, forskningsgrupper samt privata företag. Dessutom har expertintervjuer genomförts för att besvara den andra problemformuleringen (2) “Hur kan vi nå en övergripande, gemensam, lösning för att försäkra oss om ansvarsfull AI-utveckling?” Denna rapport redogör för att statliga organisationer och myndigheter är den främsta drivkraften för att detta ska ske. Vidare krävs en detaljerad plan som knyter ihop forskningsgrupper med den offentliga- och privata sektorn. Slutligen anser rapporten även att det är av stor vikt för vidare utbildning när det kommer till att göra AI förklarbart och tydligt för alla.

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