Corporate Social Responsibility Disclosures & Delegated Investment Decisions: The Role of Religiosity

Abstract

This study is intended to test the conditional effect of corporate social responsibility disclosures on the performance of investment professionals in Pakistan with the intervening effects of religiosity and decisions of investment professionals. The proposed relationship has been tested over a sample of 248 investment professionals analyzed through the application of structured equation modelling by using Smart PLS 4. The study discovered the significant mediating effects of religiosity and investment decisions in between the causal relationship of CSR disclosures and the performance of investment professionals in Pakistan. Moreover all direct effects developed in the conceptual model have been found to be significant. This means that the extent of religiosity of investment professionals affects their investment decisions being made for their clients on the basis of the CSR disclosures. The positive direction of mediation reveal that CSR disclosures of religious investment professionals positively affect their decisions and performance related to the investments they make for their clients. This is the first time, to the best of our knowledge, that both direct and indirect/conditional effects of corporate social responsibility disclosures on the performance of investment professionals have been tested in the perspective of delegated investments.