A Moral Foundations Framing Approach: Retail Investors’ Investment Intention in Ethical Mutual Funds
通过两个在线实验，研究了道德基础框架如何影响美国散户投资者对道德共同基金的投资意愿，并发现该效应在投资者认为道德投资有利可图时更强。
Existing research suggests people with stronger moral character traits are more inclined to ethical investing. We take a moral foundations framing approach that synthesizes framing theory and moral foundations theory to investigate whether a moral state of mind created by moral foundations frames can also increase retail investors’ ethical investment intention. We also hypothesize how this moral foundations framing effect is moderated by the perceived return performance of the ethical fund. We test our hypotheses through two online experiments with retail investors in the United States. Study 1 demonstrates that the moral foundations framing effect varies by moral foundation. Focusing on the Fairness foundation, Study 2 shows that the framing effect is stronger under the win-win dual objective condition, relative to a conflict of interest condition. This stronger effect indicates that the moral foundations framing effect appears to be more effective when the investor perceives that ethical investments are financially lucrative. Our study provides preliminary evidence for the potential of the moral foundations framing approach and contributes to scholarship in both business ethics and ethical investing.