Determinants of customer satisfaction with socially responsible investments : The influence of ethical quality perceptions and perceived financial return

• The availability and marketing of products and services positioned as socially or environmentally responsible has grown significantly during the last few decades. Much of the previous research within this area has focused on what leads customers to purchase products and services that fill certain social, ethical and environmental (SEE) criteria. However, while research has focused on the initiation and the actual purchase of these products and services, literature on how satisfied customers are after the purchase has largely been neglected. 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 indicate that perceived financial performance of the SRI profiled mutual fund is the most important predictor of customer satisfaction. However, perceived social, ethical, and environmental performance also had a positive impact on satisfaction for the SRI mutual fund. Based on these results, it is argued that, although SEE quality is important to customers, marketers of SEE profiled products are advised to focus on the conventional quality attributes such as financial performance, as a good SEE record alone is unlikely to generate customer satisfaction.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Customer satisfaction

perceived quality

socially responsible investment

mutual funds

financial performance

Business studies

Företagsekonomi

företagsekonomi

Business Studies

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)